The Dust Archive

I've written a few times recently (on this blog, and on The Culture Vulture blog) about the closing down of the spaces that I think of as Leeds Met Gallery and Studio Theatre.

This time last year, Annie Lloyd, Director of the Gallery & Studio Theatre, and I completed a book called The Dust Archive: A History of Leeds Met Studio Theatre. Earlier this year I quoted my introduction to the book here.

Tonight we finally launch the book, and it will be available for purchase after Christmas, I believe. To mark the launch, here are few pages from the book chosen at random. You don't get the full effect without having the book in front of you, but if you click on the images you'll see them in more detail.

Although the future of the Gallery & Studio Theatre programmes is still uncertain, I hope the book stands as celebration of an amazing body of work, presented within the Studio Theatre and beyond its walls.

Playback

If you're in Leeds next week, it would be great to see you at this performance intervention that I've created with Level 2 BA Art, Event, Performance students at Leeds Met University. It further explores the story gathering and re-telling work I've been doing in Third Angel in the last few years, with projects such as Where Have They Hidden All The Answers? We're exploring why we choose to tell, and re-tell, stories and why we choose to hear particular stories over others. We'll also be collecting stories, too - any story you want to tell us.

You can drop in any time for a 10 minute performance experience, and see it as many times as you like - there are over 200 story/performer combinations to choose from... It runs at Broadcasting Place - opposite The Fenton.

Here's the official info:

Leeds Met Art, Event, Performance presents
PLAYBACK
A documentary performance Devised in collaboration with Alexander Kelly (Co-Artistic Director, Third Angel)

Monday 14 December, 11am - 7pm
Tuesday 15 December, 10am - 6pm
Broadcasting Place, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds LS2

Hello there.
Please sit down, make yourself comfortable.
I’ve got a story to tell you.

On Monday 14 and Tuesday 15 the Playback researchers will be sharing and collecting stories in Broadcasting Place, Leeds Met University.

Turn up at any time during research hours, select a story title, and our researchers will do the rest. Each performance experience will last about 10 minutes, and you are free to visit as many times as you like. If you would like to contribute a story of your own to our research, we will be delighted to take care of it for you.

Cross Cutting

Gillian Lees in A Perfect Circle, video still by Christopher Hall

Our most recent short film, A Perfect Circle, is showing as part of The Sheffield Pavilion 2009 in the group show Cross Cutting at the Sierra Metro Gallery in Edinburgh, 12 - 20 December. Full details on their site.

Dice and Figures

snakey, originally uploaded by third angel.

Lots of the dice and miniature figures that feature in the "It Starts With The Dice" section of Words & Pictures are up on our Flickr pages now. There's also some new stuff in the On The Road set, too.

I'll post more Words & Pictures stuff in the next week or so.