Sunday 23 September 2018

Embodied Space at Porthmeor Studios

Well, "i am so pleased" a dangerous thing for an artist to say.
With it comes congratulations to all the performers and artists in Shallal Dance Theatre.
Lovely George gave us beautiful recorded music as he was heading for the South of France that day and could not be with us, however he dropped into the morning to see his music first responded to.
Thank you also to Chris Hibbert it feels like a nicely established relationship now, our fourth event with them, 3 months studio residency, Shallal 2 show and a photography exhibition and now this!
Thank you to a great audience and for all the helpful feedback.

The dancers held it beautifully, responded to the space, music and each other with all the skills needed.


Audience response in Comments book.

"Moving uplifting, stunning"
"Fantastic! really enjoyed it all"
"Inspiring and beautiful!"
"Brilliant - loved it!"
"What an uplifting show. The talent and togetherness was lovely"


a message to the company
" This has been so beautiful, I have been on an emotional journey today I did not expect, the care, love and respect present in your interactions is so uplifting.  So many beautiful moments developing in the space, it was so inspiring and left me wanting to watch more."

Thank you to Star and Jacob for snaps from Jonathan and Stars duet.
I was to preoccupied and nervous to organise film and photography and thinking the back light would be too strong, however with windows into ceiling the light was far better than i had imagined and we missed an opportunity, never mind next time!


The space was more exciting than i had remembered so the treat of different levels ( window seat and stand on ledges) with the stunning backdrop of the waves and the sky! and the white walls with the then rubbed back wood.
One of our trials was to let people dress for the occasion/event, often we notice in sessions that people are ' colour coded' in matching hues and tones, so we let that happen with minimum guidance and it worked so well!
"I am so pleased" this is the style of work we put on hold while immersed in Doorways, it ticked on quietly in the warm ups but couldn't be fully explored, it opens a world of possibilities for performance, touring artistic freedom and independence, embracing different venues.
With less George time of improv music i was scared to be DJ'ing so much but feedback was it was ok and we interspersed with song, poetry, voices this enables us to bring in so much, Kerry T has a wonderful poem ( and Toby has a haiku for next time ).
We can build on things we have done before and revel in something completely new.

This is how i have always wanted to explore work so for me a real treat, to take improvisation as far as it can go and the team of performers recent and experienced rose to the challenge.

Here's to more!

(One new person warmed up but sat out for the actual show with understandable reasons and for some performers such close proximity to the audience and risk can be too much, so the freedom in the structure/approach can hold that and they enjoyed watching. 
Physical or emotional/psychological reasons for not feeling able to perform are able to be accommodated, this is really important for real inclusion, we all come with our support needs and issues, challenges in the day or lifetime!) 

Also in the past when faced with small challenging venues we have taken a smaller group, this way of working enabled everyone who wanted to to come and again, "I was so pleased" as we managed it and the performers really used the space very well.
Warm up has also been a factor and we had session in the space as well as in the morning at our rehearsal hall.

So this continues this year with other intriguing venues in the pipeline including Minack Theatre car Park!!
Kestle Barton garden now moved to Spring not this October! hoping for good weather....
Newlyn Art Gallery and i really want to get into that beautiful new space at the Tate!

And finally 'so pleased'- again!- that Chris Hibbert said this should be "going into Schools and we should be an NPO", that is what we are working towards, to have the freedom to go where needed and share the work more widely not always constrained to projects.
We need to be able to pay people and develop the work, to seed it on further.

I'm off to a possible studio meeting, fingers crossed.
Annis and Anna have offered to volunteer in their Gap Year..lots for them to do!
Lou is writing an interesting short project bid, ( she brings her creative and thorough brain to fund hunting) which we would love to do, as many of the company also relish getting stuck into a theme and research. This time we might be able to work with Hypatia Trust - fun. http://hypatia-trust.org.uk/
Draft copy of potential poetry book returned and our learning curve continues, thank you to Anna for pulling it together, really need funds to take it further, but good to see the poems in print, and its one of source materials for our Illustrations theme performance and exhibition this Christmas, by Shallal 2 and friends.
Falmouth Art Gallery December ...oops date not in calender, another 'post it' job to do...









No comments:

Post a Comment