Away

I looked at the blog today to sniff out the residue of other reggers  - lonely as I was. And I see that many posts have been posted after my last attempt and so I write, if only to say goodbye.

It has been

 sunny for a week but now the rain has arrived. Perhaps that is why I am writing - it reminds me of Lancaster! 

I guess I saw some things  about myself during the process that I have been able to ignore for some time... that the smallest tiniest tichiest 

sticking point can paralyse me... that I can't make work in a room, that I have a massive tidal resistance to being told what to do, that I want to be told what to do, that I need to feel trusted, that I need a personal assistant, that other people delight and horrify me by turns...

In the end, I made a piece called THE BUCKET SHOW about a clairvoyent trying to make a piece of experimental theatre and then giving up and speaking to the dead through her spirit guide Kenny. I miss Kenny. He was my invisible collaborator  for two of the four weeks.

I'm not sure whether

 my fears about having created a piece of stand up as opposed to something more "artistic" were unfounded or not. We didn't really ever have the opportunity to discuss each other's work , or even find out how each person had applied the rules - although in same cases it was more obvious than others. Perhaps we'll get together at some point and do just that.

In the mean time I would like to post a couple of pictures. The above is taken from a saucy postcard by Donald McGill and used in the show to stick on a banner and kiss people behind. 

This one is of me or rather my alter ago during the show. Little Kenny has just said something really funny in my ear.

I wish I was back in the Nuffield theatre now. Waiting for an audience to come in. Waiting to try out new material in the luxury of a supportive environment. There. Bet you bloody thought you'd never hear me say that... 

I start a new job on Monday in the "proper theatre". Got to pay the rent. It's a new version of Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author. Or, as I have already renamed it - somewhat giving away my attitude to the whole  charade - Sick Characters in Need of a Doctor. 

But the good news is that I have my film funding and will be shooting my first "professional" short up in Morecambe Bay in July. I guess this will be my final entry here. But if anyone wants to know what I'm up to, please do visit me at my own blog: www.wonderhorse.org/wonder.

Thanks to everyone I met especially the other reggers and Alice.  And a special thanks to Neil for taking  the most significant song in the world and filling it with light and laughter and.. Blackpool. What's that Kenny? Kenny's got a little message for you all... No Kenny. You don't say "See you in Hell" you say "Lovely to meet you, let's all hook up soon". 

Soldiering on with love

Today I cant find the words- still. perhaps there is no way to end these things.
As Neil says, it is hard to explain how this month has been. Well, its been pretty amazing really. For the first time in ages i havent had to answer to no one but myself when it comes to making creative decisions. Liberation- there is another word. I feel it right now. Its equally as hard as collaborating and much more frightening, and i loved it.

All the artists were so uniquely beautiful in there own way. I could not have wished for a stranger or rather eccentric group of individuals to be around me for the month. Thank you all, you all played a part to inspiring me in some form or another, little pieces of the jigsaw.
Alice was an over worked little star shimmering in all directions any time of day and night. She was a light that never went out. How does she do it?
And Matt, the trusting programmer who has the gift of letting go for others to find there freedom. Thanks so much for inviting me to do this project. Seth, tis a great ol project and im excited to be part of it.
And of course a special thanks to Simon and Dom (for the Beautiful concrete sea defence wall with a bull nose! and the dying little soldiers) and Steph for all your patience and wise advice.

Its been a few days now since sunday. Ive been to glasgow and back and i still feel unsure of it all. I mean the ending of things.
Its just the beginning perhaps.
Even though we all met after saturday i still dont feel like i really know what i have made. Did i create a monster? its bothering me.

Friday night seemed like a tight performance. The structure smoothly moving in my mind and body now.
Saturday, the structure disrupted by the Charlie (the donkey). This was the surprise element, the cat amongst the pigeons, the wild card that would challenge me and what i know. well yes it did. I learnt a lot that night. I think people thought i was upset , that i had failed at something (delivering a beautiful performance that had a donkey as the special guest in it), im not sure if some people were even embarressed for me. A couple of people said ' it was very brave'. Now i find this comment slighty peturbing. They are either being completely condescending or genuinely feel like i had risked something there. Either way the potential 'failures' really interested me and in times of self doubt i will ponder on the attitude to failure and the acts of repair that Goat Island have to offer me for comfort.
I love improvising, i remember now , i like it. But im not sure if i like to rely on it, just sometimes when a donkey turns your world upside down.
Poor charlie. Poor me. I had such a terrible nights sleep on saturday night. Was it cruel? i suddenly threw myself into all sorts of moral dilemmas.

I dont like it: to make an animal walk by a metal plate that pulls at his mouth. I didnt use that brace and thats why he didnt comply to my efforts. He wasnt chomping at the bit.
Donkeys are stubborn , extremely proud and know what they want and what they dont want. I admire his attributes and should consider this more often when self directing.
I have up most respect for Charlie and I would like to see him again one of these days. I hope he wasnt as traumatised as I am at the thought of him being in distress. im sure he will have forgotten about it already- he is back on the beach eating all those free ice creams , or doing other ' weird stuff' like being in other plays and the like.

As for working with animals again , im not sure. Theres lots of talk about working with animals and children at the moment: lots of good work around the corner it seems.
i think ill start smaller- maybe my sisters lercher could be a good starting point for the next animal collaboration.

08_post process blues

We showed our pieces to a small and modest audience on Friday, a much more distinguished and full audience on the Saturday. On Sunday we talked about the experience from the first day to the last.

Four days later I am still digesting what it is that I made. Although as the famous phrase goes – ‘to travel is better than to arrive’, I feel the process was extremely rich, fruitful and productive and that the piece could never capture that. It is a piece that I never anticipated I would make, but I think this is due to the experimental ethos of Rules & Regs rather than through responding to the rules themselves.

It has been a rich 4 weeks, and I was aware that evaluating the experience you can sound like a moaning, discontented, jaded artist, but despite, the little things, it has been a necessary luxury. To play, to experiment, to not be precious and not to do what you always do, not to rely on the tricks, not to do what you know works – to genuinely take a risk. I hope that I can carry this spirit of experimentation with me into future projects and work.

It was great company and I second Simon’s thank you’s to all the right people.

Thank you.

They Think It's All Over...It is Now

Wow!

First of all -

Big thanks to Seth from Rules and Regs, Matt, Alice, Julia, Dave, Simon, Dom and Steph for an excellent opportunity to make new work and show it, and more big thanks to Christine, Eleni, Neil, Bethanie and Simone (& Charlie), lots of genuine care and mutual support, and thanks to everyone who turned up to see the work, and in particular my excellent landladies - Grazyna, for the late night conversations, and Jean for lending me Franz's Accordion.

Just got back, watched the last hour of Miss Austen Regrets, and I keep remembering the sound of everyone's voices, which I hope will keep me going as I try and figure out what next.

07_nc: think of the birds

There are birds in them there fingers. So I am told. I must not forget the birds.
I’m sure they have wise thoughts to share.

At this time, one day before the showings, he feels like a folk musician at a noise event, but he could be

a vagrant geographer
a prehistoric entertainer
a stumbling nomad.

All of these and none of these, it doesn’t really matter.
The thought in his head..

‘To be reincarnated as a stone or speck of dust – my soul weeps with this yearning.’
[he thinks the thoughts of Fernando Pessoa]

Time disappears. Mountains become deserts. The earth changes its nature.
And if you don’t sleep he will steel your eyes.

Think of the birds.

