A day in Leeds

It's 10.30am. I've been travelling for five hours and my body is waiting for my mind to arrive at the conference on Older People's Theatre at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. The person beside me, is questioning whether we mean 'old', or 'older'. Her point is that the word 'older' can only make sense in relationship to something else, so if we want to own our language just say 'old'.

When I arrived, as I signed in I, like all the other delegates, was asked whether I identified as an older person. I paused. The biro of the inquisitor hovered over optional boxes. I considered whether I was ready to be put into that box. Well, yes I thought, I am older than most of the people I encounter, but no, I thought, I don't identify as an older person. And then, as you do, I got irritated with the options, and sort of expressed my dilemma. And instead of a tick, or a cross, words were written. 'He's not sure/doesn't know/doesn't accept the terminology/wants to remain'. That was the first 5 minutes of the day.

What I didn't expect was to meet a load of old/older artists. I had envisaged companies, and project leaders. I hadn't expected to run into Mike Kenny, Alan Dix, Gil Graystone and Alan Lyddiard and that was just the first table I came too. Of course it makes sense - these are old/older emerging artists - this is where we're going to wash up. Flotsam. All a bit wave beaten and rounded off - and we sort of laugh at our history, show our scars and honour each other as fellow travellers - which feels a bit smug until the talking and presentations start.

People cheat at the 10 word intro. If we're serious about doing 10 words - and some of us have been agonising about it all week, then we need a klaxon. People shouldn't be allowed to use 10 words to explain how difficult it is to only use 10 words. And no erring or erming please. There are presentations and provocations. There are pieces of theatre and discussions. Is not paying performers ethically compromising etc, and Kate Organ brings in the Vaughan Williams v Maynard Keynes bifurcation of the Arts - which is not discussed.

I'm surprised how orthodox the reference points are - we see plays, there is a script reading, there is hardly any questioning of process. Even Entelechy's Bed project is presented as a 'piece' with images, interspersed with questions and quotes. The process and the ownership of the project remains unexplained (and unchallenged).

In the afternoon I go to a practical workshop. Alan Lyddiard (Director), Choreographer, Tamara and Composer/Musician, Chris, take us through an accelerated version of their work. We sit in a line on chairs up-stage. We are a exhorted to close our eyes, to breathe, to empty our minds, to connect our energy points from feet to head, then eventually to stand and walk slowly to the front of the stage - thinking 'I am me, I am here, I am fine'. I've got lots of problems with this. First of all I'm experiencing a reflection of myself - older male director, dictating to participants. Secondly, I'm not fine - I am me, I'm just about here, but I'm completely knackered and I don't want to lie. And I don't want this work to be based on a lie.

Anyway I continue, no... I enjoy the exercise - we walk to the front, we change our minds, we return to the chair, we change our minds, we come back forwards we look at our hand, it rises slowly above our shoulder, we look away from it and it falls. Then Alan says we must say, 'I wish' or 'I remember' - we don't have to complete the sentence, but we do have to be me, to be here and be fine. Alan's script is much practised - like me he has done his exercises many times and has a schtick. But I question the emphasis on how we present ourselves confidently. Why can't we present with doubt? With fatigue? With not being fine?

Tammy steps in and we start to learn a simple (ish) sequence. Supplication, search, flight, hiding. As I write this I feel these intentions/gestures are a bit tired - universal perhaps but a bit tired. It's a bit Pina Bausch. Anyway we make a nicely flawed chorus - and Alan asks one or two to step out from time to time, to stand alone and say something to the audience. So while the flock continues to turn and flow, one stands separate and speaks directly to the audience of whatever they choose.

There's a point in the process when it jars with me. Tammy instructs us to be tall, to walk around with pride. I've heard these instructions before - I'm 6, in school, it's music and movement. I hated it then and I hate it now. It's false - don't tell me to motivate my body with an emotional recall I may not want to own/delve into. We are more interesting than that. The music is beautiful - Jarrett-ish, with Meredith Monk type muttered vocals. It allows everything, salves all. Don't know if it's cheating or therapy.

 All of this is related to the show we will see later - 'Anniversary', which has been made by Alan, Tammy and Chris, using these techniques. But there is time for a chat with Alan beforehand, and accompanied by David Slater and Dominic Campbell we chew the cud over chips. I feed back my opinionated notes to Alan and graciously he takes them. This is rare. It is unusual to be able to talk honestly to someone who is making work with a performers from all walks of life, as I do. There are very few places or spaces where we can challenge and discuss our practice. I recently saw a sharing of work between elders and teenagers which was held up as an example of good practice. The audience admired the 'bravery' of the participants and the endeavour - some even stood to applaud. However I felt what had been presented was poor - unfinished exercises, no unifying artistry and sloppy editing. To me the work let participatory performance down - but where are the spaces to talk about this and where are the spaces for existing practitioners to critique participatory methods?

