black and white and read all over

Dawn Chorus 2013

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 04:15:00 -0400

Dawn Chorus 2013:

Read the text from the mass tweet in, Sunday June 2013 at dawn.

Rainham Hall, Havering, approx 4am Sunday June 9th 2013

Sun, 09 Jun 2013 12:05:41 -0400

Rainham Hall, Havering, approx 4am

Sunday June 9th 2013

Dear Stranger, I love you: the ethics of community in Rajni Shah Projects' Glorious

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 17:09:00 -0400

by Lucy Cash, Becky Edmunds, Elizabeth Lynch, Mary Paterson and Rajni Shah

published by Lancaster University and the Live Art Development Agency, 2013.

Comprising: two books (120 and 40 pages) and DVD (32 minutes), all housed in a card envelope. 140 × 210 × 20mm

ISBN: 978-1-86220-306-8

Available from Unbound

Dear Stranger, I love you offers an in-depth exploration of artist Rajni Shah’s Glorious, an experimental performance project that began with a series of conversations between strangers and ended in a large-scale theatre production involving local residents and musicians in each location where it was presented.

The publication brings together four ways of looking at Glorious: a short film made in response to six performances of Glorious by filmmaker Becky Edmunds; a music video shot in and around Lancaster and Morecambe by Lucy Cash; a critical overview of the process behind two iterations of the project by Elizabeth Lynch; and The Glorious Storybook, a collection of memories from throughout the process, edited and contextualised by writer Mary Paterson.

The publication is designed to reflect a process of letter-writing between strangers that lay at the heart of the project, and is packaged within a cover that can be posted directly to each recipient, resulting in a uniquely personalised book cover each time it is sent out.

#Dawn Chorus at the National Trust, Sunday 9th June 2013

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 09:55:00 -0400

As the sun rises on Sunday 9 June, we’re inviting the whole of the UK population to join the birds as they herald in a new day. Join us online and collaboratively create a new dawn chorus of tweets on Twitter during the hours from 2:45am to 5am. Anyone can follow this public performance using #dawnchorus, or join in by tweeting to and following @NTlovesLondon.

http://www.chelseafringe.com/event/dawn-chorus/

What will happen?

Led by a core group of seven writers stationed at National Trust places across the capital, anyone can participate in this open performance – a creative mass observation on Twitter. Birdsong at dawn is widely understood to be a vocal defence of territory; in Dawn Chorus the writing is specific to each writer’s location, tracking the changes in the environment through the dawn hours and the meeting of city with nature.

Creative writers, poets, bird lovers, outdoor enthusiasts and the wider public are invited to tweet about a place that is special to them.
The tweets produced will be collected and published online immediately after the event. By participating in Dawn Chorus at #dawnchorus you are allowing us to reproduce your tweets.

How to join in:
You are invited to observe a place you know, out of hours, and craft tweets reporting the sight and sound of daybreak.

§ Pick a place, this could be your back garden or anywhere you can safely be outdoors in the early hours.

§ Any time from 2:45am start your watch and tweet @NTlovesLondon. Our writers will tweet continuously from 2:45am to 5am.

§ Observe the sounds, sights and smell and feel of the place around you. Notice what is different in these dawn hours and write about it in your own style, tweeting to #dawnchorus.

§ Follow @NTlovesLondon for more ideas on what to write and what to look out for.

Dawn Chorus is an original concept by Natasha Vicars that has been developed through collaboration with Mary Paterson and the following writers: Joanna Brown, Tiffany Charrington, Eddy Dreadnought, Sally Labern and Tamarin Norwood.

Beyond Glorious: the Radical in Engaged Artistic Practices

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 08:48:28 -0400

Thursday 30 May to Sunday 2 June 2013, Birkbeck College and Artsadmin, London

What is the place of art in acts of social re-imagination and repair?
What languages can be found to articulate such practices?
Is it possible to break new ground within the realm of engaged artistic practices?

See the full programme and register here

Symposium organisers: Dr Louise Owen, Mary Paterson and Rajni Shah. With support from: Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, University of East London, Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Arts Council England (for Glorious)

So Below - the promise of more to come

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 12:41:00 -0500

A text written in response to So Below, a duet between Karen Christopher and Gerard Bell, produced by Haranczak/ Navarre Projects

Steam rises from the teapot at the back of the stage. At some point – if not now, then surely later – the water will be poured, and steam will rise from the cup. That’s what freshly boiled water is – anticipation, preparation. The promise of more to come.