Sea Hugs

At the moment I know, or think I know, about two thirds of my lines. The structure is down. If somebody asked what the piece is about I don't know what I'd tell them, but thinking it through , it could be about: the rescue of a broken-winged bird; a record I promised not to listen to; a grandfather I never met; my father's, his son's, faded (but still impressive) glories; a quote that I have used several times before and a lot of quotes that I have not, and about that hat.

Bit sad to think that next week I won't have the structure that we have here, good spaces, wonderful (I do mean wonderful) people. Next week I will be missing my fellow Reggers, I'm certain.

Got to get on.

x X x

06_NC: critical response at a critical time

Yesterday, we each showed 10minutes of material, some a little more, some a little less. Mr P. came to faciltate feedback using Liz Lerman's method critical response process. I found this extremely useful. I have done versions of this before, but never so structured. I found that when responding to someone else's piece it forced me to be astute and focus what I was really saying. When receiving feedback it meant that I really got a sense of what it was I had made, what it did, how it functioned without being clouded by people's opinions and prejudices. I know that it is not for everyone, but it came at just the right time in the process for me. Now I am left with some questions, some thoughts and interesting problems to solve.

I was unsure of what I had made, it is not a piece I thought that I would ever make, and yet showing something, putting it out there, having a little bit of hindsight and reflection allowed me to see the material more. Now I feel it is a question of eeking out what is already there even more. And so on we go...

In the Nuffield, the space we will show our pieces in. It is very different to the space I have been working in. I am grateful for a week to prepare in this space, get to know it. And so I go...

PS I find the function of the blog has changed, my relationship has changed. I was a virgin blogger before this experience and the idea of putting my writing out into the world is quite frightening. In the beginning, during the research I enjoyed writing, formulating my thoughts for another. Now I find I just need to get my head down, into the piece. All my creative thoughts are on that, and the blog has become a box to tick, rather than a tool as it was in the intial stages.

It's Tuesday. How it got to the last Tuesday before performances already, we're not exactly sure!?
Yesterday we had showings and feed back, so today we were trying to piece together something that made sense as a whole. We've created alot of material, so it's hard to know what to push and take further, and what to let go of...we have to 'kill our babies' as Eleni says!
We've definitely been working in a different way to normal, spending every day together; working through an intense period, is a long way from what we're used to. We both believe it's been productive for us to work to a set of rules and with a looming performance, it's speeded along our process and given us an urgency to concentrate our ideas. Often our work responds in a much broader way to themes, and in turn gives us a vastness of material which can be hard to know where to start with.
Time seems to be flying by, and it feels slightly odd and sad that this rather luxurious cocoon we've been given to create work in, will soon be over, and the prospect of arranging the next project, finding more work, is suddenly becoming a closer inevitability.
Celebrating a birthday in Blackpool was mildly depressing, candy floss and neon don't exactly drum up the same level of excitement as they did when we were seven. There's something quite touching and engrossing about that cocktail of strife and show time.....or does that sound dangerously patronising and middle class? It's not meant in that way, there's just something fascinating about something that both draws you in and puts you off at the same time, you don't like to look, but you can't help it.
We wanted to go swimming today, but we left it too late.
Tomorrow maybe
Bethanie and Eleni
Levantes.

D-Day approaching

Its tuesday, its tuseday, yes its tuesday and like the rehearsals for the D-day attack at Normandy ( which some of them took place on blackpool beach because of there similarity ) im sure time flew away as fast from them soldiers getting ready to fight them on the beaches as it is for us humble artists in Lancaster. Well not quite the same.
But i have decided that the title for this work that i have been making will be ' Day of Days'.

Day of Days , that is what it means, D Day, the day when the sun keeps rising and setting in the west, of low , high , low , high tides.The ferry Riverdance sits through it all, belly up on her sandbank. Everyday the sea defence wall sees all the comings and goings on that beach. Its a popular spot now that Riverdance is hanging out.

I have decide to go through with making the film at the beach even though it will not be in the live event. It seems to be a relevant part of the process and a context to the rest of what i will be doing. Hopefully i can show it somewhere in the Nuffield building as part of the event.
It will be a long day , filming every mintue of an hour to watch the moving of tides and sun travel ( if you can see the sun).
I should be in the studio, rehearsing my material. I know this experience will be fruitful to me in some way though. I will ask people to dance with me who i meet ( hopefully not in the darkest of hours!). I want to meet and dance with others for Riverdance, for her sake and celebration.
I know the glitterball 'they shoot horses don't they' is just a few miles down on the new sea walls of the south pier. Theres a closed nightclub underneath it, thats why its officially the biggest glitterball in the world, the man at the hotel across the way told me all this, local knowledge.

I am that horse, i am that working dancing horse. Ill think of Jane Fonda while im doing it, i think of dance marathons and ill think of all those amazing ballroom dancers and ill think of how ill never be one of those amazing ballroom dancers. But ill give it a try, i may even have a go at wearing some high heels, just for an extra challenge. Another day to try myself in the world.

Chafe

Found this poster in Blackpool for a Morecambe and Wise Act. Squint? You'd have to be blind!

Did a 10k run yesterday, gaily named "the Garstang Gallop". Garstang it was. Gallop I did not. Still alive though, and knocked a couple of minutes of my time. I reckon if i gave up fags, and the wind had been in the right direction and the hills hadn't been there, it might not have been quite so painful. Neil (who shall be hereafter referred to as "The Champ") breezed in at 45minutes despite it being his first race and having holes in his trainers and paint on his shorts. 

I am currently attempting to string together my text and music for a kind of run through this afternoon which is probably why I find myself writing the blog instead of bloody well getting on with it. 

Have spent some time on the internet today trying to find a saucy postcard picture by Donald McGill of two people kissing for my banner. I found something eventually and it now only remains for me to get it printed out and then stick it on a board. I rang my wizzo painter friend this morning to see if he'd paint one for me - a kind of bespoke version. But sadly, all his paints are packed away. And so to other means. What did people do before the internet?

sb_04:

Home again. Came back to Hayfield last night via Method Lab in Manchester, saw a friend mine who just got back from the war. Can't remember walking home but I managed to make a cracking sandwich with two types of cheese, mustard, butter, tomato puree, and the last of the gherkins. I probably won't have another one for a while, but it hit the spot at 12.30 last night.
A strange week, but sort of productive. Met my Mum & Dad and Phil and had veggie sausage and mash for Breakfast in a Yateses. We re-took the old picture but they didn't come out as wonderfully as I had expected, so I've had to have a re-think. Had a bit of a funny turn up Blackpool tower, and had to come down again straight away. When Phil was looking for me after he walked into the amusement arcade and asked the attendant bloke if he'd seen me. He said "he was over there before, shooting Aliens." I wasted a load of them, but they finally done me in.
We went record shopping, I got an original Folkways Record by a mouth organ player called Sonny Terry, and two John Fahey Christmas Albums, which I've been writing in response to. We went for the best Fish & Chips I ever had at Yorkshire Fisheries. Great mushy peas as well. We went for a walk in the dark and bought some booze, went back to our B&B and got pissed in the room. Woke up at six and went looking for Carl Sandburg, couldn't find anywhere to do us a cup of tea, so we went back to the B&B, watched Just Shoot Me and Frasier, had breakfast, and went searching again. Didn't find Carl Sandburg. I should have loved being out and about in Blackpool but I pretty blue most of the time. Couldn't wait to get back. So I think my piece is about not really-being-there, Like I was never in Vreedenberg, nor in Scheveningen (although my Mum and Dad went). I was hardly in Blackpool at all.
I lost the faith a bit but I've just edited a version of the text together and it should be right for a walk-through on Monday. I'm going to give much away, I've got some tricks up my sleeve. Hope they work out. Like everything else, it's just ideality and imagine. The ideas are good, I reckon, but I don't know if they make a show. This time next week I'll be modest, slightly self-effacing, but charming with it, best suit on. Come on, feet! Come on! More soon.

