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.