Friday 29 June 2012

Inspiration Exchange at PSi#18 Leeds

Each time we run an Inspiration Exchange it is a slightly different shape and mode. This Saturday we're running one at the Performance Studies International conference at the University of Leeds - though it is still a public presentation, too. Here are the details:
Third Angel presents an
INSPIRATION EXCHANGE
10am - 6pm, Saturday 30 June, FREE!
Room 18, Parkinson Building

(just inside the main entrance)
University of Leeds
Woodhouse Lane, Leeds
Just drop in any time, and swap a story of something that has inspired you for something that has inspired someone else.
At 5.30pm I'll be presenting a reflection on the day's exchanges.
After presenting an Inspiration Exchange as part of Compass in Leeds last year, I agreed to answer some questions about it for Gwen Pew and her website The City I See. I finally got around to answering them this month. They were good questions, too, including this:
How would you defend conversation as an art?
This is a great question. My flippant-sounding answer is that art is conversation. The more portentous-sounding explanation of that is that surely art is part of the conversation between human beings about what it means to be human. There’s not very much I’m certain about when it comes to art and performance, but that’s one of the things that I am certain of.

But more specifically, conversation as art. I think that, often, when we’re making work we’re looking for the right frame, or form, to best explore the ideas we’re interested in. The form that adds something, that articulates something that another form wouldn’t. I’m most interested, I think, in work that can only exist in the form it is presented in. (I’m not particularly interested in theatre you could easily make a film of, for example). And with this idea, the idea of things that have inspired us, a structured conversation felt like the right form. And it is structured, but hopefully that structure is quite light-touch – the conversation can wander off in different directions, and meander quite far, depending on how many people are waiting; but the card-swap structure is there to reset the piece when necessary.
You can check out Gwen's site, and read the whole interview here.






Tuesday 26 June 2012

Promising Performance

As part of the International Student Drama Festival this week, I was invited to be part of a panel called Promising Performance. Frances Babbage hosted a really interesting discussion between the audience and Terry O'Connor (Forced Entertainment), Ben Eaton (Invisible Flock), Annie Lloyd (Compass Live Art) and myself.

We were given a particular brief:

Four panellists discuss where they see promise in performance-making today. What gives them hope? What conditions make it likely art will turn out well? And since to promise is also to declare commitment, the panellists will be challenged to consider what promises they themselves might make in terms of arts practice.

Terry, Ben and Annie all had some great thoughts, that I hope will be gathered together elsewhere - I'll update if so. And afterwards the audience engaged in a lovely, questioning discussion, which sadly had to be halted as we over-ran (but that's also a good sign, I guess).

Anyway, here's what I said (more or less):
I was of course tempted to write a list of the many places I have seen promise in performance recently. Moments, whole shows, images, ideas... But then I asked myself what it was in these moments, these shows, that was so promising? Not so much what do I look for, but what did I find, or what have I found recently?

Commitment.
Attempt.
Charisma.
Honesty.
Skill.
Audacity.
Care.
Doubt.

I thought I'd talk a little about these last two, doubt and care.

I am wary of certainty. Certainty is over-rated in my book. In a discussion between someone who is certain and wrong, and someone who is uncertain and right, who is going to get their way?

This is something I've been thinking about quite a lot recently, and the more I think about it, the more I think that it is the people who recognise that almost nothing is certain, who are more likely to be right. I am aware that the contradiction here is that I am suggesting that I am more likely to be right about most things because I am personally certain of very little. But we'll leave that for now.

So the work that I am drawn to – that unsettles, disturbs, delights me, work that stays with me – is work that doesn't tell me what it thinks, or what I should think about what it is showing me. Rather, the work that I am drawn to is the work that lets me see its thinking – either happening live in the moment, or having happened in its process; work that reveals its doubt and uncertainty, that offers tentative answers, sure, but that invites me to wonder what my answers might be, that leaves me space to bring my own experiences into my reading of the work. I'm not necessarily talking about performance that invites me to interact with it physically or conversationally (although I often like that), I'm talking about mental and emotional space.

And uncertainty and doubt do not preclude confidence or skill – I still want my attention held.

Yes, yes, this is all very well, but what does it actually mean? 
Can you give us an example?

Fair question. Let's come back to it.

I had a conversation on Twitter recently with writer and blogger Honour Bayes. She was wondering out loud about why she finds it harder in theatre than in any other art form, to like a piece of work if she knows she doesn't like the people who have made it. I recognised this feeling, and so we wondered about it together; we didn't really come to any conclusion, and I've carried on thinking about it since.

Recently, I've been thinking that it is to do with care. In other art-forms (and I am making a big generalisation here, I know), my relationship with the art work is with an object, or artefact. It's unchangeable. It is much less influenced by my knowledge of the people who created it. Frank Miller might have revealed himself to be an objectionable idiot on his blog, recently, but I still remember Ronin as one of the greatest graphic novels ever created. (I am aware of course that this is an incredibly niche example).