Could It Be Magic?

Donna Summer at her best. Trawled through the istore yesterday for inspirational music. Found it. Chucked out some babies (not real 'uns), and picked up the tempo. It's a multilayered little bugger with some very speedy delivery required. I have decided not to drink or smoke until ... ok. I just had a good think about the rest of that sentence and working on the premise that one should never commit to the unlikley I shall complete my statement with the word "tomorrow night". It's not too far away and I'll have run a race by then. Neil says he's definitely in. I bet he goes off like a bloody firecracker. I'll try not to smoke again though. If I'm gonna be kissing people I don't want to smell some faggy old shitter.

Inspired by the comedy chracter photo opportunities where you stick your head through a hole, I am hoping to make a placard with people's heads painted on, so the audience looks at the bodies but can't see the heads. Do you see what I did there?

Better go and find myself a spangly dress. Won't be able to buy it though. Just gone over my overdraft limit for the second time since I've been here as still haven't been paid. If it doesn't come in soon I shall have to put my placard to another use. This is always the problem with the academic environment and the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith (singled out in this instance as they refused to pay me unless I provided a passport!). You have to  buy all your own props with your non existent wages, gather receipts (gypsies and spiritualist churches tend not to be happy with this type of exchange) and then wait for weeks to get reimbursed, all the while living with the creeping anxiety that you may be about to be charged 35 quid for the pleasure of having your bank tell you you're a tosser (again). 

Oh no. That rant just made me want a fag.

Anyroad up... I don't want to talk about the work and exactly what I've been up to in the Nuffield Theatre because an idea once clearly expressed in one form, needs very little expressing in another. Suffice it to say that if all else goes awry, and I end up in debtors jail/the canal, there'll be some really cool tracks for you to feast your ears on in my twenty minutes. Alright: I've basically been choosing music, improvising to it and then writing down the bits I like. It's a very useful way of switching your "attitude" in a flash. You know. Upbeat to sentimental and all of that.

Right, I'm off to put some tunes through the theatre PA system.

(Is it very bad to wish that someone were dead?)

Getting Your Hands Dirty

Its Friday, the time and the tides are passing me by before i have chance to hold my breath and think, okay what is it i am doing today?
Check the list, now it is all about practical things.
Today I am in the workshop, with Simon again. I dont have enough concrete to fill the mould that he has so brilliantly made for me. I get another 6 bags , hopefully that should cover it.

Just to fill you in , I decided that i would try to make a small sea defence wall, one that i could fit myself into for a time, become a little anchored or even 'bound' to. Bound to watch the seas, bound to feeling its rythm if i stay there long enough.

I would love to have the time to go to Ireland or Germany, to pick some Basalt, bring it home with me and lovingly shape it into a defence wall. But i cant do that so I opt for a smaller more workable solution- concrete. Now this material i could also get too fascinated about. Im really pleased that im making something that sits outside of my own body, a weight.

Its strange, watching someone else make something that is in your head. An image being born out of bits of wood and liquid stone stuff. I guess this is what it may be like to be a sculptor, who doesnt get there hands dirty. Im not sure how i feel about it. I want to get my hands dirty and to learn how to shape wood and stone into impossible shapes . Instead I make the coffee and ask too many questions. I feel like an apprentice, but im not even that. I do enjoy being in the workshop though and it makes me realise just how much i would like to have my own studio, to make a mess, to build things and to dance to Northern Soul in.

We will have the first uncovering on monday morning, when we take the mould away. Maybe it will just crumble, like an imaginary sea has just melted it away. Or as we both hope, it will stay in its shape , including the 'bull nose' that gives a beautiful overhang. Im not sure how heavy it will be , but it is pretty heavy.

The donkey has been approved today so thats has made a decision for me. I will go with the donkey. Ive been thinking about Joseph Beuys a lot this week and his Horse and his Coyote. I wont say any more on that really, i just think he does a good job.

I will continue through the weekend riding the crest of the tidal rythms- I will return to Blackpool on Sunday instead of attempting the 10km run with Chris and Neil. I need to see Riverdance and to spend a full day of tidal to-ing and fro-ing.The tidal highs and lows. The hills and aching legs can wait for another week, another race.

The Big 'Un

I have been to Blackpool and I had a bloody marvellous time. The weather was perfect, I wrote the entire show (pretty much) walking along the sands, I began to be able to see the ideas that were faintly crowding around me, and ended up in Anne Summers trying on some really short black PVC shorts from their "bondage" section. For why I have no idea. Oh no, hang on. I do know, sort of... or at least I can justify it. One of the rules is that the body or part of it must be bound or contained. Blimey. Doesn't the subconscious work in mysterious ways...

I suppose that I had been worried that dear old shabby seedy run down old Blackpool could only put me in touch with bleak(er) emotions. But, of course, it didn't because I used to go to Blackpool long long before the world I now know came into being. I went there when I was a kid and a teenager and had inflated  dreams of my own future greatness ... but mainly just enjoyed dreaming. And I remembered all the good times I had there. Strangely, it was the textures under foot which brought back the most concrete memories, rather than anything I saw or smelled... the hard ripples in the sand, the squishy traces of the lug worms, the warm concrete bits of sea wall, the planks on the pier that give slightly as you walk, the ornate and peeling railings that you can rest your  back against.

And I realise  now that I have dreamt these things ever since. And also that I am the same person now as I was then, because I noticed all the same things. Felt like an onlooker: other people's screams. Not mine. Which was oddly affirming. 

Yeah yeah yeah. Any road, I went on the Pepsi Max Big One at The Pleasure beach, which is fucking ginormous. It cost eight pounds and was worth every last penny. Finally! To have my insides matched with my outsides. To have emotion dwarfed by the physical. To have my body thrown about at such speed and with such unpredictable violence, that my heart gave up it's strong hold on my soul and I laughed till the tears rolled down my face... I have a souvenir key ring to prove it. It's massive, and so, in a land where worth is frequently measured by size (think prize winning leaks), I did quite well for six quid...

I bought a very important prop for the act and then went to see a Gypsy to have my cards read. She said that I had some opportunities coming up that I should seize. The "future" cards were the devil, the tower and temperance. So I'm gonna meet a randy fella with a great big pointy tail (I hope), give up drinking (not so sure) and chuck myself off Centre Point (er...)

So anyway the Blackpool "rule" has proved to be a turning point for this particular rulesieregger. 

I was explaining to my charming new friend only yester eve over a stiff gin, that I'm beginning to understand my process in terms of being a big fat sitting duck being shot at for several weeks by my own bad ideas... it's not over yet.

I was at a great advantage. Blackpool didn't make me sad because I was sadder than Blackpool. So it gently lit up, took the weight off my chest, and at one point, filled me full of pure and unadulterated joy. Blackpool Rocks.

05_nc: onwards

Wet sand is a very different material to dry sand. I bought some sand - it is drying. It can’t dry quick enough. I try to imagine dry sand, but it is just not the same.
Time is going faster than I could ever imagine. It is slipping away like sand in an egg timer. I can see it disappearing. Already it is Wednesday, and it is slipping away.
* * *
Morning never comes too soon
I can face the afternoon
But oh, those lonely nights.

So long sad times!