So Below is a duet that unfolds as if Karen Christopher and Gerard Bell know what’s going to happen, but they haven’t discovered it yet. It appears like a story glimpsed in a stream of words that have tumbled out of a book in the wrong order. To watch, it is surprising. To remember, it is full of sensory pleasure, like a mist of steam rising from a silver spout.

Sometimes you can hear Karen’s footsteps before you see her: the sound is a crunch of boots on something hard, and it sounds of longing. You think: if only I could dance a ritual like Karen and Gerard and make absent bodies reappear. If only I could make the sound of Karen into something corporeal. They dance like they’re praying – swinging back and forth with the words of gravestone inscriptions falling from their lips, their tidy bodies folding and unfolding like envelopes of magic.

But that comes later.

First they dance like they’re dancing. They slip into a stageshow routine – something nostalgic. The song is a crackly recording of unrequited love and the stage is ripe with things that are missing. Their bodies move gently together in rhythm, except when they don’t. You look closer, and think: This is not harmony. This is something more veiled and modest, like a shy sister hiding her face from my gaze.

Sometimes you can sense things before you see them. Here are mounds of earth waiting for future roots and here is water, steaming with anticipation. Here are four feet kicking out in music hall style. Here are the elements – comforting and soft – of our mortal earth.

She hovers, she teeters … she almost falls. (But that was earlier.)

Sometimes you don’t know what is coming. Here are mounds of earth and here is a foot kicking them into a dusty mess. Here are two hands worrying the dusty mess into flat squares like freshly dug graves. Here is a story about a man who had something to prepare. Here are words coming out of Karen’s mouth as if they are as new to her as they are to you.

Steam rises from the teapot.

Gerard has a clutch of pebbles, lost or found. They clatter onto a hard surface but Karen and Gerard don’t turn to listen. Sometimes they know what each other is doing. Sometimes one of them leads and the other follows. They work together but apart in quiet disharmony, like a family of veiled sisters. Like the elements: earth and water. Like busy feet, worried hands, the sounds of longing.

And now they dance like they’re praying. They pray for the long dead, the buried, the underground. They pray for the bodies marked in stone as someone’s beloved, devoted, dearly missed. The bodies marked by two dates that mean nothing to the living: the day you’re born, which you can’t remember, and the day you die, when there’s no memory left. The dates fall from Karen’s and Gerard’s lips like prayers and the prayers fall from their bodies like veils of magic.

Everything that happened to the beloved happened in the absence in the middle. It happens still, in the sounds off stage; in the questions left unanswered and unsaid.

How does is feel it for a grown woman to walk on flowerpots, lifting each pot gingerly as she topples on one leg? What do you hope for when you watch her lose her balance and almost touch a toe to the ground? What is lost when she hops off, picks up her flower pots and leaves? Can you guess what will happen? Can you guess whose words she borrows when she starts to speak? Whose gestures he copies when he starts to dance? Whose body is itching? When they talk of itches, do they mean the interminable kind, or the pleasant kind? Is there a pleasure in watching someone else’s discomfort – existential or otherwise? Can you tell there will be an end? Can you tell from the steam rising and the earth arranged in rootless mounds and the chains waiting for buckets and the two people dressed simply like peasants that the stage will vibrate with absent meaning? That in a number of minutes or hours you will be putting your hands together to make a noise? That you will try to work a ritual, form a prayer, to bring their bodies back?

Gerard is an absent body in the middle; but that comes later. Karen would like to jump and remain in the air, like a ghost or a photograph of a breathless moment. Earlier, she nearly fell from a flowerpot tower.

There are three doors in the theatre, and they are all open. Offstage there are sounds and lights and sometimes movement. Something is happening in the leaks that slide in from elsewhere: it could be a rehearsal, or the main event, or both. It could be two people hovering in mid absence. It could be two people dancing in the middle.

Later, when they dance again, their dances will remember things that have happened recently. A gesture, a glance, a breathless moment. Their bodies hold memories more vivid than a scratch of a date carved into stone.

You think: No doubt there is steam rising from the teapot, although I have stopped looking. No doubt there is unrequited love, itching and a shy sister behind every promise of harmony.

