On reflection - a review of 2012

It seems appropriate (and popular) to use the time of year to look back and reflect on the previous year. As things were a little tough in the middle/latter stages of the year for me I have been a little reluctant to do this but looking over my blog posts for 2012 I am reminded that I was involved in a great number of very positive things.

Photograph by Matt Tullett

So, and in no particular order, here are a few of them:

1. At the beginning of June I was lucky enough to be selected to be one of 24 artists to play and make work over 24 hours at Contact Theatre for 24 Arty People. Contact's offering was so completely generous - opening up their entire building for us to enjoy and offering numerous members of staff to make it easy for us to do whatever we wanted to do. It was utterly joyful and introduced me to new artists and friends.
2. In May i was selected to go to Northern Stage in Newcastle and pitch for Title Pending. I was thrilled to be invited but quickly realised when I got there that I wasn't ready. There time scale would not work for me and vice versa. However, this was the first test of my ideas for 'One' and as such it was really useful.  It was also a statement to my peers (and myself) that I am a serious, professional theatre maker and that that is the career I intend to pursue.
3. In June I also discovered I had won one of the Emerge Mentored Commissions to develop 'One' over a year. This was an important first step as it was this injection of cash and support which undoubtedly led to me being able to successfully apply for Arts Council funding over the summer.
4. October was very tough for me but when I heard about the open call for a community choir to record backing vocals for Hope and Social's new album I knew it was something I should do. I've always loved to sing. It is something I do a lot when I am alone. Also, having watched Gavin's workplace choirs I was convinced by the uplifting power of communal singing. I'd come across Hope and Social when they made Bring The Happy with Invisible Flock. They provided the music for the celebratory, raucous, party of a theatre show in 2011. The day was so open and the band created such a welcoming atmosphere. Everyone was encouraged to bring food to share and the day was full of fun. Not everything we recorded made the final edit sadly but every time I listen to the album I am uplifted, just as I was that day.
5. I'm a big believer in Devoted & Disgruntled, an event which creates a unique space for everyone with an interest in theatre to talk about anything they think is important. It's a conference without hierarchies. No key speakers. A space where artistic directors sit alongside students, where Guardian critics sit alongside administrators and everyone has a voice. I went to two this year. The annual event in London in February and the roadshow event in Leeds in October. The fact that they weren't great for me is more to do with the head space I was in than any doubts I have about these events. It's all about possibilities and BEING THERE. There aren't many other events that get all of those people in the same room at the same time, so what happens there might be a small shift in opinion or the beginning of a whole new collaboration but it is always worth making the effort for. In fact I am heading to the annual London event later this month so watch this space for a debrief...
6. In November I went to a fantastic workshop/sharing for Furnace at West Yorkshire Playhouse. Unlimited Theatre were hosting and managed to create a very open and accepting space for play. The group was very mixed and as with Devoted & Disgruntled I was very pleased to see lots of new faces (of all ages). There were early sharings of work in development and a joyfully, unruly attempt to make a group piece of theatre based on a few small rules. The conversations and joy flowed well in to the night as many of us found ourselves dancing til the wee small hours.
7. 2012 was a fantastic year for 'The Reservation'. Although Ellie and I didn't do a lot of gigs the ones we did were very well accepted and culminated in a fabulous 4 star review from Guardian critic Lyn Gardner. She followed this up with another mention in an article on the therapeutic power of theatre in releasing grief a week later and finally inclusion in an end of year round up. This article named our teeny weeny show alongside the RSC and Stan's Cafe. It's incredible to think that we made such an impression on someone who is so well regarded. I cannot express how proud I am to have made this gently affecting show. 
8. I started making my first solo show 'One'. On occasion I think I might be mad but mostly I am enjoying constructing something from scratch. playing with ideas and form, enjoying being in front of an audience again. This is something that comes from me. Perhaps this is the ultimate act of egotism but I think it is more than that. It feels like a rite of passage. That after this, whether a roaring success or a crashing failure, I will truly be able to call myself a theatre maker. It's terrifying and glorious. 2012 is where is started and its already changed a lot. 2013 is where it will come to life and I am pretty excited.

Art Is The Light At The End Of The Tunnel

Since it is Love Arts Festival at the moment, a festival looking at arts, mental health and wellbeing, it seems appropriate to come clean about what has been/is going on with me.

I think as an artist no-one will mind if I say I have been in a dark place recently. A place, like a cross between a hamster wheel and a dark tunnel, a relentless place filled with anger, despair and self-loathing. But as an artist I think many of you will understand when I say that it is mainly due to my art (and the support of friends and my incredible Mother) that I am beginning to pull myself out and feel like myself again, which just makes me even more grateful that I have made it a big part of my life.

Going to Devoted and Disgruntled, at the beginning of the month, felt like being in a war zone. It was too much all at once. Too many people, too much noise, too much choice. I wanted to be there but I wasn't, really. I spent all morning resisting the urge to run away. The pains in my chest were near constant and I felt sick. I stayed because I wanted to support the event itself. I had been looking forward to it for so long. But I was removed and I little numb and got very little out of it as a result.