There will be goldust at my feet
On the sunny
On the sunny, sunny side of the street

Happy days are here again
The skies above are clear again
Your cares and troubles are gone;
There'll be no more from now on

So long sad times!
Cloudy gray times
You are now a thing
Of the past

(And smile, smile, smile)

I want to be happy
But I won't be happy
(he won’t be happy)
Till I make you happy too.

There's a tear in your eye,
And I'm wondering why,
For it never should be there at all.

And your eyes twinkle bright as can be;
You should laugh all the while
And all other times smile,
And now, smile a smile for me.

For your smile is a part
Of the love in your heart,
And it makes even sunshine more bright.

When skies are gray
And you say you are blue
I'll send the sun smiling through

When you're smiling
The whole world smiles with you

When you're laughing
The sun comes shining through

But when you're crying
You bring on the rain
So stop your sighing
Be happy again
* * *
[Tell me did you hear music?]

sk: time and tides

Okay I have re -wrote this entry five times now. I am trying to respond to Bethanies last entry, but i think the best way to do that for the moment is to speak to her in the flesh, somewhere less public.
She has many points i wish to talk about, but not here, not now. I think the Blog is probably the hardest part of the whole process, at least today it is. It is the place that makes you the most vunerable. Indeed why should you expose those uncertain parts of yourself, but also why shouldnt you. Honesty: is it always the best policy?

Again it is all about the context and i dont feel as though i wished to be judged on my words alone. I will edit myself constantly in moments of insecurity.
So i will leave it alone for now, apart from a brief list of thoughts.
I haven't updated the blog in terms of keeping up to where i am in the present state of my work, im catching up with myself. Walking the boundary line seems ions ago now, yet here it is my last entry.
So much has happened, so much to tell, if you really want to listen.

For now here is small fragment of possible content or context.
Take what you will from it and make up your own performance with the items listed below:

Use the tide times as a structure to work around.

Coastal Sea Defence, made from Basalt that comes from Germany ( south part) and the Giants Causeway ( north part)
Become a wall of Basalt
Let the Irish Sea batter you down
let the Bass tickle your toes as the swim around you, hide behind you.

Paint a picture
A panoramic
build the layers up over time
Sand them down with an electric sander ( a sand blaster is too expensive at this moment in time)

Use the dust particles to make a beach
A beach that resembles the one in Normandy where the D- Day landings took place
practice on this beach before you go to Normandy
Hire 150,000 soldier to practice with you
choreograph a whole army
do it on a full moon
do it when the tide is coming in

really decide whether you want to work with donkeys or not.
present the beach to the donkey
find the music box you had as a child that plays ' little donkey, little donkey, on a dusty road..'

Got to keep on pushing onwards with my heavy load....

'Some things there are no words for, only shoulders to lean on, hands to hold on to, and hugs to comfort you as best they can. Because you're cared about so much please know you're being kept close in thought, and wished all the strength and comfort you need, today and in the days to come.'
*This message was inside a card labelled 'suitable for terminal illness'.

Just after I'd sat watching my Grandad die slowly and painfully from cancer of the brain, I phoned the doctors to tell them it was over, and the receptionist put me on hold to an instrumental version of Leann Rimes' 'How do I live'.

LDT.

I think being understood is really important. I realise more and more one of the central reasons me and Eleni work well together is because we really understand each other. This might sound obvious, but for me it's very important.
The blog has become a bit of a problem to me. I think it's been really good for other people, but I just haven't found how it helps me yet?
I don't want to use it to qualify what I'm doing, or why I do it, nor to get people interested in my practice or theories. This is probably because I've never felt too good at articulating myself; expressing concisely my area of interest in any way I can read back and find interesting. I really enjoy discussing ideas and ways of working, but somehow when this is in person I feel better equipped to convey a real essence...maybe this isn't true, but at least I feel it to be, and so feel more comfortable doing so.
My other option therefore, is to use the blog as a form of diary, I do feel it's personal encounters and experience that fuel the work, rather than a disconnected commentry or response, so this is the prefered logical opton for me. However this falls flat, as aware that it's a public blog, immediately censors my honesty, both conciously and un conciously. I'm sure if I wrote everyday for a year I'd become oblivious to my 'audience', but at present I can't.
A couple of us were talking about the blog the other day, and I felt a little nervous at the realisation that people actually read it! This may sound naieve, but the reality that people may form an opinion on me based on the blog, really made me feel un comfortable...probably because I'm aware that when I'm clearing my mind of thoughts, I have the potential to sound like a bit of a boring twat. I do hope I'm neither boring or a twat, but this blog, again, is probably not helping my corse.
I don't read the blog. Not because I don't believe anyone would write anything interesting, I could gush for hours about the wondreful people I've met throught this group, I really don't think a more complimentry or generally lovely group could have been brought together, so I thank Alice and Matt for that. It's not that, it's that i've got to know people, and I'm really interested in what kind of things they'll come up with in response to the rules? Maybe I'll read it after the performances? But for me the real interest is how people communicate from stage, mainly as this is what I'm interested in from my own perspective.
I suppose I'm also aware that reading other, articulate and interesting bloggs, may aggrivate my inferior complex, and so are best avoided incase they spur me on to try and compete in a forum which isn't my strongest.
I don't want this blog to become depressing and all about my strenghts and weaknesses, it's the blog I'm finding difficult not me or my self esteme, I'm really quite comfortable communicating better in person...again I've reverted to using the blog as a diary, I'm just clearing this out of my mind really.
I think, to sum things up, me and Eleni both enjoy experiencing things, then finding out how this can be tranlated to others, to paint a picture or create an experience that you can step into to do your hair or make a cup of tea in. I know there are many things we're still learning, but i'm sure things being personal to us and striving to always be honest, will remain central to how we create. I'm sure the blogg for us will continue to be, at best, a diary and so be filled with experiences and emotions, over processes and intellect.
Well to tell the truth that was a good way of getting something out of my system! I'm realising my main problem is not knowing who I'm talking too?
Whoever it may be, I hope you're having a nice day. I'd like to instigate a happening and get anyone who's read this to buy a bounty bar at 3pm tomorrow, I'm sure their sales could do with a boost! Then take this chocolatey delight and give it to someone looking low on glucouse.
Bethaniex
Levantes Dance Theatre.

04_NC: the current conditions

I’ve been thinking about the Rules & Regulations and then I’ve been thinking about the ‘conditions’, the practical rules. The ones that make sure we don’t all end up making 12 hour durational performances 15 miles away from each other.

In some ways they give me more of a lever to work against they are tighter, harder to shy away from or bend to your advantage, they are very clear. It sets limits for the time, the space and I am grateful for these limitations. Otherwise I would be trying to make something longer, bigger and we simply don’t have the time. Keep it simple, keep it focused, pursue something don’t get distracted. That is what I keep telling myself. But my brain doesn’t work like that. I have to think big, to make small. I have to try everything to settle on something and eventually something sticks. At the moment it is the glasses, it is the sand, it is the structure. It is a red light bulb and attention to sound. Perhaps with a little bit of salt. Many things have been left behind.
It feels like now it is time to start fixing, interrogating what is here rather than looking elsewhere.
When you make a piece of work you usually come with a set of ideas, visions, questions, propositions, you have a desire that pushes you to make something. Coming to this project with a blank canvas means the first two weeks have been about engaging in the rules. Finding where our desire meets these rules. How can these rules propel us towards a piece?

Playtime is over, its down to business. It’s time to make some decisions so there is time to change.