Here is a man, and here is his voice, further away. It is Gerard, and he can imitate the dying. Here is a depiction of what it looks like to communicate with people who are neither present nor absent. This is what happens when a body is as frail as a ghost, with a voice that leaks from the far side of elsewhere.

Earlier, they stood together in silence. When they started to speak, they spoke as if the conversation had already begun.

No doubt there are already people speaking, silently or otherwise, about itching, dying and being born. No doubt there are words under veils and bodies turned to ghosts and sensory pleasures that I had forgotten to remember until they were drawn into this room with a ritual and a dance.

Here is a letter, written some time ago, that outlines the rules of happiness. The letter is being spoken and the speaker is being covered in earth. Here is the silhouette of an absent man, Gerard, who gets up, shakes himself down and stands next to his inverse silhouette. It looks like a man has been killed, marked and buried. You think: everything that was said about happiness happened in the absence in the middle.

What do you hope for?

Here is earth and here is water – a drawer full of water, hiding in plain sight, that has been persuaded all of a sudden to make a wave. Here is a flowerpot of water, spilling over Gerard’s coiled hand like a spring of life that can’t be contained. Here is the middle of something, the sprawling excess of living in all its wasteful necessity.

Here is everything.

Sometimes you find out just as something happens that you had known about it all along. Karen raises two buckets of water on chains, and water begins to flood the stage like anticipation. Water dripping. Water spilling. Water rushing round the thirsty roots of plants newly tucked into freshly dug graves.

Here is earth and here is water. Here is fire: candles floating on a drawer of water that sways with the memory of persuasion.

Here are gestures unravelled as if they brim with meaning, but they don’t know it yet.

Here is So Below. It appears like a truth traced across a pair of bodies that dance a duet almost out of time. To watch, it is surprising. To remember, it is full of sensory longing, like a mist of steam rising from a silver spout.

If only I could touch that water and feel the movement sweep along my fleshy body. I would play it over, like a ritual, or a dance, or a conversation that has already begun.

The stage is empty apart from the elements: earth, water, fire, burial, rebirth, memories, a spillage, the voice of a dying man, the dates of the beloved, the rules of happiness, the sound of unrequited love and a leak of light from elsewhere. The promise of more to come.

You think: Longing is the sister of anticipation.

You think: Karen and Gerard have left the stage with everything in it.

If only we could turn the knowledge of their absence into something corporeal. We start to clap. We clap a ritual. We clap to bring their bodies back.

We keep clapping.

Fantasy High Street

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 15:49:00 -0500

Imagine … a high street full of your wildest dreams …

A new model for art, business and public space. Launching 4th July 2013. Read more …

New publication

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 15:37:00 -0500

Getting It Out There: The future of touring and distribution for contemporary theatre and Live Art

A free publication, for download

This publication reflects on and responds to Getting It Out There, a one-day symposium exploring the future of touring for contemporary theatre and Live Art. The symposium was originally conceived by Tamsin Drury of hÅb to be developed with greenroom. Following the latter’s closure, it was developed and co-produced with Live at LICA and held in Lancaster on 12 May 2012, bringing together panels of art-form specialists to ask questions about the role of curators, programmers, producers and venues. It considered the wider implications of the structures used to fund, develop and present new work, and emerging models for touring countrywide.

Contributors: Mary Paterson, Theron Schmidt, Judith Knight, Claire Marshall, Bryony Kimmings, Kate McGrath, Michael Pinchbeck, Rajni Shah, Sam Trotman, Helen Cole, Thomas Frank, Matt Fenton and Alice Booth.

Publication edited by Mary Paterson and Theron Schmidt

Published by Live at LICA www.liveatlica.org and Live Art UK www.liveartuk.org

SPLAT! by The Famous Lauren Barri Holstein

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 04:07:00 -0500

A figure roller-skates blindly across the stage, her vision obscured by a giant deer mask, her arms flailing at either side, her voice singing karaoke-style to a Disney ballad. Half girl, half Bambi, the skidding ingénue slips and slides over tomato juice, topples, wavers and almost falls, before a team of assistants rushes to her aid.

