Home: Found

The theme of home in my work is hard to disguise and at times it did feel all too relevant that I had 218 intimate encounters with strangers (most of the time), making a temporary home with each of them whilst still being homeless myself. But now I have found somewhere to live and over a year of nomadism is coming to an end. I think the hardest thing about the last year has been not having a base in which to work from, nowhere to spread out sketches, make things and stay up late researching and reading. Nowhere to nest in. I am a nester. There have been brilliant parts; Old Chapel Farm, late nights talking to friends before sleeping on their sofas or in their beds. New places, new parts of London, living by the river, Christmas in Cornwall and learning to play spoons (which has since become more popular than I could have ever anticipated), freedom, falling asleep in parks (during the day – even though I have been technically homeless I am lucky that I have always had a roof over my head at night thanks to supportive and tolerant friends and family) and a summer of back-to-back festivals. But now I realise I can have all these adventures but with a home to come back to, and maybe that fact in itself will lead me to being even more adventurous. It reminds me of the verse we wrote on the hillside on the farm a year ago… “How happy are the birds, they come and go as they please; to the mountains, to the seas and home again with out rebuke.” Here’s to that.

Lists

Today began with a mother of all lists. There are cross references for locations, props, costume and people involved at various stages (video to follow). When something is covered, it gets circled. Simple. We are crunching on through and some lovely moments have been devised.
I personally had some fun developing the character of the flighty moon who tells her side of the story from a cage in the dove barn. I think I found it easier once I identified the aspects of her that are in me; not being a natural performer I think she has turned out alot like Kirsty As The Moon who enjoys the falling in love more than the earth-bound reality. I also get to reference this Florence song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPLrqKrnYts which makes me happy. I countered this dramaturgical genius with some very shonky dancing with Gary under the Rhododendron tree, but hopefully people will be looking at the beautiful setting and Gary's perfect poise more than my two left feet at that point.

Shane has cooked dinner with Abraham tonight. Abraham has never cooked before but has the most amazing smiley face we have ever seen. He is volunteering here on the farm as a WWOOFER (volunteer through an organisation called World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) along with Pauline from France, Yvonne from Switzerland, Alex from the US and Rachael and Chris from the UK. Its an amazingly varied bunch and they are all up for helping with the performance (we didn't really give them a choice about that). Chris will even be mummified and re-born as the Sun at the end of the piece. What a joy to have such a smashingly enthusiastic bunch of people to work with! Fran and Kevin had about 100 WWOOFers come trough the farm last year and they are vital to the running of the place and loads of other similar projects over the world.

Allegra visited last night and this morning and gave us some of her ever brilliant advice. It was invaluable to have an outside opinion from someone who is familiar with performance practice. She also had a few inspirational pep talks up her sleeve (as ever) which I would be lost without. Thanks for that.

Off to drink a bit more honeysuckle wine and to tackle how the blind man will fish the moon out of the pond. We have a giant white baloon and a digereedoo to hand to acomplish the task....