I've spent the weekend without Eleni.
She's been in Greece performing the piece we were touring, so I'm very jealous as well as lonely.
We're half way through the project and I can't believe how fast it's all gone. When you think a month, it feels like a long time, but it's going by so quickly! It's been a really good experience so far, it's so nice to have the time to concentrate on our practice, it feels like I've learnt more about myself and what I'm interested in, in the past couple of weeks, than I have in a long time. I think it's just the different way of working I'm not used to, me and Eleni are together all the time and always working towards a performance or creating something, but then there's the forty hrs a week at a shit job which depresses you beyond belief, to contend with at the same time. I think the head space and rest from 'up selling' side orders has done me the world of good.
I'm still not really sure what to write on a blog, when I read it back it all sounds so boring, can't imagine who else is reading it? But then I suppose it's just supposed to be a cathartic way to express myself.... I never have been too good with doing that with words.
There's nothing I really want to say about the piece? We've not really set anything yet, but it has been good having rules to work with, both of us find it easier creating material we find interesting, but alot of the links can be fairly tenuous and hard to find; having rules has at least meant the material we have so far, all has an under lying link.
I have a lovely rash on my face today, which is making me feel attractive. That combined with my inability to write any thing particularly interesting and the knowledge that Eleni is doing a radio interview in Greece, is all making me feel rather glum and self pitying.....god Bethanie get a grip , and stop writing stupid things that make you look like a tit..oh no can't stop typing rubbish!!!!!! Arghhhhhhhhh!

I will be 26 on Thursday. We're going to Blackpool.
We've been thinking of births, deaths and marriages for situations you both internalise and are bound by.
I'm going now as I'm even boring myself.
I promise to pray to Jesus for more chirpiness before bed tonight.
Waffle, waffle
Bethanie x

simone: beating the bounds ( with the patter of feet and fingers)

Having just spent too long constructing my writing into the imaginary border of Blackpools district, the bloggs seems to like a more linear approach. Therefore a straighter version for you all about my other visit to Blackpool. I already feel behind on my blogging status so i defeatedly give you my wandering thoughts and feet in a straight line of words. If anyone has any tips on how to be more adventurous in the layout of this blog please do send me some advice. It does not translate the constructed page onto the published post. I am apologising already, this does not put me in a favourable mood. A much more deflated version to follow...





I trace the border of Blackpool and highlight it on the map. i take a piece of string and measure the distance. Its about twenty miles, including the sea front. The thing that stumps me is that the border continues out to sea. I dont have a boat to follow that part of the border line. I stay on land. The beating of the bounds ritual is an action that was supposed to bring communities together, a celebration of us and the land we inhabit.

So i start here , where the sea starts / stops. its the North Pier. The sun is out. The concrete seperates me form the sea. KEEP OUT.




I talk to a guy who is fishing. He explains that he is on the corner of the wall. The Bass prefer fast flowing water.I watch it skidding around the shape of the wall. I like his tactics, but he says he has not caught anything for a month. The Codling season soon ( they get braver, come close because of the dirty water) then he will only keep the ones that look older than 5 years, otherwise he throws them back, got to keep the numbers up.




The old boating lake now full of tyres and go-carts still locked away in containers. The fisherman told me this place was completely flooded in the winter. I imagine the rusting go-carts floating in the darkness of the containers. What will the new season bring. We talk about the strength of the tide.
I think about the tide and how uncertain it seems to me here. I think about surfing and how dirty the water is, do people still go swimming here? is it safe? . This walk is making me miss the pembrokeshire coast, its clean water, quiet surf spots yet to be explored and its un concreted edges. Walking makes me too nostalgic sometimes. All these imagiinings and imaginary lines I am following. Yet still i am very present in the coastal wind, its all good.





Dont go down there, people have not come back.someone leaves a note. I dont know who wrote this.

'Piece by piece, I re enter the world.
A new body, A new voice.
Birds console me by flying,
Trees by growing,
dogs by the warm patch they leave on the sofa.
Unknown people merely by performing their motions.
It is like a slow recovery from a sickness, this recovery from ones'self.'

A few weeks ago, a taxi driver told me what he was doing on his weekend off. He said he was taking the grandkids to go see the ship that was stuck on Blackpool beach. He said the kids loved it and it was their third time back. Its better than the telly he said. they love it.
I had forgotten about this conversation and the story about the ship that had been on the local news.
Then i saw it.
it is true , it is better than the telly, its quite surreal.
It gave me motivation to keep walking in that direction, growing in size as i sped up. I felt excited, just like those grandkids probably.
















When i get close up , im stopped by a security guard. there is a 400 metre no go zone around the boat. I can see its name.

RIVERDANCE


Get up Riverdance. Show us your tricks , show them your size and style. Its not even trying, defeated by the sand bank.
It looks dead, like a beached whale, like my broken double bass, laying on its side. Everything is still inside, the contents. they will start to cut it up soon.
It does make me think about the coastal motions and getting lost in your tracks, or caught in the tide. This boat has lost its way. I think about migrating sandbanks. They move faster than this boat now.



The boat is right on the border of the cleveleys and Blackpool beach. The cornered off area means i have to walk around the edge of the imaginary border. I get to the start of the border line where i walk away from the sea.
There is a sign on the sea wall.





I head along the street right on the border line, it feels great to be right on it.But not for long, i have to take detours to get round train tracks. With this imaginary border always in sight , it begins to cut houses and churches in half . I have to start watching it in my minds eye. i follow main orads and get lost in a cul de sac. I ask a local resident the way out. I continue into fields and farm houses beside me. i dont want to tresspass so i follow the line again with my eye, walking parrallel to it. So close yet so far. As the crow flies i am weaving in and out and here and there. I think i must be adding up quite a few extra miles.
I am surprised at how suburban the outskirts are. that sounds like a silly thing to say- okay , i was expecting it to be much rougher, maybe ill get to those places later , but for now its all a bit quiet.I can still see the tower every now and again creeping into the horizon








My feet dont feel like they are beating the bounds anymore.
After six hours i feel like the bounds are beating me. No not really, but i do have this pain in my hip socket from the continuous grinding away.
It is this that reminds me of another longer walk, across the yorkshire moors. The Lyke Wake walk challenge. 40 miles in 20 hours. I get lost in a bog at the 18th hour , my hips are teling me its allover.
They are telling me again today.
I head of the imaginary line to the trainline, homeward bound.

"The Only Way Out Is Through"

When whichever slap dash guru first penned this helpful sentiment, did they imagine it to include "through the heart with a rusty lancet"? "through the spleen with a desert spoon"? "through the head with a hunting knife"? I have my doubts. But hey. Rules are there to be interpreted.

I am still waiting for the muse. thanks to a wonderful set of workshops last week, there now exists molecules of inspiration, bits of texts, feelings, that are circling my mind but failing to land. I am dreading Blackpool. People trying to have fun...

I have been thinking of a new way to structure. this was was of the rules. I am interested in up and downness, and so I went fell running in Ennerdale this weekend, in the hope that I would be inspired/contained by the landscape I ran/hobbled through. In effect, it all whooshed by in a blur as i tried to concentrate on not breaking my legs before i got back to the car. It went up steeply, then it levelled out, then it went up a bit more, then it was very rocky, and then it went down and down and down. Unless I want to do the Ingmar Bergman version of theatre, this is possibly not the best route to take. 

And then i was thinking of the big dipper. I love rides. Perhaps I'll give that a shot. It's quicker than fell running and probably a good deal safer.

I think that one of the reasons why Blackpool fills me with dread is that i went there every year on holiday with my family - some of the most stressful times known to mankind are there to be had, down the old fun fair, with two neurotic parents and two fighting sisters, one of whom (me) is a total scaredy cat and just wants to eat candy floss and watch other people on the rides.

