19th Time Passes...Penlee House Performance

posing in front of the painting
Zo, Zoe, Anna and Colin

Tiia has joined us this term, Toby, Joseph, Zo, Annis and Skye

In the warm up upstairs Trevor decided he wanted to stand on the table!

performing group with Jo L in back up and Tina backstage
Star, Kerry, Jo L,Trevor, Tina, Demelza, Tiia, Joseph, Marjorie, Zo, Annis, Anna Skye, Katherine, Toby, Colin, Katie and Zo.

The performing space was small so no photos from the performance.
We had our Christmas party/lunch in the afternoon then rolled on to Penlee House to perform and receive good news from Diana of some donations coming in!!
Demelza was able to sign some of the songs and poem at short notice..and it was lovely to see old friends in the audience.

Contrasts

Quick snap shots from verbal feedback received last night.

Joanne had never seen us before, Tony has seen us a lot and Zoe as a new performer, also interestingly an artist and musician, as I write this I realise that they all are artists and musicians, Zoe is currently studying Art A level.



"Very moving" ........Joanne Short  www.joanneshort.info/

"Dances really worked well with the exhibition in both galleries....."
 Tony Minnion www.tonyminnion.co.uk/

"As soon as I leave school I want to join the main company" ........Zoe Osmond 16 her first performance with us

Welcome to Andrew who joins us also for his first performance although used to performing with Access Theatre.

Thank you to photographer Simon Roff - photos coming soon.

It feels as though Shallal 2 is embedding itself deeper into the artistic world of Falmouth, with a good capacity audience of family and friends and those who haven't seen us approx 35, and thanks to the Falmouth Art Gallery for the commission and their support and councillors Hanna Toms and Candy Atherton whose community chest donations helped to fund our rehearsals.

Last comment from Lou Brett who although she has given us so much help hadn't seen a performance before:
"Thank you so much for the show tonight ..... I really loved it and it really felt like a response to artists' studios and making art - the more abstract it was the better it became.  Congratulations for all of that creative work."

It was a particularly hard devising and rehearsal process this time so wonderful to see it work so well and receive feedback. Thank you and well done to all the performers some of whom were unstinting in their creative efforts towards it all, and here's to the next show! 


Lastly for me the pleasure of feedback and discussion afterwards with my husband Peter who until his recent poor health has seen nearly all our work, and is my favourite critic - obviously! -he could see the difference our new improvisation approaches have given to the work.

Contrasts at Falmouth Art Gallery 18th

Shallal Residency confirmed!! 20-24 July, 2015

I have often looked longingly at the potential for residencies and thought lovely but not possible, I have 5 children, 2 now grown up, but still not an easy family to leave and go off for an artistic jaunt. There are  30 members in our main company at present and logistically with support needs etc it would cost so much and the organisation would be very high, so nice idea but not sure how we could pull it off.
So imagine my delight when Adrian Bossey at The Performance Centre said lets have a chat and see what we could do in the next year, over a cup of tea ( the only way to be really creative) he suggested applying for an AMATA (Academy of Music and Theatre Arts) residency.

I live about 2-3 miles away from The Performance Centre, it is a possible reality and we have just heard that:

 Shallal are booked into Studio C from 20-24 July, 2015.

Yippee!

  The joy of working in the space and having the time to explore and invite in guests and friends to "play"  with us.

The impulse behind the residency is to continue to explore and expand Always New our new Open Improvisation performance technique with George Bradley-Peer, and when we explore the same idea with recorded music I had the thought yesterday that we will go back to a theme we have only looked at then left of Landscapes - by providing a musical landscape /stimulus for when we haven't live music!! Oh fun can't wait....

http://www.falmouth.ac.uk/facilities/performance-centre

In scope and scale, The Performance Centre on our Penryn Campus ranks as one of the most sophisticated facilities of its kind in Europe.

Physically, it is a £19m assembly of 11 high specification performance and rehearsal studios, 12 practice rooms, an analogue and digital recording studio complex, seminar, exhibition and display spaces.

Whatever your chosen discipline, The Performance Centre encourages innovative collaborations across all our subject areas. It is a creative hub for students as well as local, national and international companies and practitioners for performance, rehearsal and devising.

But it's not simply a venue. It is a collaboration of world-class thinkers and practitioners dedicated to delivering our innovative degree programmes in music, theatre, dance, and cultural management and production, alongside a performance-based public programme.