This scene is one of a dizzying array of feminine stereotypes played outrageously by The Famous Lauren Barri Holstein in Splat! Here, she parodies a cutesy cartoon princess, held up (literally) by an entourage whose devotion simply highlights her dependence on others. Elsewhere, the performer and her semi-naked, female assistants perform a range of roles including bad tempered porn star, mute doll, exploited sex object, fairy-tale narrator, murdered body and soppy victim of heartbreak.

For Lauren Barri Holstein, the acting starts before the show begins. ‘The Famous …’ is, of course, a self-declared star. What she is famous for is not important - her name, like the products of her visual metamorphoses, is both a statement and an ambition. And, just like those visual changes, this declaration is less a form of identity than a claim to objecthood. By describing herself as ‘The Famous …’ Lauren Barri Holstein sets out how she wants to be seen. She’s not a woman play acting at celebrity – she is the very expression of fame. She’s not a woman who happens to be dancing (whether she’s performing in the guise of a Disney lead, a figure from an 80s film, or a demented R&B star) – she is the eternal dancing girl.

Even the artist’s desperation to be seen is a kind of parody-paradigm of femininity . As John Berger wrote in 1976, “men act, women appear”, so controlling what other people see is, in a twisted way, how women can access the means of their own production. Lauren Barri Holstein struts across stage like an early-80s Madonna, adopting a bossy demeanour (she orders her assistants around like slaves), an air of affected boredom (she moves between scenes as if it’s a burden to be there) and a casual, erotic awareness of her own image-making.

But ventriloquism is a precarious kind of identity.

As part of this image control, Lauren Barri Holstein forces her parade of underdressed assistants to film her travails, projecting a close up of her squashing tomatoes between her thighs, for example, to a large screen at the back of the stage. But there is also a single, male, fully dressed photographer who lurks around the edges of the show. This man does not seem to be under the star’s control. He photographs Lauren Barri Holstein even when she asks him to leave, and his photos remain hidden inside his camera. In a single moment, the iconic 80s Madonna becomes a vulnerable noughties Jordan, her picture taken and reused by those who don’t recognise her objecthood as power.

Indeed, it’s the relationship between objecthood and power that sits at the centre of Splat! Or rather, it writhes around in a vat of tomato juice, either waving or drowning. With each new identity that Lauren Barri Holstein shrugs on like an invisibility cloak, Lauren Barri Holstein herself disappears. This is partly because of the dramatic pointlessness of the task – it is of course a mainstay of feminism that a person cannot exist within a series of roles typecast from the outside. But the disappearance is also because the accumulated effect of multiple identities breaks down the mirage of appearance itself. Now a sexual predator, now a perpetrator of misogyny, now a fetish of desire, the variety of objecthoods Lauren Barri Holstein puts on display undermines any claims they have to representation. If a woman is either a virgin or a whore, then what are you looking at when you see her slip gracelessly between the two?

Another way of describing this variety could be as a kind of excess - Splat! is an excess of (tropes of) femininity, baring their bones until their guts spill, lifeless, onto the floor. And excess is indeed the defining principle of the show: each scene explodes with more bodies, more representation, more confusion.

But, inside Splat, excess becomes a kind of trope as well. Or, more accurately, this excess is not so much excessive, as conventional – albeit conventional in an alternative, performance art kind of way. The food-mess poured over young bodies recalls the artist Carolee Schneemann’s seminal performances like Meat Joy (1964)for example, while Lauren Barri Holstein’s impatient persona draws obvious comparison to the artist Ann Liv Young. Long passages in Splat are spent reading an alternative fairy tale in which a pliant female character explores the pleasures and dangers of her sexuality – a shadow, perhaps, of a revision by the feminist author Angela Carter.

In this context, it’s unclear whether excessive behaviour is being parodied as one more feminine trope that has been normalised beyond meaning, or whether it’s appearance is a genuine grab for power.

On one hand, these behaviours are now part of the encyclopaedia of voices available to women – identify with a pop star, or a princess, or a 1960s performance artist. But, just like Madonna’s 80s attitude, their efficacy has been dulled by distance from the socio-political context in which they were conceived. On the other hand, these devices of excess have a special status within Splat!: they define its structure and limit its content. Food-blood-bodily fluids accumulate onstage throughout, the fairy tale pulls the only narrative thread, and each new scene adds to a catalogue of excessive representations. As I watch the chaos pile up on stage, I wonder if Lauren Barri Holstein is making fun of the styles of radical feminist performance art, with the same wide eyed cruelty she uses to pull apart Disney’s saccharine charm. Or has she mistaken the tropes of stylistic excess for real power?