I think I might just book myself into a hotel and write the show. The whole twenty minutes. And whatever I come away from Blackpool with, that will be it... meanwhile I feel sick whenever I open my e mails, and my mobile phone feels like a brick in my pocket. At any point the delicate imaginings that have so far formulated, can be blown to smithereens in an instant by the wrong word form the right person. I dream of sitting in a deep old chesterfield by a fire, deep in a book and safe from reality. I am generally against the Tracey Emin approach to using oneself as the well spring. Especially as mine looks so dry. But denial of this sickly mournful state feels almost impossible. Even if I only use it to make gags. 

The only way out is not through. It's comedy.

03_NC: workshop swapshop

03_NC: workshop swapshop

Simon invited us to Morecambe. Morecambe with me, him, Bethanie, Christine, Eleni and Simone. We all went to Morcambe with him. We left early we got the train at 07:10 we met lots of people stepping off the train from Morecambe. We were the only people going to Morecambe at this hour. Simon read us John Berger in just the right places. We walked in pairs. Eleni and I walked along the coast and back again. We rejoined in Rita’s café. We went to the post office and sent a postcard to a loved one. On the train home again…Eleni and I discovered we were born on the same day, we are the same age. There is a little girl and a mother, who Simone and I share a table with. We laugh together. Back in Lancaster, a little bit of Morecambe stuck with me.

I lead a workshop. I am torn between doing what I know will work, trying something new, doing something to help me, to help them – so that we can all make it through to the other side. We have walked together, we have talked, but we haven’t really worked in a studio together. I feel I’m still just getting to know these people. After an early morning we start gently, we move, we sing, we write, we compose, we show, we write, we go. We go with a little big of each other stuck to one another.

Michael Jackson, Charlton Heston, Buster Keaton, God, Madonna and Hitler enter a room with a song and something beautiful, they come being prepared to get messy.
Eleni and Bethani ask us to guess who we are whilst listening to the music. It is that old party game where you write a famous person on each other’s foreheads. I always found that hard. I am one of the last to guess that I am Michael Jackson.
They ask us to create a character from what they have on the table. I am bemused at first, there just appears to be food on the table. But then I watch them dip their faces in syrup then hundreds and thousands, rub food colouring into their skin. I leave like a child at play school learning how to play with a new toy. I leave with a cheese string and several cocktail sticks stuck with me.

Simone starts in the studio, in pairs we haven’t worked with. I feel a sensation on the end of my finger – It is Bethanie’s face. I feel my own face, through Bethanie’s direction. My finger feels but now my face feels too. I feel the space through my finger and I am surprised at what I feel, or cannot feel.
She takes us for a walk outside. She asks us to spend time in 3 different places. I cling to a tree stump and imagine I am a sailor in a storm on the top sail. I lay in grass, and imagine grass growing through me. I leave a trace by building a dead branch mobile. I watch the branches swaying and I could watch them for hours, articulating the wind. Back in the studio we bring these experiences into a composition.
I leave with the wind in me, the grass growing through me, the mis-remembered memory of a sailor stuck with me.

Driving down the M6. Dreaming. (Any dream will do). I wonder who will surface. I am gutted not to be there, but I have to be in London. I drive into the dusk imagining what is going on, in that little church in Morecombe. I drive into the dusk imagining the multitude of events, that are taking place at this very moment. I imagine that some are beyond my imagination. I start to think of friends and family, now dead. What would they have to say to me now. How does this world look from the other side? How does my life look to them? A little bit of them is always stuck with me.

04_sb: Doing Things and Making Plans

On Monday I am going to recreate a photograph. If you are following this blog you might recall an earlier piece of writing I did:

In the picture he is about eighteen, ten years my junior, looking smart, handsome, walking down the promenade with his father, who looks at the camera, with some kind of annoyance, discomfort, or sadness. That was Bridlington, though / Brid / And that was my father, not me.

And I have decided to re-take this photograph in Blackpool, not Bridlington., on Monday afternoon. I will be walking on the stage right and my father will be to the left, one stage behind.

The new photograph will be taken by Philip Sykes, who has been my friend now for some years. I am going to put on my new suit. It is light grey with white pinstripes. It cost £7.99 from The Children's Society in Lancaster, and it looks the business. I am going to structure a walk through Blackpool with my Dad, based on the structure of that Album by Trespassers W. Phil is going to document it from a distance, video and digital stills, very likely. My mum is going to tag along so Dad has some company on the train. He has to get back for a choir practice that night, otherwise we would spend the whole 24 hours together. That is far as the planning has gone. It will be good to spend some proper time with Phil, as well. Sometimes you are too busy to have friends, so I am calling the time we will spend together "work" in order to justify it.

I found something in an interview with Cor Gout from Trespassers W, where he cited a review they got from a critic. He said: A man and his son are orientated on places and spots which don’t exist anymore", but that was Drederich Diedrichsen, not me.

I think this is a piece I am making as a reader, which is to say, an interpreter. The rules aren't hard and fast, I think they cut you loose and teach you self-reliance, perhaps, but solo work isn't really my bag, normally, and it's strange to be working like this, normally I just have a little idea, do it, then another little idea and do that. So all in all I'm feeling the benefit, and it's lovely to be up here.

I see the future through the fog

After spending a sunday in Blackpool in miserable weather and too much candy floss i didnt get any filming done. all equipment seems to be on its day off. not in the mood. A bit like the young donkeys we meet on the beach. I cant believe there are actually some children being taken on trips in the gale that is blowing. I have a chat to the owners and then to his wife who is in the truck sheltering from the elements. We strike a bargain on potentially having a donkey for a day, they are an expensive animal.








I ate quiche for the first time in years. It even came with bread and butter. Blackpool is growing on me, quite literally. its junk food heaven.
i get my fortune told by two different palm readers. I wasnt convinced by the first one, so i had to go to another to see if there was any cross overs in their stories.Like the sugary foods, I could get addicted to this.

I will in the future:
have 2 children, one will be a lawyer, the other a musician.
live in a white house with green trees all around it.
it will be in Spain, Australia, America or somewhere far, not Europe, no i cant see that.
My work will take me to a large building.
I will be wearing a power suit.
Im good with people
im at a cross roads
but im good with people so that will help me decide.

My eye!

there's something wrong with my right eye. I think I might have got something in it but it makes it very difficult to see/drive/concentrate. Perhaps I should poke myself in the left to even things out.

I can't inagine that any of the thoughts I've had re the process could be remotely more interesting than my eye problem but here goes.

I've written some stuff, been to the spiritualist church in Morecambe where we began the service with a version of "I close my eyes... draw back the curtains" form Jason Donovan and his Technicolour Dream Coat. Then it was pretty standard: people being contacted by the dead and all of that. I have been toying with the idea of going to see a clairvoyant and getting them to tell me what they see me doing in my twenty minute presentation, and then doing as close to that as possible...

On Wednesday, I ate my own heart out (made of red liquorice) which was strangely satisfying and made me think of Trevor Stuart's old act where he ate his own brains out of the hat he was wearing and his speecgh slerrrrly diginurtayjed..

I still don't know what I'm going to do, but bits off stuff are floating towards me now. I might be a medium. I must go and visit the gypsies in balckpool. I mean Blackpool. Funny how every time I write that word it magically turns into illegible shit.

sb_03: Trespassers W

Hungover it's awful, but:

1.
In Oxfam the other day I happened upon a record, a fine-looking, very well packaged record, the artwork reminded me of Do Make Say Think's Winter Hymn, Country Hymn, Secret Hymn, but it is actually called Roots and Locations, by a Dutch group, Trespassers W. It cost me £4.99

I looked in the Gatefold Sleeve and found: a / A record; b / A press release booklet; c / A Catalog of Trespassers W releases; d / A booklet the size of the sleeve with Lyrics and artwork; e / An A-5 sized photograph of the band, printed on AGFA photo paper,with the following written by hand:

///

photo: Ada Fesever

Trespassers W
at 'The Memorial'
at The Hague

left -> right:

Peter Bos (.)
Ronnie Krepel (.)
Hayo den Boest (.)
Fran van den Bos (.)
Car Gout (.)

