Monday, May 2, 2011
The News...
Well, there has been a lot between last time and this time. Here are the headlines…
Allegra opened here first season at the Parabola Arts Centre. It’s a brilliant season of exciting work including the sob-inducing Love Letters Straight From Your Heart by Uninvited Guests, Debbie Pearson’s Like You Were Before, Crocosmia by Little Bulb and a small something called The Tree of Lost Things – see outstanding programming! More info and tickets here: http://www.parabolaartscentre.co.uk
I became Head of Detail at BAC which involves looking at all the small things in the building – corners, skirting boards, dusts, tassels – and some of the big things too – walls, furniture, lampposts – and thinking up ways t o make everything look like it belongs in one loved and cared for place. A bit like an in-house interior/exterior designer only a lot more interesting and a lot more complicated.
I also created an instillation to celebrate BAC’s 30th Birthday The commission was off the back of The Tree of Lost Things. I invited audience, alumni, staff, patrons and everyone in between to write postcards home to me at BAC to create a growing instillation of memories and journeys from the last 30 (or more) years. It has been lovely to read so many memories – some of which span 100 years of the building’s history. It will be up for a little while yet in BAC’s foyer so pop along and write me a postcard if you wish to be part of this incredible document. Pictures coming soon.
Final headline for now: I won a commission to create a bedroom and a piece of one-on-one theatre for BAC’s One on One Festival last month (if you’re getting the impression that I haven’t left the building in the past few months, then you’re right). It had to be based on a bedroom scene from literature. I created a room based on the Lost Boys den in Neverland, but they all decided to grow up and I was left behind. 218 one-on-one performances in 2 weeks. It was a marathon, but an amazing experience. The piece was about true homes and I invited the audience to recall theirs and to be part of my family. I now have an album of family members, their memories, and their preferences of imaginary tea (my personal favorite was rosehip and chamomile with water from Niagara Falls (thanks brother Neil). It ended up getting quite a lot of press: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/arts/article-23934844-your-place-or-mine.do and an interview on BBC London which was a bit surreal. Lyn Gardner seemed to like it as well: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/apr/01/one-on-one-festival-review Hurrah. The room will remain pretty much as I designed it, along with 5 others by David Rosenberg, Melanie Wilson, Ray Lee, Kazuko Hoki and The Campinglis Bell-Halls. Artists will be able to stay in residence at BAC and be inspired by bedrooms created for them by other artists. It’s an honor to be part of this legacy for the building. Pictures on their way.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Wedding, Home, 2011, Cake
It has been a while. It has been a really long while. I am sorry.
So what's happened? Well quite a lot really. Allegra got married to David Jubb at BAC. That was quite exciting. And I designed the wedding. Which was quite exciting. And mental hard work. It basically involved dressing the whole of the old town hall, including the GRAND HALL - which is, ehem, grand. On top of that creating beautiful table settings for 400 people. But I think it went pretty well in the end. Sleeping is overrated. Pictures to follow soon, with the bride's permission.
The wedding has been described as 'the HELLO wedding of experimental theatre' which I think is about right. There were performances from Uninvited Guests (which I think was responsible for the vast amount of weeping before the ceremony had even begun) and Little Bulb Theatre. There was a bay tree (my fault), singing on the roof, Vivienne Westwood dresses everywhere and two people doing something amazing. There were also two other people doing something unmentionable in the Bee's Knees Room.
My favourite pre-wedding mayhem moment was spending a day loading an entire bay tree into a van with the delightful Sam and Daisy. At one point I was buried inside the van with all the branches mustering every ounce of dignity I had (which is negligible at the best of times) not to pee my pants with laughter. Daisy Gibbs is a very funny woman. The other highlight was playing 'guess my job' whilst driving round South London. If you can't work out how to play it from the title then you don't deserve the joy.
So now it is 2011 and there is a whole year of fun to plan. I already have my eye on a horse chestnut tree I'd like to move from it's current position to the other side of London. I think I'd like to fill this year with more smashing people, interesting spaces, festivals, beautiful things and music. Oh and cake. there was not enough cake in 2010.
I'm also making a new piece of work at the moment. It is about home. Having not had a home for 10 months, I think I'm in quite a good place to be objective. I want to call it 'The Home Service' but most people I have mentioned it to seem to think that sounds rude. More on this soon....
Saturday, September 4, 2010
ooh and...
Just remembered that we are on the Cambridge Folk Festival pod cast, http://www.cambridgefolkfestival.co.uk/interact/podcast.php. Click on Thursday and we are about 7 minutes in, just after Stornoway (which is a lovely place to be).
Music and Libraries
Just found this whilst browsing around for photos of The Tree of Lost Things on the interweb: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjuosRo-LeE. Nice to know we've inspired at least one creative soul. If anyone else has written a song about the Tree then send us a tape and we'll start an official chart of Lost Music.
In other news, Allegra and I have been plotting exciting next steps for the Tree, we want to turn it into a Library of Lost Things. We've been thinking about libraries, databases, due dates and all things involving logical order (this has been particularly challenging for me as I have a interesting skill of creating chaos if left unattended in any area for more than 3 minuets). Allegra loves libraries, I love the idea of libraries. I have always wanted to be one of those people who seek sanctuary amongst the books, the hush and the cataloguing systems. But I am just too loud and too messy. I am terrified of breaking the peace by tripping over my own feet, knocking over a display of 'Recommended Reads' then cackling loudly at my own clod-footedness. This has happened before. But maybe The Library of Lost Things will be a compromise between ordered quiet and chaos. The filing system itself will have to be pretty esoteric given the subject matter. We will be using categories such as 'Love', 'Opportunity', 'Underwear' and 'Time'. How do you file the Opportunities section? From the biggest to the smallest? How about Love? By the name of the loved one? Or by the kind of love? All sorts of interesting and essentially answer-less questions to chew over in the coming weeks.
We have over 5,000 labels and will hopefully have double that when I come to spend some consolidated time sorting them all in the new year. I am actually really looking forward to this process. When running the tree, we don't get the chance to read all the new contributions, only those that are logged in the Ledger of Lost Things. It will be lovely to spend some time getting a feel for overall trends as well as individual losses - at least it will be lovely for the first 1,000 or so, then I will start to go loopy.
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