 So to the show. An audience of 'real' people, a healthy house, multi-aged, not your usual suspects. The framing of the piece is non existent to start with - only the fact we're in a theatre lends artifice. But from the beginning there's Chris's music, plus a saxophonist, oh now there's percussion - and here come a signing choir. But within it we have people - humans. Some are experienced professionals - they've done their time with Lindsay Kemp Mime or London Contemporary Dance. Some are from the West Yorkshire Playhouse's Heydays company - one this morning explained to us that before doing Anniversary she had called herself a community performer, now she calls herself a performer. 

The show is light - and very heavy. Downstage are microphones which Wooster Grouplike, are used to address the audience with interpretations of the word anniversary. Some stories are funny, some bittersweet, some raw and painful. Between the stories the company dance/flock/move in patterns/schmooze and grind. We laugh as the oldest lady - a scot in her 90's, picks up and then dumps Namron (ex LCDT). Later this will be reversed - he abandons her - but only after she is lifted and held.

I am very moved by the piece - the choreography, staging, music and choices I find beautiful. There's  a moment five minutes in when two stage hands wander on to balcony above, up-stage they look down at the bare space below and seem to decide it needs something. And they head off to find some set and lighting to give ambience to the party below. Then slowly the theatricality is dripped in - a bank of house lights goes out, some balloons are fed on to the bare stage, then a bit of side-light. Slowly we transition into full theatre - not quite smoke machine stuff, but towards it.

Is this an eloquent explanation of what a theatre kit, like West Yorkshire Playhouse, can do for this work? What their role can be? Not necessarily starting from making theatre, but from catching life then platforming it, framing it, lifting it up for our attention?

It was the exploration of this intersection that I found most useful about the conference - considering
it not just through discussion, but through conversations interwoven with examples of work. But this territory  is different to mainstream theatre. It places new demands, offers new rewards and asks for new consideration. First of all whether we are 'old' or 'older', humans are not always 'fine'. The action of presenting autobiographical stories, whatever they may be, requires a compact of trust not only between the audience and performers, but between the community and the artist (or whatever words work for you). When this compact works, as it clearly does in Anniversary, we see new and brilliant work emerging with humanity sitting at the centre of both content and style. Not hidden or flattened out, but celebrated.

Secondly, this isn't the theatre of pretending or make-believe. This is theatre as a platform - sharing experiences, confirming, celebrating, empathising with humans. But there is more. The performing of the show consolidates the trust - and in performance the trust that has been fluid in rehearsals sets like a jelly, to be eaten with ice cream at a party. 

Anyone who wants to broaden the base of theatre-audiences and theatre-makers should note that through this trust strong relationships are established which ripple outwards to friends families and networks. And they should come along to the next conference, be they old or older.

Happy Birthday Theatr Clwyd

In September 2016, Theatr Clwyd celebrated a 40th birthday and having spent some time there in the early years I was asked to write a few words for their website. Sorry if it's a bit soppy, but it was a strong formative experience for me...

Theatr Clwyd gave me chances that I think are quite rare today. In its first few years I worked as a Director and before that as a Stage Manager when both the new theatre and I were trying to find our identity. I had been employed by the touring, Mold based, Grass Roots Theatre company (remember the Quality of Life Experiment anyone?) and was taken on a visit to the unfinished building. I remember the traps under the studio, as yet uncovered, and the fantastic grid system above. A well equipped black box. And that was before we saw the main house.

Working as a deputy stage manager on the book for George Roman I got to observe a director and actors working at first hand, then got to tour Sean Cavanagh's complex sets to narrower and shallower stage spaces. Encountering the ever interesting politics of the Welsh Arts scene.

After a couple of years George took me on as an assistant director. With two houses, touring projects and an occasional outreach offer there were plenty of opportunities. And, with a company numbering between 12 and 20 actors, there were also plenty of performers with time on their hands. At the same time I think the concept of 'marketing' was entering theatre (up until then it had been publicity). Roger Tomlinson was pioneering the subscription season, so cross casting was important and......(suddenly my stomach has turned over as I remember George going on holiday leaving me with the task of cross casting pieces of Shakespeare and Shaw).

Michael Hucks, Martin Harris and I were the beneficiaries of this theatre-making bounty. We had actors, technicians, space, cutting edge technology and time to experiment. Elsewhere Roger Tomlinson has written about Hitch Hikers. What he doesn't mention is it started life as a 3 part show - running over 3 evenings and coming in at 5 hours. Hugh Price, Paul Kondras, Adrian Ord, and many others took on ridiculous challenges for this epic - cutting a Morris minor in half and blowing it apart with an inflatable Bug Blatter Beast of Traal; placing a Vogon space ship above the audience and pumping compressed air and smoke down on to their heads; dangling 3 actors above the stage for a whole scene without damage; streaming a scene apparently live from the car park; commissioning not only a complete score but cartoon animations to be projected onto the front cloth during the ridiculously over-complicated scene changes. And then asking us to tour it UK wide.Douglas Adams was bemused.