///

The Memorial says 1914-1919, and at the last line of it reads:
ZIJ ZIJN DAAR - WAAR NACHT NOCH NEVEL IS

The album artwork, is a score for my performance, a structure that is new to me.

The record is a concept album about "the city of The Hague set in the fifties, set around the story of a father and son". Then it says something about politics. It makes me think of that picture of my father, and his father (at Bridlington, not Blackpool. Brid). In the Roots and Locations Lyrics:

FROM 'THE MAN' "Until he turned around and found out / Until he turned around and found out" Then it says something about time. FROM 'THE PARK' "The bewildered child stormed into the waste ground (...) circled (...) three times / And then leaving" FROM 'THE ROOM' "Soundless movements (...) lines, white on paler white" FROM 'HEXIO PERFECTO DE LA LUXE' "Here come the pretty waitresses / Sh-boom, Sh-boom, La La La La La La La La La La La La / Sh-boom, Sh-boom, La La La La La La La La La La La / Sh-boom, Sh-boom, Life could be a dream, sweet".

2.
Researching Trespassers W I found an interview with a member of the band (I think it was with Cor Gout), and the interviewee put in an image of a text of a song he had been working on (click on the picture to see it big and legible):



















(the image comes from www.fictionalize.org/index.php?2006/03/01/5-trespassers-w).

The Interviewer asked him:

"Do you sometimes have what I call a feeling of "belonging" (when you feel totally well, your feet standing firmly on the ground and your head buzzing with ideas, just "in tune"?

He replied:
Once again: the sunny day in the Scheveningen Wood feeling. Also: on a stage, when everything seems to fall in its place and things seem to be going on just by themselves. Or: riding on my bike, hearing the voices from the houses and the pavements tell me all sorts of secrets. Or: late at night, when segments of imagination come together in a totality with a ‘sound’ and a ‘rhythm’.

3.
In the Carl Sandburg Poem, The Sea Hold, the one that I edited down, I cut the following line

"I am a loon about the sea,
So are five men I had a fish fry with once in a tar-paper shack trembling in a sand storm".

I think the five men that Carl Sandburg had the fish fry with were, left -> right:

Peter Bos
Ronnie Krepel
Hayo den Boest
Fran van den Bos
Car Gout.

4.
In Neil's workshop (Tuesday Afternoon, 9.4.08) we were asked to write these cards to each other, things to get us out of trouble, difficulty: observations, commentaries, bits of advice, imaginings, situations. Two favourites: "You are passionate about all aspects of bird life but in particular, migration. You await the return of a favourite" and "Simon: Do as you would be done by". And you have to ask: why this advice, why me. I am reminded, again, of my wrongs.

5.
In Simone's workshop, we walked outside on the grounds of an old house by a field overlooking the motorway and the railway line. We were given a directive that said: Find 3 places to inhabit and 3 ways of inhabiting them, for up to 5 minutes each. Write for 1-2 minutes in response.

1 / fit in-or-around; 2 / blur the edges or merge; 3 / the body leaves a trace

In response to 2 / I spin your stillness, pull your crookedness into my bones and your decaded growing pains ache the muscles of my right arm (...) Look at me I'm dancing (...) Five crows, or black birds any way, soar at me as I outshine them. Leaves of grass. Leaves of grass.

6.
I never knew the Macc Lads did a song about Blackpool, called 'Blackpool'. This changes everything. I just got it off iTunes for seventy-nine pence. The song is mostly about chucking beer cans at cars on the Motorway. The best bit is: "An' Peter's in the back seat / An' his crack is goin' "gerrit" / He's got his finger up her like a ferret" (www.lyrics007.com/Macc%20Lads%20Lyrics/Blackpool%20Lyrics.html).

I look like Jessica Fletcher.

After the workshop I conducted with Bethanie this is what i came across.

Bethanie likes:

playing with boxes

is very, very  tidy

likes pretending to be a fly (with a silicon bra strapped over her eyes)

can be extremely quiet (she did not talk or sing for 2 hrs)

she looks good wearing a nurses outfit 

prefers lines rather than circles

Today I am Bethanie biscuit Ray from Tamworth.

I found out with my workshop for Eleni that she...

is small

Likes to know what's available to her

is a bit cross with boxes

drags her body cleanly

will continue until something is finished

Collectively we are hungry, but will continue with the blog as the art comes first and we are the artists.

This morning Eleni collected shells and Bethanie found fluff in her tea...umm.

We have talked, but decided as part of a new structure to limit the time we spend together. Also to try new ways of working we have decided to pick some music to use before we devise the work, chosen to include an improvised section in the piece and opted to limit our use of costume and props in certain devising sessions.

We're thinking of ways to bring the outside in, thinking of how you internalize another person,  wondering how much of some one you take in when you get to know them, and what remains when they leave. We're also thinking to bind ourselves from the inside, to try restricting food, liquid, air, company etc to see how the affected internal feelings reflect outside.

Tomorrow is our workshop. It's been interesting thinking of workshoping when the emphasis is on benefits for our practice, rather than the other way round. We really had to focus on what we find interesting to stimulate material. The way people react to certain situations, their dialogue with 'audience'(when they know they're being watched), their willingness to experiment, their compliance, or lack of, to social rules, the little things they think people don't notice, their honest responses to situations, are all things we find intriguing.

Ok so maybe that list is a wee bit long, but we feel we've managed to incorporate enough in the workshop to get us going, as well as it hopefully being fun!?

Neil and Simon both had great workshops today which left us with sand in our toes, beans in our bellies and much to help with process, so we thank them for that.

Miss Fletcher and Miss Ray are off for their tea now before they start salivating over furniture. 

Bethanie and Eleni

Levantes x  

02_NC: Blackpool Nights

02_NC
Last night I saw the largest mirror ball in the world and it took my breath away.

I walked with words in my head:
Young hearts run free.
Where did you come from? Where did you go?
Take me home, to the place where I belong.
I’ve got the key, I’ve got the secret.

I could never live without you by my side.
I love you baby.
Don’t stop me now because I’m having a good time.

At 4am I find myself on the prom prom prom. I was not having such a good time, in fact I was killing time until the sun rose. I was listening to a dog who knew a thing or two about Blackpool, he’d been around the block, he had some stories to tell:
He said that Blackpool is a mirror ball in need of disco. He told me that Blackpool offers a very particular kind of pleasure, that so many people are wrapped up in the business of giving pleasure and making everything seem ‘alright’ that it is killing them.
It feels like a city that is trying to stop itself from growing old – that is what he said. It offers promise everywhere, it promises so much and yet it takes more than it gives.
He told me that small people with no responsibility, nothing to lose love the places because it’s all about winning points and a big cuddly toy.
But now he thinks he’s outgrown this town, or this town has outgrown him, he wants to move on, but he doesn’t know where to go. He is lost. He is looking for his own disco.

shit it

I have spent the last week mainly crying, staring out of the window in my digs at a tree and some boys playing rugby, and wondering what the fuck I'm doing here. I feel old and void of enthusiasm and am absolutely convinced that someone young and happy should be here instead of me.