None of Lauren Barri Holstein’s relationships are simple. She seems to hold genuine affection for power ballads, princess dresses and roller-skating Bambis, even while she squashes their dreams like melons dropped from a great height. So perhaps it is only my prejudice that imagines she takes the sacred cows of performance art too seriously. Unlike Disney, I hold Carolee Schneemann to be important and admirable, and while I can laugh at Disney in almost any context, Schneemann commands a different kind of attention. But I also know that what was radical in 1964 is not radical in 2013; the grandmothers (or even the aunts and sisters) of feminist performance art cannot be copied, only revised. I long for someone with a name like ‘The Famous Lauren Barri-Holstein’ to tell me what feminism can be, what women can be, in the twenty first century.

But of course, that’s not her job. I’m sure if you asked her, Lauren Barri Holstein would say she’d rather hang upside down and eat a hamburger. The show ends with what can only be described as a masterstroke of visual spectacle, and it’s at moments like this – brash, bizarre and fiercely independent – that ‘The Famous …’ lives up to her self declared name.

The Next Big Thing Questionnaire

Sat, 19 Jan 2013 15:20:14 -0500

On 10/01/13 I received this invitation from David Berridge:

I’ve been asked to take part in a project called The Next Big Thing, for which I answered seven questions (below) and posted them on my blog. The next part is nominating another four people, who also post their responses to the questions online, and invite a further four writers/artists/poets to do the same. Anyway, I thought it might be something you’d consider playing with, for whatever next publication/script you are working on. It’s pretty flexible in terms of how you deal with the questions, and it doesn’t have to go on a blog per se, just somewhere online.

David received the invitation from Patrick Coyle, who received the invitation from SJ Fowler, who received the invitation from Kirsty Irving.

My answers concern the forthcoming pamphlet, SO.

Portrait of Franz Kafka

Where did the idea come from for the book?

SO was commissioned by Lemon Melon, who say:

‘Limonade es war alles so grenzenlos.’ was one of Franz Kafka’s last sentences in his Aus den Gesprächsblättern published in Briefe 1902–1924. Hélène Cixous, who repeatedly wrote about this sentence, translated it as ‘Limonade tout était si infini.’. This is translated in the english version of the Hélène Cixous Reader as ‘Lemonade everything was so infinite.

“Each title [in the series of seven books] explores one of the seven segments of this sentence – ‘Lemonade’, ’ __’, ‘everything’, ‘was’, ‘so’, ‘infinite’, ‘.’. The titles will be published in succession every three months starting with Lemonade by David Berridge. While Lemonade is in production Julia Calver will work on the second segment __ with the possibility of relating the content of __ to the content of Lemonade.

This form of publishing does not only aim to investigate Cixous’s translation of the sentence, but also intends to explore the grammatical connection of the different elements within the sentence, the possible interconnectivity / collaboration of the different voices, the words in their own grammatically disconnected function etc …’

http://lemonmelon.org/index.php/publications/lemonade—everything-was-so-infinite/

My section is ‘So.’ The word has an insistence about it – aurally as well as grammatically – so I went back to the Cixous translation of Kafka, as well as the essay she wrote about it, and mined both texts for phrases beginning with ‘so.’ I wanted to withdraw some of the persuasion from both of those texts –the words of a dying man, and an imagined love letter. This left me with a haunting, rhythmic series of intonations which structure the book.

I also went back to the first four publications in the series – by David Berridge, Julia Calver, Tamarin Norwood and Marit Muenzberg – as the basis for elements of a loose, fragmentary narrative. The narrative involves shadows from all these texts along with the two source texts: two girls watching a video tape, two lovers, lemons, dying flowers, text as an environment and a man on his deathbed.

What genre does your book fall under?

Art Writing?

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
Animated lemons.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

So you understand, we start in the middle.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

About three months of writing, and about three months of thinking time.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

As well as the structure of the commission, I was thinking about how language works as a technology and how it can be disintegrated. I’m particularly interested in gaps and omissions in language that contain the possibility of disruption, change or difference. It’s in those spaces that I think reading becomes most creative and enjoyable.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

The remaining two books in the series are being written by Emma Cocker and Rachel Lois Clapham.

