A Christmas Single

When I was six, I got a Bionic Man action man for Christmas. I remember that I knew that that was what it was from the size and shape of the box, when it was still wrapped under the tree. I suspect I was very familiar with the dimensions of its packaging from coveting it in toyshops.

My Mom used to let me open one Christmas present on Christmas Eve – probably, I now realise, as a way of diffusing the extreme Christmas morning excitement which would have seen me waking her up at 5am. So I chose the present I knew was my Bionic Man and was overjoyed. I don't remember much else about that Christmas, but I remember he had a red tracksuit and trainers, and some sort of peel-up-able skin on his arm to reveal his bionics.

If you'd asked me at any point in my life what my Favourite Ever Christmas Present was, I would have said that it was that Bionic Man. Mainly because I wanted it so badly, and the massive helping of joy it delivered when I opened it. But I did love it and played with it a lot for the next couple of years.

A few years ago, though, I was lucky enough to get an espresso machine as a joint Christmas and birthday present. And that brings me a little shot (or two) of joy every morning. If I weigh it up, I suspect, the espresso maker has made me even happier, over the years, than my red-tracksuited bionic man.

And then about six months ago I thought I had lost the watch I was given one particular Christmas, and I went a little bit mad until I had found it again - ten minutes later in a pocket in a bag I hadn't noticed before. "Ah," I realised, "it turns out I'm really rather attached to this watch." 

Is 'favourite' favourite now, favourite at the time you opened it, or most important over a longer portion of your life?

Last weekend at the Slung Low Christmas Fayre in Leeds, with help of Hannah Nicklin, and last night at the Inbetween Time Christmas Party in Bristol, I asked people what their favourite ever Christmas present was. I asked them to make cards and write about their favourite presents, and took their addresses so they can all receive someone else's favourite ever present in the post.

People were, as people are, really thoughtful; people had, as people do, some great stories. It was a joy to hear and read them. It was planned as a one-off for the Christmas Fayre, so the invitation to Bristol was a nice surprise – and means I can send cards to/from people in different cities. I'd like to do it again. So perhaps this is a mini-performance equivalent of a Christmas single, and we'll re-release it next year.

Compass Inspiration Exchanges

Inspiration Exchange at Leeds City Museum, as part of the Compass Live Art Festival, was the longest run of the piece I've done. It was nice to have the time for ideas and stories to develop and evolve. When it hits its stride, Inspiration Exchange becomes a long, rolling conversation, which people join or leave as/when they wish. Ideas are passed along from person to person, sometimes reappearing several stories later. People plan to tell one story, then hear something that sets off a new thought.

Sited in the "old back-to-back terraced house", also used as a story telling space in the Museum, there were a steady stream of visitors throughout the six hours, some in specially to see the Compass events, some just in to look around the museum.

It got pretty busy mid-afternoon, but I think I kept track of all the ideas and stories exchanged:

I swapped "SUNDAY WAS ALWAYS A GOOD DAY" 
for SUNDAY, SEVENTH DAY OR FIRST DAY

I swapped A 6B PENCIL 
for A CUP OF TEA
I swapped A CUP OF TEA
for CHILD BIRTH & ROONEY
and I swapped CHILD BIRTH & ROONEY
for MARMALADE PIZZA

I swapped A 94 YEAR OLD SMOKER
for A SMOKING RUNNER

I swapped THE HOUSING BENEFIT CLAIM SYSTEM
for BANKERS WANKERS

I swapped TRACING PAPER
for I LIVE IN YOUR HOUSE

I swapped THINGS STICKING UP OUT OF WATER
for THE HEPWORTH SHOULD BE EMPTIED ONCE A YEAR & OPENED TO VISITORS

I swapped TICK-BOXES FOR SCOTTISH & WELSH
for JOURNEY TO JAPAN

I swapped CLIPBOARDERS
for THE GIANT'S CHAIR
and I swapped THE GIANT'S CHAIR
for PIANO IN THE PARK

I swapped A GOING-BACK-TO-THE-WOMB PILL
for GUINEA PIG DUST

I swapped 23 POSTCARDS, FROM AMERICA, FROM MY DAD
for THE HORRIBLE DREAM.

I swapped IF IN DOUBT, TAKE IT OUT, IF YOU CAN'T WIN, KEEP IT IN
for JUGGLING IN JANUARY

I got a drawing of a STOLEN BUGATTI

I swapped EMPTY BENCHES
for THE SUNYATĀ STONE

I swapped BURNING THE TOAST

for PEOPLE I NEVER KNEW

and then, due to a glitch in the system

I swapped BURNING THE TOAST again,

this time for LARGE GROUPS OF MEN

I swapped DEAD JELLY FISH

for THE DEAD CAT
and I swapped THE DEAD CAT
for THE LUCKY SUNFLOWER

I swapped AIR CRASH INVESTIGATION

for BUILDINGS AS TIME TRAVELLERS

I swapped THREE PINTS OF GUINNESS

for FLEETWOOD MAC

and I swapped FLEETWOOD MAC

for A TALE OF TWO ROVERS

I swapped AN ESCAPED LUNATIC IN CANNOCK CHASE
for COB WALL

I swapped THE INSIDE OF A SAXOPHONE
for THE SIMPLEST ANSWER

I swapped "TAKE IT AWAY, BOYS"

for DEEP END RANCH

I swapped THE VOYAGER SPACECRAFT

for SPACE JOURNEY

and I swapped SPACE JOURNEY

for KICKING THE BASSET

I swapped SPEECH BALLOONS IN PARTICULAR, COMIC BOOKS IN GENERAL

for DANNY GREGORY - 'EVERYDAY MATTERS'.

I swapped 300 CAMERAS A DAY

for THE SANDMAN
and I swapped THE SANDMAN
for DINOSAUR WEE

I swapped 36 DAYS LOOKING FOR STUFF IN THE FRIDGE 

for SOUL SISTAH!

Generating Conversation

Karen approaches us in the bar, weeks later. She says, ‘I’ve been wondering, why did I tell you the story I told you?’

Making space and finding time. Sitting opposite. Playing conversation - talking and listening.

Over the years, alongside our end-on seated-audience theatre work, Third Angel has returned to the exploration of a mode of performance built on conversation, or interview, with individual audience members. Performance in as much as we know what’s going to happen and they don’t; or, at least, we know more about what’s going to happen than they do.  We don’t know what they’re going to do or say.  We hope that they will do or say more than they would have expected, had we told them in advance, what was going to happen.

Their interaction is what makes the work. It cannot even be properly rehearsed without an audience member sitting opposite. Making the performance involves making the space in which the audience member is allowed - encouraged - to be active, be open, be creative. A space in which they feel comfortable enough to think about things, talk about things that at, say, 10 o’clock that morning, they hadn’t thought about for days, weeks, even years. A space in which, at the end of it, they feel comfortable enough to say of what they have given you, ‘Yes, that’s fine, I’m happy for you to share that with other people.’

Early last year I was invited to speak at a Cafe Scientifique event called Sing to Me Muse - an event exploring inspiration and asking the old question, where do ideas come from? There was a great panel of speakers, and we were asked to give a short presentation and run a workshop activity. Drawn back to our story-exchanging work, I came up with something that combined the two - a way of swapping ideas that had inspired me with things that had inspired the participants.

It seemed to go well, and in Edinburgh it grew into a four-artist plus host, durational event at the brilliant Forest Fringe. What really struck me was that the really simple format worked as as a chat in a cafe and as a team performance in a festival. This year the format has shifted for a couple of other incarnations, running in the breaks of TEDxYork - bookended by mini TED talks, and slipping back into Forest Fringe for the Edgelands flash-conference in August.

Of all the story-exchanging projects we've done, Inspiration Exchange is the most direct, from the descriptive title to the mechanism of performance. It strikes me that in these interactive pieces, that I think of partly as 'conversation generators', the key is to find a clear mechanism, a simple rule, that allows the conversation to happen.

I'm excited that this weekend, as part of Compass Festival of Live Art, I'll be running a six hour Inspiration Exchange in Leeds City Museum. As well as festival and symposium delegates, I hoping there will be an audience who just find me, tucked away in the 'back-to-back terraced house', and who might be interested to stay for a chat.

Time & Space at Bloc Projects

We've got a busy weekend coming up, with work on in Sheffield, Leeds and Coxwold in North Yorkshire. More on the latter two will follow, but in Sheffield we're opening Time & Space, a microfestival of film and video work at Bloc Projects and The Rutland Arms.

The programme at Bloc is a changing series of video installations:

Opening night, with bar: Friday 25th November, 6-8pm
plus Saturday & Sunday 26th & 27th, 12-6pm
FLOORS
by Lauren Stanley & Third Angel

Film-maker Lauren Stanley was intern on the rehearsal process for What I Heard About The World last year: researcher, documenter, tech assistant plus video artist. She made several pieces in response to the process, including this piece, capturing the moment just before the doors open before a performance and using Chris Thorpe's opening song. For Time & Space we're presenting Floors, a response to the atmosphere of the rehearsal room, rather than the activity in it. Lauren writes:

Floors was born from a moment of daydreaming. Following the shadows that Alex, Chris and Jorge made as they paced around on the shiny rehearsal room floor, I noticed the patterns and relationships that were forming in that section of What I Heard About the World were reflected by the floor. They moved around each other, but they stood alone and told their stories separately. The floor was a map of the world, but that meant something slightly different to each of them.

Even a map of the world has a point of view, a reflection of the makers’ location, politics and outlook. Floors has come to represent my map, what I really have heard about the world. Many fragments, tones and single beams of light, all linked to the rest but working separately. Each can easily be lost but all affect the result. And it will probably look slightly different to you.

Monday 28th & Tuesday 29th, 12 - 6pm
THE KAROSHI FILMS
Third Angel

Karoshi, a research process taking its name from a Japanese word meaning "death from overwork", fed into a number of Third Angel projects, from Hurrysickness to Presumption. For Time & Space we are gathering together the video pieces it inspired or fed into:

Realtime  A man, waiting, in a waiting room, wants to know if you know just how long a minute is?
Alone Together  A documentary response to the 50 performer intervention Standing Alone, Standing Together.
Technology  A man tries to understand how technology works, how light-clocks work, how a mug works, and explain it to you.
A Perfect Circle  A woman performs a ritual of travelling and returning, and tries to describe life on planet earth, as witnessed by the images on the Voyager spacecraft.

Wednesday 30th November, 12 - 6pm
THE TRAVELS FILMS
Christopher Hall & Alexander Kelly

A series of highly manipulated video pieces, originally made in response to Third Angel's Pleasant Land travels, exploring travel - by vehicle, and by foot, long distance and local - across the UK.

We round the microfestival off at The Rutland Arms at 8pm, Thursday 1st December, with the return of PROJECTOR, our curated short film night, featuring The Very Hard Film Quiz:

The Cost of Training

We learn from doing, from making work. From a desire to make something new, something the audience has not seen or experienced before, something none of us would have made on our own. We challenge ourselves, to have to learn new things about making work each time – about making that particular piece of work. Setting ourselves new problems to solve. And as one project nears fruition there will always be two or three more developing – sometimes born out of the current project, often a response to, or a reaction against, it. Let's do something different this time. Sometimes we will want to develop an idea, continue down a path of exploration. But usually there will be a project coming up where the unspoken intention is to not be able to use the lessons learned so far. To get ourselves in to new trouble.

I've got a short piece in the latest edition of the Journal of Dance and Performance Training. It's a response to the question "What is the Cost of Training?" My bit is in there with some really interesting responses from Dick McCaw, Charlotte Vincent, Jodean Sumner, Konstantinos Thomaides, Marie-Gabrielle Rotie and Peter Petralia.

You can download it here, but given that it is quite expensive for an individual, it's worth checking if your library already subscribes to the print or online edition. And if they don't you, can click the recommend button and see if they'll subscribe for you.

Cape Wrath Storify

To Cape Wrath

As I write this I am on a coach from Sheffield to Inverness, on my way to Cape Wrath.

In September 1988, when I was 19 and he was in his early 60s, my grandad went on a trip, on his own, from Walsall in the West Midlands, to Cape Wrath. Though not particularly eventful, the story of this trip has been retold by my family over the years. This is the version of the story that I remember:

My grandad set off from Walsall with the intention of visiting Cape Wrath. My grandfather was Scottish, Glasgow born and bred. But I don’t think he had ever been as far north as Cape Wrath before. He used public transport as far as he could, then hitch-hiked the last bit of the journey.

He got dropped off by a postman who told him he would be back in a couple of hours and could pick him up if he liked. So my Grandad sat on the cliff at Cape Wrath “and looked at the sea and thought about my life.”

The postman picked him up a couple of hours later, and he went home.

There's more to it than that, of course, but that's the basics. I've often thought about this journey, in the years since, and what it must have been like to do it. So this week I'm finding out. I can't do the journey exactly the same way as my grandad did it, but I'm doing it as closely as possible.

And I guess that at some point, I'm interested in talking about it, one way or another. We'll see.

**

UPDATE: More on the actual journey in the next entry.