Since then I've been making plans and rehearsing for One - getting my funding from Arts Council England was a massive boost, although even that felt like more pressure than I could handle, initially - I went back to High Spirits, a local choir, and I took part in an open call for community singers to be on the Hope and Social album. These were all good things (singing really is one of the most joyful things you can do) that were incredibly emotionally draining, just to find the strength to get there in the first place, but each one made me feel more like someone I actually recognised and liked. Me. 

I've been doing The Reservation again this week (more dates to come) and that has been tough. Don't get me wrong I am immensly proud of The Reservation and I want to do it but... I suppose I knew it would be tough. A 14 hour day is tough at the best of times but when you have been off work for the best part of a month it's a really BIG investment of time and energy. As soon as I was finished on day one I was overwhelmed by relief and a flood of emotions. Not because it was too much but BECAUSE IT MATTERS. I had been so afraid that I couldn't get through it and I hadn't even realised how scared I was. But I did get through it, I enjoyed it, and day two was even better. Today I have the post-performance blues, but I always get those so I'm not too worried.

I have never looked in to art therapy, I suppose I have always just naturally had that in my life without thinking about it as such, but having recently felt the specific benefits of the sanctuary of the creative brain space I can see why so many people think it is so important. According to Love Arts “One in four of us will experience a mental health problem in our lifetime”. That seems like a lot to me.

This is only one of many things I am doing to improve my own mental health, including reducing my caffeine (for the anxiety attacks), looking in to meditation and natural remedies (for the sleep issues) and most importantly talking to someone who can help. The next stage will be returning to work, which terrifies me but thanks to all this I am building up stronger defences to make it manageable at least. I have to keep reminding myself, this is just a difficult patch. I am lucky that I am not someone who suffers ongoing clinical depression. And I will, of course, be continuing with my art and doing all I can to make that the highlight of each week. To say it has kept me alive is a slight exaggeration, but only slight, and I am grateful to have had the access to it and the ability to use it. I'm sure there are many who don't.

Emerging and Re-emerging

On gaining one of the Emerge Mentored Commissions 2012

Life is very exciting and scary and full of possibilities at the moment. Having spent over a decade doing ‘proper jobs’ I am now making a commitment, to being a performance maker, the likes of which I have never made before.

In terms of my creative career I'm a little older than what most people think of as an emerging artist, which is why the Emerge Mentored Commission is so great. What the organisations involved are most interested in is genuinely helping artists to move to the next level and it's not restricted by any arbitrary age limit. In the last couple of years I have made work with other people. Last year I collaborated with Ellie Harrison to create and tour The Reservation, which was a site-specific piece co-commissioned by Emerge. Now with their support I am working towards my first solo show so this feels like a nice, natural progression.

The term emerging also feels appropriate for where I am in the process of making 'One', as I am very much still at the beginning. I’m making slow and steady progress and having a year-long scheme to support that process is going to be invaluable. Not to mention the access to other artists and people who are willing to help raise my profile. Already rehearsal space and support, in the shape of Dick Bonham, have been made available to me and with the work in progress showing on Wednesday 20 June* I get to try it out and get that all important audience reaction. The piece I am making is about solitude and the loneliness we all feel at times and how we cope but it is also about being present in a theatre space and the desire to connect so I need an audience to really test it out. At least, I think this is what it is about at the moment. I am open to the possibility that the creative process is rarely linear and that rich material is found in the tangents…

I can’t wait to see what happens next.

*I wrote this peice for the Leeds Inspired blog before I did my scratch performance, though it didn't get used which is why I am posting it here now.

On loneliness #2 - making a solo show

So, I've just spent the best part of two weeks writing applications for two different artist support schemes with two very different timelines. It's been a fascinating, and if I am honest bloody painful, process. This is all new to me: deciding all by myself what my piece will be, what my intentions are, who I want to work with and how I am going to achieve all (any) of it.

And everyone keeps telling me not to be in a room on my own. I've just read this blog and there was a session about this kind of thing at Devoted & Disgruntled during which time I made the mistake of saying, "But surely it's just like playing on your own when you were a kid which I did a lot of the time and was fine. Why can't you approach making work as a game. Or use games to free up your mind a little and get you in to the right head space?" (I'm paraphrasing here) and I was met with silence... You'll notice it is not included in the report. It made perfect sense to me but apparently not to many others. Though afterwards one woman came up to me and said, "I completely agree with you." Made my whole day. But I digress...

I'm not arguing with the people who say don't be alone in the rehearsal space. Some of the people who have said this to me are far more experience than I am and I don't doubt their opinion but I find myself wondering how one makes a solo performance about loneliness without going through a few difficult days alone in a rehearsal room? It kind of feels like that is the point. And I almost WANT it. Does that make me a masochist? Maybe, but I have found myself looking forward to putting myself in a room and seeing how I cope.

There are certain things I expect. I KNOW I am a world class procrastinator. I know that I will need to switch off the internet and my phone and put a ban on Twitter (which has to be the best work avoidance tool ever) unless I go online for something very specific.