"… ride up the escalator at Liverpool Street Station into a warm, dry day; watch sunlight spring in..."

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 13:26:00 -0500

“… ride up the escalator at Liverpool Street Station into a warm, dry day; watch sunlight spring in daggers from the mirrored windows of office buildings that line the road, their grand facades giving nothing away but a stream of buttoned up men and women who fill the streets with purpose, weaving through crowds of art students, creative entrepreneurs, recruitment agents, tourists, policemen who puff out their bullet proof vests and a street cleaner who wheels his cart over pavement detritus, sweeping up coffee cups and sandwich wrappers into weary piles and laughing into his hands-free-set down the line to Gambia …”

- NOËMI LAKMAIER: APPEARANCE, REPRESENTATION AND IDENTITY

By Mary Paterson

Read the full text here

Re:Read – Foreword

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 14:47:18 -0500

2.30-4pm

Friday 7th December at Jerwood Visual Arts, part of the exhibition ‘Now I Gotta Reason’

Taking inspiration from a history of reading as public and private, solo and collective, purposeful and perfunctory, David Berridge, Hyun Jin Cho, Alex Eisenberg and Mary Paterson have each curated a 10 minute reading group and discussion, to occupy the space of the Life Tutorial booth in the gallery.

All texts will be available on the day and read as part of the session, which inaugurates RE:READ, a series of events exploring reading as excess.

http://nowigottareason.co.uk/events/

One Morning In May : Artists' Talk & Screening

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 17:07:00 -0500

Artists’ Talk and Screening: 4th December, 7.30pm

Toynbee Studios

28 Commercial Street London E1 6AB

On Monday 28 May, Noëmi Lakmaier undertook a slow and exhausting test of endurance – an attempt to crawl from Toynbee Studios towards the City of London and one of London’s most iconic buildings, ‘The Gherkin’.

Accompanied by filmmaker Hydar Dewachi and writer Mary Paterson, Noëmi’s journey raises questions about economy, visibility and the socio-geographical differences in an area covering only one mile.

To mark the launch of a dedicated website documenting the event, a micro-exhibition at Toynbee Studios and a newly commissioned essay by Mary Paterson, we will be presenting the premiere screening of Hydar Dewachi’s film of Noemi’s perfomance followed by a panel discussion chaired by Lois Keidan (Live Art Development Agency).

http://www.artsadmin.co.uk/events/3229

Beyond Glorious: The Radical in Engaged Artistic Practices

Sat, 17 Nov 2012 04:31:42 -0500

Call for papers, workshops and other explorations

Beyond Glorious: The Radical in Engaged Artistic Practices
Thursday 30 May to Sunday 2 June 2013

Birkbeck College, University of London and Artsadmin

What is the place of art in acts of social re-imagination and repair? What languages can be found to articulate such practices? Is it possible to break new ground within the realm of engaged artistic practices?

This is an open call for contributions to the symposium Beyond Glorious: The Radical in Engaged Artistic Practices. The symposium marks the end of Rajni Shah Projects’ Glorious. It aims to bring together people from different spheres of life to discuss and experience the meanings, methods and effects of art in relation to engaged and radical practices. The symposium is open to everyone - practitioners, thinkers, facilitators and audience members. We are particularly keen to include thinkers who are not working within an academic context.

The final show in the Glorious tour is on 1 December 2012, 8pm at Live at LICA in Lancaster. For more information and booking, please visit:www.liveatlica.org/whats-on/rajni-shah-projects-glorious.

Co-organisers:
Rajni Shah (Rajni Shah Projects)
Mary Paterson (independent writer)
Dr. Louise Owen (Birkbeck College, University of London)

For the full call for proposals please visit: www.rajnishah.com/beyond-glorious
For further information on Glorious please visit: www.rajnishah.com/glorious-invitation-lancaster

The Field of Performance, 9th November at Somerset House

Sat, 03 Nov 2012 18:21:00 -0400

http://www.redrawingthemaps.org.uk/schedule/friday.html

With Chris Goode, Mary Paterson, Theron Schmidt & others.

“The field that you are standing before appears to have the same proportions as your own life.”

