Of Work Made and Un-made

For the fortnight after Easter weekend, Forest Fringe are taking over The Gate in London, with a really exciting line up of artists and projects. Our regular collaborator Chris Thorpe is curating the first week, and performer Dan Canham is curating the second.

For Chris' week, he's performing a different one of his brilliantly complex story-monologues each evening, and presenting something(s) from (a) guest artist(s). On Monday 9th April I'm going to be showing something of/talking about a new project Cape Wrath.

I would hesitate to call it a work-in-progress. A work at the start of its progress, perhaps. Though that said, it has been in process in my head for a while now. But this talk at The Gate marks the beginning of making the thought-and-travel-and-research-and-conversation-process-so-far, into what will be a performance. Of some sort. At some point.

Last September I travelled from my home in Sheffield to Cape Wrath, the most north-westerly point of the British mainland. (I tweeted about it as I went and you can read a Storify of that, here). I went because over twenty years previously, my Grandad had undertaken the same journey, from his home (in Walsall) to Cape Wrath. When he got there he sat and looked at the sea for a couple of hours and thought about his life. Then he got back on the bus and went home. I've known for a few years that it would be something I would do, too.

I don't know exactly when the performance of Cape Wrath will be “made” by, or what it will eventually be. But if I've learned anything about making work in the last 17 years, it's that you should trust your instinct and that the next thing you make should be the piece that you, or your collaborators, need to make next. The thing that preoccupies you. The story that bothers you, or moves you. I'm interested in letting Cape Wrath evolve, rather like the touring version of Class of '76 did, into whatever it will become, partly through try-outs like we'll do at Forest Fringe. So, I'm going to be talking about the project, trying out a few things, reading some stuff, showing some video. Taking the next step.

The following week (on Wednesday 18th) Annie Lloyd and I will be talking about The Dust Archive, our book of performance memories from Leeds Met Gallery & Studio Theatre. I've written about The Dust Archive a couple of times on here, but talking about it now has added poignancy as the performance programme that survived the closure of the Studio Theatre itself also came to a close last month. In one of those timely not-quite-coincidences, the final performance in that programme was Dan Canham's 30 Cecil Street, the piece he is presenting nightly during his week at The Gate. Dan invited Annie and I to talk about The Dust Archive because of the elegiac nature it shares with his beautiful documentary/dance piece.

Given that The Dust Archive marks the end of something, albeit unintentionally, and feels like the closing of a chapter, it has been gratifying to see it take on a life of its own. Perhaps that's just what objects are able to do; as someone who mostly makes performances and screenings that I am then usually present at, I can sometimes forget that exhibits and books are out there, meeting audiences on their own. Yes, of course that's what books are able to do. Anyway. An example of that is an article by Saini Manninen in the latest volume of the Journal of Media Practice. In The art of leftovers: Memory, matter and decay, Saini discusses The Dust Archive in relation to the work of Alastair MacLennan and to Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth installation in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, arguing for the idea of an archive “as something which does not resist decay but partakes in its processes.” You can read more about her article here.

And you can still get a copy of The Dust Archive itself. There are still a few copies of the Second Printing left, so Annie and I will be selling copies (at a discounted price) when we talk at Forest Fringe (and signing them should anyone want), or you can get them direct from us.

The Dust Archive: Second Printing

I am really pleased to say that copies of the second printing of The Dust Archive by Annie Lloyd and myself are now available direct from Annie. Full details are below, and images are available here in an earlier post, here.

The Dust Archive: A History of Leeds Met Studio Theatre
Alexander Kelly and Annie Lloyd

A collection of memories from every performance at Leeds Met Studio Theatre. The Dust Archive book is a beautiful object in its own right comprising hand drawn images on tracing paper each referring to a particular moment from a particular show. Most of the significant UK performance makers of the last two decades are featured, including Forced Entertainment, Lone Twin, Curious, Reckless Sleepers, Stan’s Cafe and Third Angel. The book attempts not so much a comprehensive memoir as an imagistic and emotional recall condensed from hours of video of Alex and Annie in the act of remembering.

Not only does The Dust Archive celebrate the importance of a significant venue on the progressive theatre scene, its form and structure provide a valuable contribution to discussions around memory, archiving, engaging with the past and presenting recalled information. The tracings on the page coming up through the pages beneath add complexity and layering to the sense of fragility and unreliability in the notion of memory itself. This book is a work of art.

Alexander Kelly is Co-Artistic Director of Third Angel with whom he performs, devises, directs and designs new theatre and live art. He is Associate Senior Lecturer in Performance Practice at Leeds Met University.

Annie Lloyd is an independent producer who was Director of Leeds Met Studio Theatre from 1990 to 2009 where she championed and nurtured progressive performance work from the UK and beyond.

The Dust Archive is available for £15 + £2.99 p+p.

To order, contact Annie at: alloyd50 [@] gmail.com

Leeds Met Gallery and Studio Theatre

It has been announced this week that the building that houses Leeds Met Gallery and Studio Theatre is to be decommissioned this autumn.  We knew it was coming, but I, at least,  had understood the schedule to mean closure in 2011.

The Gallery & Studio Theatre team are about to begin a consultation process with the University to discuss the future of the organisation.  They are asking for letters and emails of support, to express the importance of the venues to their audience, partners and artists.  If you'd like to write something, the address is: gallerytheatre [at] leedsmet.ac.uk.

The Gallery and Studio Theatre has been massively important to Third Angel throughout our career.  As well as currently exhibiting in the Gallery with Christopher Hall, I have recently completed a book with Annie Lloyd, Director of the Gallery and Studio Theatre.  Entitled The Dust Archive, the book records some of the memories of the performances Annie and I have seen, programmed and presented inside, and beyond, the Studio Theatre space itself.  At Third Angel we're hoping that the consultation and development process will forge an exciting future for the Gallery and Studio Theatre, and it seems fitting, therefore, to post my introduction to The Dust Archive here, addressing, as it does, our relationship with the Studio Theatre itself:

It’s hard to quantify just how important this space has been to Third Angel.  We have presented every piece of work we’ve made for theatre spaces here.  We’ve made work uniquely for this space and its sister gallery.  We’ve had some of our best and one of our worst ever gigs here.  We’ve seen work here - work that has moved us, inspired us, entertained us, challenged us.   And we’ve talked about work here - work we’ve made and work we’ve seen.  This space has been a constant in our planning and thinking for over thirteen years.

It has been a bittersweet joy remembering moments of performance for this project.  This space won’t be here for much longer, and compiling this book with Annie has helped me understand its significance - both to myself as an artist and to the alternative theatre sector in the UK.  It’s not that big; in fact it is one of the smallest spaces we tour to.  But boy, does it punch above its weight.  Work shown and developed here has toured across the UK, across Europe, across the world. 

In autumn 2000 we were at Leeds Met Studio Theatre with Where From Here, in many ways a coming-of-age show for Third Angel.  Rachael, Jerry, Jim and I are in the dressing room, getting ready for the second performance.  Someone is reading the paper - a story about how British Theatre is ‘in crisis’.  Again.  Well, Jerry observes dryly, it wasn’t in crisis in here last night, was it?

Not here, not last night, nor any night that I recall.