Words not used in funding applications (and notes from Penlee House performance next Friday 19th Dec)

Starving in our garrets isn't quite as appropriate an image for performing artists as visual artists or writers, and the world changes, patronage is always important, helpful and necessary and we spend a lot of time working on applications and bids.
We have an excellent voluntary team at present and so I do hope one day to be less involved in the actual writing......anyway there are certain words you learn to replace and i would like now to celebrate them and use them again as they are the words of poetry which don't always or often sit with accountability, planning, strategy, outputs, outcomes and money - the words of bid writing.

Poetic Words

Hope .....................one of my absolute favourites and not to be lost
Wonder
Possibly
Dream
Imagine
Wish
Unsure ...................actually opening to the world of, we don't know everything?!


The reason for these, I am sitting down preparing words of poetry for next Friday's performance at Penlee House. I am looking forward to it as we drag out and dust off old favourites, along side new work:
I sit here immobile - beautiful, from Bill's Dream performed in Penlee Gardens many years ago
Mothers and Daughters with it's third set of mothers and daughters, the original Marjorie and Zoe are joined by Katie and Zo with Katherine
Port Quinn - third time, first performed at The Acorn Theatre, Penzance over 20 years ago, when we were named Sea-Saw!
Johnny Groat whose main performance was before the start of a Mazey Day Parade out side St John's Hall over 20 years ago!! with Tim and Zoe
I first heard this song at a friends wedding party in a quarry with a lake, it was sung by Crone Hire, Anna Marie Murphy and Sue Hill, who had just paddled around the corner with a large withy pink heart lantern in a canoe - not to be forgotten!

Also inspired by the fact that my favourite art forms are non-verbal, dance, art, music they open us to the world without words, which can surround them but but can't fully explain them.

Next week our performance is inspired by the Walter Langley painting titled "Time Moveth Not, Our Being 'Tis That Moves" 1882.

Thank you to our new trustee Tina who researched these for us.

"Time …..

Still on its  march, unheeded and unfelt,

Moves our being

We do live and breathe

And we are gone"

Henry Kirk White

Here's the passage where the quote for the painting comes from:

Time moveth not! - our being ‘tis that moves;
And we, swift gliding down life’s rapid stream,

Dream of swift ages and revolving years,

Ordain’d to chronicle our passing days:So the young sailer in the gallant bark,
Scudding before the wind, beholds the coast
Receding from his eyes, and think the while
Struck with amaze, that he is motionless,
And that the land is sailing. 

Shallal 2 Portmeor exhibition rehearsal, Thank you to Anne

Last night Shallal 2 went to Falmouth Art Gallery to rehearse, the beauty of the space: surrounded by current Porthmeor Studios art work, shiny smooth wooden floor, high ceiling was enjoyed by all of us, it helped us focus and there was a lot to do. Everyone rose to the occasion as I changed the order and one piece of music...
The rehearsals had been struggling with a narrative that seemed to work, but didn't quite...so narrative out the window - hurray for me, I'm not a story teller - but a struggle for some performers who are ...so congratulations to Eddie as he found his way through all the changes and by the end had taken his characters and scenarios into their new flow. We are now working 'contrasts' and are much happier, if we could have a large stage...who knows maybe Performance Centre in the summer - I would explore splitting it and using alternate sides. But for now, well done performers and thank you for your patience it has been a tough creation process, we have lost Peter for this term as he had health issues and he held a lot of the focus in some dances, but we have been joined by Andrew whose mum Aileen dedicatedly drives from their home at St Breward nr Wadebridge each week, so Andrew can come, and Zoe Osmond who has worked with us over years but hasn't  been available for a performance before.
Thanks to Falmouth councillors Candy Atherton and Hannah Toms for supporting this project as well as Falmouth Art Gallery for the invitation.

Thanks also to new trustee Tina Cockett and all past and present behind the scenes supporting Shallal.

Big Thank you to trustee Anne Mackay who has just left.
 Anne has done most things in her time with us:
Supporting many early Shallal 2 sessions, supporting performances and fund raising events, introducing the popular open mike sessions, research, writing applications for Friends and Dancing particularly, supporting and developing the new Sketchbooks and Shallal Studios, supporting main company Art  and production sessions, generating sponsorship from Derwent art suppliers and more..... This is where you begin to worry you have forgotten something. I have, her whole family have given generously of their time and talents, digital support and design from Jem, Zian and Jewel helping at fund raising events, Rhoda a loyal audience, and Skye - we'll save her full thanks for another time - who we all know so well and this is just the art side as behind the scenes within the trustees and ethos world Anne has shared skills, outlook and support, and has seen many changes in her 5+ years with us and without the support from trustees behind the scenes we may not have survived.

Jo Lumber, Jewel, Jem, Skye, Anna, Anne, Sue Leggett and Toby

Thanks also to trustee Sue Leggett who helped us for a year and brought valuable skills, approach and experience.