John Berger has had some direct and notable involvement in European theatre, both through his own plays and in collaboration with Simon McBurney / Complicite. But for many theatre makers and thinkers, the whole span of Berger’s work and the qualities and tendencies of his praxis provide a stimulating variety of cues and jumping-off points for enlarging and enriching the territories of performance.

This thoughtful, playful experiment is curated by writer and maker Chris Goode, who is drawing on Berger for a new book, The Forest and the Field, about how we imagine the spaces in which theatre happens. Joining Chris for a conversation in various proximities to John Berger’s example will be the critical writers Mary Paterson and Theron Schmidt, while a group of performers will respond live to the dialogue, and the unpredictable interplay between these two improvised encounters will gradually shape the contours of the emergent event.

Redrawing the Maps is a free, open event for anyone who is inspired by the work of John Berger and/or involved with the themes with which his work connects. It takes place between 5-10 November, 2012 in the spaces around the John Berger: Art And Property Now exhibition at the Inigo Rooms, Somerset House.

#networkwriting

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 15:11:00 -0400

Online dialogue with Nathan Jones (Mercy Online) in relation to ‘PERFORMANCE WRITING NETWORK.’

Starts on the Performance Writing page on Facebook (19/10/12)

https://www.facebook.com/performancewriting?fref=ts&filter=2

Continues on Furtherfield

http://www.furtherfield.org/blog/mary-paterson/networkwriting

http://www.furtherfield.org/blog/nathan-mercy/networkwriting

http://www.furtherfield.org/blog/mary-paterson/morenetworkwriting

To be published by Writing PAD Journal, 2013

Thompson's live: The Chris Goode & Company Podcast

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 04:29:52 -0400

Mon 24th Sept - fortnightly at Stoke Newington International Airport

8pm (recording starts 8.30pm, ends 10pm)

We’re supremely excited to be the home for this series of discussions that promise to inspure and invigorate and take us, if not to the edge of thought then Christmas at least, via some extraordinarily interesting people. Come and be part of the live audience for these recordings of the new fortnightly CG&Co pordcast, featuring discussion around theatre, performance, politics and ideas, hosted by Chris Goode

September 24th

Sarah Punshon (Curator of Performing Arts, Natural History Museum)

Lynne Kendrick (Central School of Speech and Drama)

Clive Bell (Musician and Music Writer)

October 8th

Judith Knight (ArtsAdmin)

David Jays (Theatre and Dance Critic)

Andrea Brady (Poet)

October 22nd

Phelim McDermott (Co-artistic Director, Improbable)

Rajni Shah (Performance Maker)

John Hall (Poet and Critical Writer)

November 5th

Wendy Housoun (Movement/ Theatre Artist)

Mary Paterson (Writer/ Curator; Co-Director, Open Dialogues)

Dominic Lash (Musician)

From Stoke Newington International Airport

Podcasts

"I am proposing that you find a way to see each of the duets ... and that you respond to them in writing."

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 13:08:00 -0400

From October 2012 I will be working with Karen Christopher and Haranczak/ Navarre Performance Projects to write in response to three duets.

More about Haranczak/Navarre Performance Projects here

So Below

A Duet (Gerard Bell & Karen Christopher)

Performances in October and November 2012. More info here

Karen Christopher is a collaborative performance deviser, performer, teacher and founder of Haranczak/Navarre Performance Projects. She was a member of the Chicago-based performance group Goat Island for 20 years until the group disbanded in 2009. She is an associate artist of Chelsea Theatre.

OH SEMINAR!

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 04:46:00 -0400

curated by Mirene Arsanios and Valerio Del Baglivo

Symposium: 15. - 18. September 2012

Villa Romana, Via Senese 68, 50124 Florence, Italy

The three-day summer school hosted by the Villa Romana in Florence is an attempt to reconsider pedagogical forms traditionally linked to the production of knowledge. Through a series of talks, performances, and collective experiments, Oh Seminar! performatively revisits acts of reading, writing, and dialoguing pondering upon the the politics of transmission and its aesthetic dimension. Can reading, writing or taking notes become aesthetic practices rather than utilitarian tools?

Presenters include: Open Dialogues (Mary Paterson & Rachel Lois Clapham) / Grant Watson / Iacopo Seri / Una Lezione/ Read-In Collective

http://www.villaromana.org

ADRIFT

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 17:06:00 -0400

ADRIFT: