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.