Whether or not I am successful in gaining the support I have applied for I am going to get some time in a room. Not totally alone. Maybe I'll alternate days but I think the first day I HAVE to be alone. What I will take in to the space with me is some tools. Games to play, music to listen to, big sheets of paper to make lists on, some pre-set tasks and perhaps my favourite suggestion from the properly lovely Laura Mugridge I'm going to create a happy, silly dance to break the mood. When Laura said it a light bulb went off in my head. It made perfect sense to me. When Ellie and I were making The Reservation we watched Great Day by The Lonely Island repeatedly as an antidote to all the grief.

So, I won't really be alone at all. I will be there with an army of collaborators. Just not, you know, physically.

Serendipity - another one I wrote earlier

In looking forwards I often find myself looking back. In trying to define myself as an artist and explain 'my practice' I need to look at my experience. I still don't know who I am or whether I have a 'way of working' yet. I am still putting the pieces together and I'm not even sure I have all the edges yet. Maybe the corners.

But here is another small piece. 

Serendipity 

"I gratefully accept what the Universe offers..."

As artists we often make work using or around found objects, enjoying those objects that excite and inspire the imagination. But what of those rare occasions when what the Universe offers is exactly what we were looking for?

During Locked-in with Stacy Makishi (at the Greenroom in Manchester, October 2009) we were asked to describe a performance fantasy to another participant. These duets of offer and response were an ongoing theme of the day. Enjoying a moment of free-falling, free association, I let the word 'fantasy' dominate roll around my mind and run wild. What I envisioned was a moment where I might be beautiful. Tall and elegent upon a plinth bathed in light, wearing a gown that fell all the way to the ground. A pause, before being flown off and swept away by the original hero superhero, with whom I have had a long-time love affair, Superman.

I had misinterpreted the task... this was not a real performance fantasy to be presented it was the latent fantasy of a child but the desire was real.

Later some of the group were hunting around to see what the Greenroom had that might be useful in the way of set when they stumbled upon some old wooden gym equipment including two tall boxes - the kind you used to suspend benched from - they looked like two high stools. It seemed too good to be true. My plinth had arrived. Standing a little taller than me they were perfect. And the opportunity was too good to miss.

The stage was set.

I was wrapped from head to toe in white toilet paper, which split and tumbled, falling in long ribbons as I walked slowly across the stage and mounted the plinth. These ribbons trailed almost to the ground. Once lit by a spotlight a microphone was lowered to me. I took it, brought it to my lips and from another spotlight a voice sang 'Feeling Good' by Nina Simone while lip-synced along.

Another moment of symmetry.

The song was agreed on, somewhat out of necessity, as it was one we had on an iPod so that the singer could listen to it and that we both knew the words to. But it is also a song that resonates for me and I had used before. It was the song my friends and I used for the make-up scene a piece called Im(art)ation in our third year at uni and that I had used for the striptease in Abbi, my dissertation piece based on the character of Abigail from Arthur Millar's The Crucible.Three moments of defining femininity and strong visual representations of my sexuality on stage, coming together, unified by a single song.

These moments of serendipity, the beauty in the unforseen and unplanned are what matters to me. The echoes that resonate with your own experiences as an artist and as an audience member.

I'm sure there have been more since - the death, displaying of the body and funeral of Jimmy Saville at The Queen's Hotel where we created and performed The Reservation as mentioned in an earlier post here for example.

What he said.

Reading a recent Third Angel post in which Alex talks about the Inspiration Exchange a few sentences struck a cord;

"Performance in as much as we know what’s going to happen and they don’t; or, at least, we know more about what’s going to happen than they do. We don’t know what they’re going to do or say. We hope that they will do or say more than they would have expected, had we told them in advance, what was going to happen.

Their interaction is what makes the work. It cannot even be properly rehearsed without an audience member sitting opposite. Making the performance involves making the space in which the audience member is allowed - encouraged - to be active, be open, be creative. A space in which they feel comfortable enough to think about things, talk about things that at, say, 10 o’clock that morning, they hadn’t thought about for days, weeks, even years."

What struck me is that this is exactly how I feel about The Reservation. Ellie and I were recently asked to discuss our process and the intentions behind the piece for a zine I Stood Up And I Said Yeah and I wish I had been as eloquent as Alex. 

You can read the whole post on the Third Angel blog.

This post is long overdue...

I must have started this some time in the week of the 22 August and it is now November. It is so long ago that I have no idea why I hesitated to post it at the time. Hmmm... Anyway. For all four of my followers - here it is!

Making The Reservation - we're in week two now so perhaps this post is long overdue. The deed is almost done. Tomorrow is the last day of rehearsals for now...

But it's been good, really good. Not easy but good. The piece has changed dramaticially since we scratched it at ARC and at Sunday Lunch Club in July. Many of the themes remain and the heart of the piece while having shifted is still an investigation in to grief, the sufferers of and the suffering from grief.

Will I still be dressed as an Elephant? Maybe, maybe not. Will I spend hours crying in a bathroom... No. Thankfully. I'm really not sure my throat could withstand it. Then again, I may not be 'in' it at all.

It will be a repectful and tender performance for one person at a time which I hope people will love. I am immensly proud to have been a part of it.