But when I enter a live performance space, then I am putting myself into the care of the artists – the performers, devisors, writers, directors, musicians – anyone involved in the making of it. So my feelings about the work and the people are that much more intertwined.

And all to often I don't feel cared for, or even acknowledged. And worst of all, I sometimes feel acknowledged and uncared for, through clumsiness or arrogance. Ignoring or intimidating an audience is pretty easy, isn't it?

But I see promise when a performer talks to me, to us, not The Audience with a capital A, but those of us in the room right now. I see promise in eye contact. I see promise when artists and performers are interested in challenging me, and making me feel uncomfortable – not in my seat or with being in the room with them, but unsettled in my world view or in my assumptions and preconceptions.

Yes, yes, this is all very well, but what does it actually mean? 
Can you give us an example.

Fair question. Let's deal with it now.

There's a kind-of-monthly performance night at the Crumblin' Cookie in Leicester called Performance in the Pub. It was set up by theatre maker Hannah Nicklin, who programmes two pieces of contemporary performance each event – usually solo, story telling performance, because the stage is quite small.

The event is marketed as “theatre for people who don't do theatre”. On the website for the event, Hannah explains to the potential audience a little about the sort of work she's programming: “think of how bands put music together compared to how composers do – that's the difference between performance and theatre.” Tickets are donation based – artists are paid expenses, and the audience are told how much the event costs, and therefore how much a break-even donation is.

Last month I was lucky enough to perform our show The Lad Lit Project at Performance in the Pub. Some people in the audience were friends, some knew our work, and some hadn't been to see theatre since they were in Year 6.

On before me was Jodean Sumner of Trace Theatre, with her piece It Starts Like This. A 25 minute solo performance on its way to becoming a full length show. It feels to me like genuinely experimental, process led work - a process that has produced a piece probably (I'm guessing) quite different to Jodean's original intention. She asked people – friends, colleagues, the internet - to send her words that were significant to them, in the expectation, perhaps, of getting some really interesting found text to construct a show out of. But what the show actually deals with is Jodean's difficulty in connecting with these significant words - maybe because she doesn't share the the life experience of the people to whom the words are significant.

And from there the show explores the difficulty of communication within a shared language. Do you know what I mean? she asks. You know what I mean.

It is brave work; it challenges the audience, demands attention, and it rewards that attention. I enjoy the promise of the way the piece asks questions of us, and the way we communicate with each other, whilst also asking questions of itself and the process that created it. And it is beautifully performed.

In both the piece and the event that hosted it, and the venue that hosted the whole event, I could see both uncertainty and care, contributing to one of my favourite-ever nights of showing and seeing performance.

***

And what promises can I make about the performances I will be part of making in the future? Not many.

I can't promise what they'll be about, or that you'll find them interesting.

But I can promise that any work of mine you come to see, I will find interesting, and I will at least be asking if it's about something that you find interesting. I promise that I will have made it because it's about something that intrigues, or bothers, or worries me. I promise that I will have made it because I had to.

 

Wednesday 13 June 2012

This is the room


This is the room where we made:

Believe the Worst

Where Have They Hidden All the Answers?

Leave No Trace

Pleasant Land

23 Postcards From America

Realtime

Hurrysickness

The Lad Lit Project

(some of) Standing Alone, Standing Together

Palm

(some of) Presumption

The Expected Lifespan of Dreams

Chapters

9 Billion Miles From Home

Parts For Machines That Do Things

Assembly

Technology

Homo Ludens

Words & Pictures

Songmap

Inspiration Exchange

Tea is an Evening Meal

All About the Full Stops

Story Map

(some of) What I Heard About the World

Lies About My Father

Favourite Ever Christmas Present

The Machine

Friday 1 June 2012

Organisational Development

We're really pleased to announce that we are embarking on a new Organisational Development project, exploring what a touring performance company such as Third Angel might be, here and now.

It will be a multi-stranded, year-long project, examining the production models in use across the sector at the moment, and exploring ways in which we can become more sustainable as a business. We'll be sharing our explorations and thoughts on this throughout the year, and also more directly through our teaching and mentoring. We'd be pleased to hear what you think about our findings and thinking as the year progresses.

We are excited that project begins with us moving in to Sheffield Theatres as a company in residence, and starting to explore new ways of working with the team there. This is a possibility we have been exploring for a while now, and we are looking forward to seeing what new developments and collaborative projects the move brings. (You can read the Press Release here).

We are really happy to confirm that the organisational development is being supported by Arts Council England.  The project will develop a number of ideas and areas of work that we have been interested in for some time now, and the support of ACE will give us the time and space to explore these possibilities thoroughly.

In preparing for this next stage, we have also had a remarkable number of generous offers of support, in the forms of time, advice and consultation, from many companies, artists, producers and other colleagues across the sector. Their involvement will be a fundamental strand of the development project, and we'll say more about many of them as we work with them over the year. (If they want us to).

We would like to say thank you to everyone who has offered their support for this project and to the company over the last fourteen months - it has often been very moving, and has made a massive difference to us. 

So, thank you. Here's to the next chapter.