It's Getting Closer!! *eeee*

The show is fast approaching (far too quickly for my liking) so have uploaded a few images to show you all what I have been up to! For anyone who knows me-I know that you're going to laugh your asses off at the first photo. :o)

I have to say Health and Safety in the college has been a pain in the bum this week - but it has actually been quite good for me. I have had to stabilise my tables and make them into a stage, as well as cleaning and stabilising my benches so I can walk on them.

 I came on this course saying that I wanted to learn the practicalities of putting on your own work. I don't feel like I have been doing that as yet. So meeting Steve our technician has been fantastic! I have been drilling, hammering and sanding away. Dave our lighting guy has also been fantastic helping me puting up my lights, teaching me about colours and helping with careers advice in the process. I finally feel like I am doing what I came here to do.

Anywhoo - I'm scarily still script writing!! I changed my writing style this week which is good and bad. I have returned to my old style of writing which I am inspired by - but it has set me back a bit in the process... where there's a will there's a way... I hope.

This was my first day having costume, set and lights all good to go. I'm ACTUALLY working in a black box studio... A week to go and for the first time I am fully equipt! LOVE IT!

I am also really excited by seeing that the Tea Appreciation Society are advertising my show for me! Yeeha! 

And thanks once again to Harriet for documenting my rehearsal for me!

Tea Appreciation Society

Well... Today I joined 273 other people and became an official member of the Tea Appreciation Society! I have received a lovely hemp shopping bag - ideal for props as well as shopping me thinks! Two special teabags of Rooibos tea (I shall save them for a special occasion), two I heart tea stickers, a tea appreciation badge, a welcome letter and my official membership certificate complete with personal number! 

The Tea Appreciation Society was originally set up by designers but their website says that they are largely made up artists, musicians, photographers and other creative type who also love tea! Their website is well worth checking out as is their blog - lots of activity going on around tea! :o)

I have emailed them today to see whether anybody would like to come and see the show, or whether it is possible for them to advertise my show at all. They sound like an ideal audience to me and would love to meet more tea fanatics! 

What a good day!

Oxford Tea and Rubbish Landlords

The fact that my landlord is a pain in the bum has nothing much to do with this post - except I wanted to rant about it so slipped it into the title, and I'm sure that over a cup of tea tonight Stevie and I will rant about that... A LOT! hehe

Anyway back to the show which is rapidly approaching... I have been baking with tea, researching tea, joining the tea appreciation society! I now have a director for my show which is proving to be a HUGE help. I have met with Doug and sorted out how to do the sound cues, and sharing the lighting with Sally (floor plan to be produced tomorrow if all goes well). I have been surfing the net for tea blogs (of which there are a lot) and ordering tea props for the show... man it has been a bit crazy! 

I'll blog more on the practical side of things later as I get the show up on its feet this week with Maike Hale-Jones my marvellous director who I met with last week. Maike is proving to be a great person to work with - she has loads of ideas and comes from a live art / theatre background that is the same as my own, so we have very similar taste and opinions on performance - only Maike has the advantage of having an outside eye with training as a director! I showed Maike the video of the scratch performance and the first thing that she picked up on was the pace, delivery, and static nature of the material which was brilliant as they are the areas that I know need working on. 

I have already changed the delivery of the show, which works well with how Maike saw it becoming a bit more energetic - anyway we shall see... I kind of need to finish the script! HA!

I realised this week that I haven't actually had tea with people that I know! So I set off to Oxford and shamelessly begged everyone I know to turn up and have tea with me. I had tea with lots of old friends which was great to catch up. It was also interesting to see how different the conversations were. My friends know me and my relationship to my Grandma so were able to relate to me on a different level. When I have had tea with strangers the focus was much more on them and what they wanted to tell me, whereas with my friends it was more about me and how I feel about the project. Analysing what I've learnt, and my relationship to my Gran. It was great because I didn't need to spend time going into any background stuff - it was all already there.

turns out that Brad (above) doesn't like tea if any of you are wondering about the Grolsh can in the tea mug! 

After having tea with friends individually everyone kindly agreed to drink EVEN more tea and have a group tea. It was great to have more than one person there as it meant that I didn't need to do as much work in the conversation but could observe a lot more. We kept it all girls as I felt I wanted to get the 'gossip' angle... and gossip we did. 



After girlie tea - I went and had tea with some of my friends parents... yes by this time I did have a tea baby in my belly! They are all people that I have known for a few years now - it was great to get the perspective of people from my parents generation on the project whilst already having knowledge of me and my family.  

It was a lot of tea this weekend! Fun though :o)

Some References

I have been thinking recently about other types of work that I really like apart from performance. Appearing in the list were things such as, documentaries like 'Tribal Wives' , films like 'Priscilla Queen of the Desert', and books by Dave Gorman and Danny Wallis, which has made me consider how these interests are affecting my work. 

The main thing that I think attracts me to certain works is when they are about journeys. There is something about watching, reading, or hearing about someone's journey that I find really fascinating. Looking specifically at Dave Gorman and Danny Wallis (who I know aren't everyone's taste); I really like reading their books because they appear so pointless! They set themselves the stupidest set of rules, with no real point to them; they are not aiming to discover some hidden truth or make a comment on anything overtly political, but the set of self-imposed rules then sets in motion an unforeseen chain of events.

More than anything, the most interesting thing about these journeys and unforeseen events, is the people that they meet along the way; the different ways of living, the different stories that every person has to tell. What is it about this that is so interesting? 

Writing my dissertation I spent a lot of time excavating why the notions behind 'liveness' are so important. I have come to the conclusion that there are a lot of presuppositions underpinning this notion; notions of authenticity, community, and presence, based on the fact that it is happening in the 'now', that don't hold that much water any more in the wake of Auslander's writing. Writing my dissertation has made me realise why I create performance. It isn't so much the fact that it is happening in the 'now' that gives performance a sense of authority and worth over other mediaitised forms and this is why I choose to create it, but that I personally like communicating to a group of people in this manner. I think that I like performing and telling a narrative to people who are in front of me, seeing their reaction and perhaps having a discussion with them. This isn't to say that there aren't other ways of achieving this - just performance is my preferred method.

Looking back to my work and Organic Theatre, I am realising that it is once again the process that is prevailing in my interest here. I like being told a story, especially if it includes the journey of how the creator got there. I like knowing motivation, imposed rules, people that were met, things that were discovered - most of the time without any grand statement behind the work. I think that removing the 'dominant message' or 'lesson' that the audience must take away with them from a performance allows the work to be left open to interpretation without having to fragment the narrative so much.  

The journey of my tea stories is important to me and I am considering how develop it in the next couple of weeks. I'm not sure that I am happy with just having tea with people in a park anymore but am struggling with the development. 

I am going to be doing a performance in college next Thursday if anyone is around - would be great to have your opinions. I am going to focus this section on purely tea rather then the process and the tea participants and see what comes out of it.

Any ideas and suggestions as always appreciated