I Moved...

I've moved to a brand new blog. 

xxxx

So Recently...

I've been bogged down with writing some applications. It's been stressful and it has taken me away from any thoughts about practice altogether, but its been good in that I have been forced to rebuild some of the momentum that I created during the MA.

It is easy to let life get in the way once you aren't in the college 'bubble'. It really is a discipline that I don't seem to posses. 

Now that the application is done with all of my hope behind it I am determined to get my practice going again. I am literally squirming, aching and itching to be working on a new project... I just am trying far too hard. Everything that I think might be good enough isn't, I don't have any thing worth saying, can't settle on themes or topics... this form of procrastination is familiar to me and something that really affected me during my MA. I should really just learn to not panic so much. 

So, to try and combat this I have contacted a few people that I met in the crystal palace artists group and through the Leroy Street Exhibition that Harriet and I took part in, to have regular meetings in a local pub. We've only had one so far (there is another one tomorrow) but I think that it is a positive step. Already we are discussing the possibility of showing work together in CP, discussing ideas, swapping references - all the kind of things which are vital for me to remain productive and creative.

What I find most encouraging is that we all have very different practices, yet seem to be able to find cross overs and issues that are important to us, just represented or dealt with in very different ways.

T.A.T.T at Southwark

Most of the pictures that were taken for my documentation aren't really usable - but thought that I would stick them up here anyway...

They don't really show what the set was like or the changes that were made which is a real shame. Most of the feed back from people that had seen it before at college was that they preferred the set here as it was more eclectic and suited the feel of the piece. People also seemed to like the bar setting for the work. I was initially really worried that I didn't have any lighting to punctuate the piece, but it turned out not to matter - no body noticed that it was missing which can only be a good thing.

An old friend of mine from when I was in Sixth Form College came to see it which was amazing. She is an actress now and gave me some really great feedback about things that I think I have been neglecting without realising. 

My friend said that what she noticed most was that my performance skills have slipped since she saw me performing as a teenager! Really basic things like using and controlling my breathing to punctuate and create phrases in the work, I struggled with stillness and silences, my posture and gestures aren't as clear or as held as they should be. Her comments really struck a cord with me as I realised that she was right and that it was great to have someone there to look at it from a technical point of view. 

It's so easy to when you are creating, writing, and directing your own work to get so caught up with the content and the 'art' behind it, that it is so easy to overlook your practical skills. Performing techniques aren't really easy and are things that need constantly working on. I've rewritten the beginning of T.A.T.T again and will be working on my performance skills when I get to perform it again. 

I think that I still have a lot to learn about documentation and how to control it when I'm not taking the pictures.

Dissertation

I've finally found the time to put my MA Dissertation on the internet. To view it please go to http://laurabean123.wordpress.com/

As always I'm looking for input...

Some Baby Seeds

... are being planted in my bored little brain. Ideas are there that are so new, so fragile, that everytime I try to discuss them with someone they shatter in my hands and become banal and nothing worth uttering. Yet the desire to start working again keeps on niggling.

Living with Stevie obviously has an affect on me because I have started to research fairy stories again... no I take that back... maybe it is a combination of Stevie and this time of year - I have just realised that this is also what I was working on this exact time last year, with Stevie, for the group show at college. Ah how the past comes around and around and around.

Stevie and I started a project for the group show where I re-appropriated newspaper stories into allegorical tales using the language of fairy tales. It was for an audience of one at a time and also had an accompanying shadow play that Stevie designed... some of these ideas are obviously still floating in freeplay with me.

I recently went to the Press night of Cinderella at the Lyric! Wow! I was really in love with the show - possibly just my sick little brain, but I found this version, with the direction and the Grimm's writing far more enchanting and christmasy than the 'traditional' version with a fairy godmother. It was dark and magical all in one go - if it wasn't advertised as a kids show I would have been demanding that the dark nature be pushed even further... after all fairy tales were originally meant for adults. Funnily enough I met Liz, who played Cinderella, a couple of months ago at a Devoted and Disgruntled night at Shunt. That was an added bonus.

So - that is some stuff that is at the root of my shattering ideas... here are a few more:

"I had to produce a discourse that would be readable only for those who would make their own translation from the point of view of their own adventure." (The Emancipated Spectator: Ranciere, 2007)

"I wanted to write a story that would feel, to the reader, like something he or she had always know. Something familiar, even if the elements were as original as I could make them." (Neil Gaiman in this artical)

Reacently, walking home from work I heard someone shouting my name .. turned around and saw an almighty chunk of my past standing at London Bridge station. One of those people who you fall out with under awful, hurtful, hateful circumstances, eight years ago, but still think about them all the time; never expecting or wanting to see them again. One of those people that you imagine, if you ever saw them again you would probably just blank them and say, "I'm sorry do I know you!?" before sharply turning around and running away... wishing that you had just said "Sorry".

In one swift, totally unexpected movement, I was hugging her and was so happy that our paths had crossed on a day when she hadn't even entered my head. All the anger that I think we both thought would be felt just wasn't there and an agreement was made that enough water had been passed under that bridge for it to be built again... so we are going for a drink tomorrow... and I remembered a fairy story that has been lost, that we wrote together as teenagers.

As We Speak...

I am sat behind a reception desk... earning money. Unable to get a full time job I have resigned myself to sporadic temp work, to pay the rent, only to realise I never wanted a full time job in the first place - no wonder I didn't get one. But my bills are mounting, christmas is coming and my placement is ending. I am obsessed with all the wrong things. No new work on this horizon.

As we speak... the sentence "It is the power that each of us possesses in equal measure to make our own way in the world... She participates in the performance if she is able to make her own story from the story in front of her" (The Emancipated Spectator, Ranciere: 2007) goes round and round my head... I'm doing what now in the world?

Realising that choices are hard work and I'm not putting enough of it in; the new year approaches and I will be a little clieched and resign myslef to a new beginning... maybe I will start that early.

The Art of Taking Tea Continues...

I have my first out-of-college performance coming up for 'The Art of Taking Tea'. I will be performing at Southwark Playhouse as part of their Secrets programme on the 4th of November 1.15pm.

The programme is perfect for 'TATT' as the £5 entry fee includes sandwiches and cups of... yes you guessed it.. tea!! I'm really excited about it but have lots of work still to do. The performance will take place in their bar area which has a really lovely atmosphere but there is a serious lack of lighting and set available to me. 

I'm desperately trying to get them to let me in and see what I will have so that I can re-write the piece but between my lack of steady schedule at the moment and their uber workload we aren't getting that far :o) I'm sure that it will be fine and am currently turning my living room into picnic areas and will shortly be forcing Sally and Stevie to help me adapt things! mwahaha

It is really nice after having a break from the performance to start to look at it again and see how it has evolved and changed. What its influences are now and how that is feeding into the work away from college.

I have a feeling that it is going to turn into a very quiet intimate piece that talks about experience in a more subdued way... but who knows - and that is the fun part. xx