I realised yesterday that it was crunch time. Stay or go. Either 1) Attempt to work here in Lancaster, wander round the oppressive and  godforsaken campus, eat gregs pasties and pray for a freak accident or 2) bugger off somewhere no one expects anything of me ('cept the dog). 

Because I am basically an evil person masquerading as a good person and therefore need to be repeatedly punished, I have opted to stay. 

I should like to think that my continued presence may be of use to someone and that i can squeeze a bit of art out. I don't suppose this content is quite what they were hoping for when they invited us to blog. I'm sure it'll all be abolutely super in the end up...

Denise Van Outen says that the best way over a fella is under another. What would we do without her?

Levantes 1st blog

Week 1 - Friday 4th April 2008

So this is the first time we've written a Levantes blog...where to begin?

Yesterday we saw each other for the first time in a while, so we had lots to catch 

up on. Since we couldn't be together at the start of the project, we've decided to 

keep some things a secret from each other, and test how this affects the work.

Eleni has prepared a workshop for Bethanie this morning, which she's about to do 

and has no idea what to expect, oooh how exciting!

We're hoping that starting the project separately, with different un discussed ideas 

will be something new for us. We're very used to sharing everything in process from the 

out set, so we're sure we'll expose many differences which we often bypass in a 

collaborative process.

We'll say goodbye for now.

Bethanie and Eleni x

Levantes Dance Theatre

02_sb: The Sea and Unknowing:

I went to Morecambe this morning to research the workshop I will be running next week (Tuesday the 8th). I took 4 photos that are up on my Flickr.

The Rules (see Matt Fenton's first post) are giving me an unquiet mind. And I've been thinking about those three questions, the ones that Carl Sandburg made a life (or at least a living) out of (who am I? where am I going? where have I been?).
The other week someone said to me that we carry others around in us and that we carry landscapes and places around in us too (Of course; but at the moment of saying it felt revelatory). So there are lots of you already here, names that recur, voices. But this week I keep thinking about Carl Sandburg, no longer a who but a what, a set of ideas (or ideals), whose name was been given to a National Heritage site, two schools and a college. Carl Sandburg is unknown to me and I have little interest in meeting him any time soon.

I was looking old Carl Sandburg up and I found a poem, The Sea Hold, which I have re-edited:

The sea holds / an early sunset and a last morning star / five white dice / And to-day I lost nothing / except / my sea songs, sea cries, I forget so many sea songs and sea cries /the sea hugs and will not let go / knowing more about us than we know of ourselves (full text at www.bartleby.com/134/67.html)

I found out that Carl Sandburg was born in landlocked Galesburg, Illinois and lived his last years and died on an estate named "Connemara," a 245-acre farm in Flat Rock, Henderson County North Carolina, (which is, I guess, about 400 miles inland, but I note that the etymology of the name Connemara refers to descendants of Con Mhac, of the sea.) I can't find any evidence of Carl Sandburg ever leaving America and I think his seas went uncrossed OR his seas, like mine, were imagined. A the moment I am thinking of waiting until week three, fairly late, until I go to Blackpool, on three consecutive days, on the 15th, 15th and 16th of April, eight hours a day. Nothing outlandish, or crazy. Just a routine. I am going to spend 24 (nonconsecutive) hours (or three working days) asking exactly the same questions as Carl Sandburg, to to quiet him. Shh / Carl Sandburg / Shh / There / There /
Janine Antoni, an American artist sometimes makes her art as a “wilful misunderstanding of how to know something” (FN1) Searching for a dead man who was never there seems like a reasonable attempt at productive misunderstanding of Blackpool. I'm questioning whether to even go to Blackpool. At the moment I would rather go to Flat Rock, or Fleetwood, of just stay in.

FN1: Antoni, conversation with Martha Buskirk, December 7, 2001 cited Buskirk: The Contingent Object of Contemporary Art, MIT Press, 2005, p252.

02 Simone

After a day of wondering and searching , I spend another day , this time in a room full of maps and geological surveys. I want to find the boundary line of Blackpool. Sometimes the simplest of tasks reveal themselves more complex over time.

Yesterday i thought about being bound, but not by ropes or illusionary tricks in straight jackets but, by the invisible line that constitutes a cities boundary. Beating the Bounds may be an appropriate way to contain myself and the space im in. Im wondering how long it will take me to find and walk the edges of Blackpool.

Then theres the donkey, the one that treads up and down the beach, an endless summer of back braking work. The illuminations depot used to be a donkey stables. Derek Acora has even been to talk to the spirits: the donkey whisperer.

01_nc

A city, the sea, time. Bound* by four rules.
Kiss me quick between a stick and rock. Bingo, go-go, merry go round and around. Big Dippers, Fish Chippers. Scream if you want to go faster. SCREAM IF YOU WANT TO GO FASTER.
Stumble gentle into that good night.
Find a container just high enough, wide enough and deep enough. Somewhere to hide-away, stow-away, shy-away. Somewhere to go away from it all, from the bright lights and dark nights, there you will find a structure. Be open to it and it will present itself.
Tomorrow I am bound* for Blackpool.

*B O U N D
Bound1 v 1. Past Participle of bind, past tense of bind.
Bound2 adj. 1.Certain to happen or do something because custom, experience, or common sense dictates it 2. obliged to do something or behave in a certain way, for example, for legal or moral reasons 3. firmly resolved.
Bound3 vi. To move quickly and energetically, with large jumps n an energetic long or high jump.
Bound4 adj 1. travelling toward a particular place (often used in combination) 2. certain to reach or achieve something
Bound5 vt 1. to form the boundary to an area or site 2. to impose limits on something n a number that represents the upper or lower end of a range of possible values

01_sb

1.

On Tuesday 1st, I wrote my first thoughts in response to the rules, and I am going to spend some time this week gradually editing them down. The first thoughts weren't all that good, so this will be a pleasure. By the end of the week there will be very little left, just a few fragments. Not much, just enough.

Body to Body.
Bring to mind / an unfinished / or unfinishing /


By the Seaside... early. In the picture he is about eighteen, looking smart and handsome, walking down the promenade with his father, who looks off from the camera, with some kind of annoyance, discomfort, or sadness / that was Bridlington, though / Brid / And that was my father, not me.

Of the sea I read,
1: "It's being near Her that they want. That alone satisfies something in us" (FN1), and
2: "Carl Sandburg says that 'the sea hugs and will not let go'" (FN2)
Who is Carl Sandburg?
Carl Sandburg: January 6, 1878 – July 22, 1967, an American poet, historian, novelist, balladeer, and folklorist (FN3) Carl Sandburg spent a lifetime exploring...the eternal questions, "Who am I, where am I going and where have been?" (FN4).


FN1&2: The Sea Within: Waves and the Meaning of All Things: 2006, St. Augustine's Press. FN3: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sandburg). FN4: (www.nps.gov/carl/)

t-h-r-o-w-i-n-g.blogspot.com / www.virb.com/simonbowes

Rules and Regs at the Nuffield Theatre

Rules and Regs is a national artist development project which challenges live art and performance makers to create new works over a period of one month in response to a set of Rules set by a curator. As part of this process, each of the Nuffield Theatre's selected Rules and Regs artists (Neil Callaghan, Simone Kenyon, Christine Entwhisle, Simon Bowes and Levantes Dance) will add postings to this blog as the month develops. The Lancaster project launched on Monday 31 March 2008 when the artists discovered the rules to which they must respond:

-Spend 24 Hours awake in Blackpool

-Find/create a structure that is new to you

-The body must be contained or bound

-Bring the outside in

For more details see www.nuffieldtheatre.com / www.rulesandregs.org