But my fondest memories are of the Mystery Cycle productions (the Nativity and the Passion) - not just for the shows, but for the process. We were inspired by the way the original Guilds had each taken on different scenes, and in a fit of experimentation we decided to do away with specialism and challenge all the departments to take on a different role. As a result the carpenters took on the design, the wardrobe lit the show and I ended up in the band playing a baritone horn for the first and only time in my life. This was my first experiment with promenade theatre, and at the first performance the audience just leant against the wall of the studio and refused to move. We sorted it by the second show, and that was the point - we were afforded the space to try things out, take risks, fail, adjust, learn.

Arden of Faversham, Absurd Person Singular, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog, Catch 22, pantomimes featuring The Snurge - it's a long and particular list.

But while this might sound like a rosy spectacled reminiscence, I think there are a few lessons. The menu offered to the audience was eclectic. The semi-ensemble system not only offered young actors (and directors) an 'apprenticeship', it allowed the local population to get to know the actors over time. It challenged those actors to take on a range of roles and it brought those actors into the community.

And out of this period came Theatre Camel - Roger Delves Broughton, Andy Whitfield, Roger Blake, Sally Greenwood, Sue Elliot, Jon Strickland, Leader Hawkins, Paul Kondras and I formed the company and started to tour big shows to small theatres around Wales. Gormenghast and Gone With the Wind to name but two. All had met at Theatre Clwyd learned some craft, made mistakes and delivered some good theatre.
I spent ten happy, mad and seminal years at Theatre Clwyd and, as I wipe away something which seems to have got in my eye, I wish and hope that young theatre makers today get the opportunities to think big and learn on the job, as we did.

Happy Birthday TC and all who sail in her.

PRIMARY 5 - Preparing for Interviews

By Georgia Clark

Someone had mentioned in one of our earlier workshops exploring the theme of ‘Primary Schools’ that they remembered ‘drawing a house and a tree and a sunshine repeatedly’ at primary school. We began this week’s session, the last of the summer ‘prepping’ workshops, with a group activity exploring this.

‘Was there something that you drew or wrote often when you were at Primary School?’

A3 sheets of drawing paper were lain out on the tables tempting our childhood doodles; horses, paradise scenes and Thunderbirds 2 were some of the images that adorned a line of rope strung up to accommodate our remembered drawings. We listened in as each person explained the story behind their drawing, rekindling the supportive dynamic of attending to and being curious about each memory that had been enjoyed in previous sessions.

Some of the drawings revealed stories of activities shared with siblings, begging the question of whether or not these drawings were actually done at Primary school. To alter the direction slightly, we talked about specific memories of drawing and creating done in the classroom.

Memories of art lessons echoed around, one where a primary school art teacher asked the children to copy paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe sticks in my mind, and we wondered aloud about the intention and purpose of these activities: Why did the teachers ask us to do this? Some answers were ventured; it’s about finding different ways for people to express themselves; to develop craft and motor skills. We collectively mused and considered our memories from new angles, seeing if we could intuit different meanings.

With a dynamic change in energy we were all up and working in partners to ‘sculpt’ each other into different shapes. At first we did this by physically moving the other’s limbs with our hands, and then we did it without touching the other person but using the same motion, as if a force field separated your hands and their body but carried the intention. We stepped back after each round to admire the room’s diverse statues.

This was a warm up for the next exercise – ‘strike a playground pose’ - bodies frozen running, playing, roaming and chatting animated the room. We broke up into four smaller groups and brought the still shots to life to create a short sketch. After watching these back in a group we were directed in replaying our sketches at the same time, so that they overlapped with each other, creating the first group sketch of the summer. A frisbee was being flung around in one corner of the room as someone fell over in another and play sword fighting traversed the space. We performed this several times, the instructions varying; ‘this time, do it as if your over acting at being a child’, ‘this time, like you’re actually an adult’, ‘make everything seem as if it’s the most important thing in the world this time.’

It was our first piece of theatre as a group; a taste of what a performance might look like once all the elements of our investigation have simmered together, infused with nuances of how our primary school persists in each of us, as well as how they are experienced today; the recipe concocted out of the rich ingredients collected in this ‘foraging’ process.

A short break was welcome after our exertions in the playground; we re-joined after five minutes to meet the next task of offering up ideas and thoughts which would inform some preliminary interviews and meetings on the subject. We began by considering in small groups what each of the following would want children to be by the end of primary school, some of the responses are in italics:

Industry - good production worker, good with hands, compliant, literate, numerate

Government - respect for other people, pass Key Stage 2

Secondary schools - good behaviour, confident, well-balanced, inquisitive

Our children - happy, able to cope, to be a child and have fun

‘Us’ - ready for secondary school, critical thinker, caring for others, have encountered diversity and difference

This would be the final workshop of the summer, they will resume in September and in the meantime myself and perhaps some others will carry out some interviews, or ‘meetings’, with people that have worked in primary schools and with those that went to primary school locally or abroad, to scope out what these meetings might look like and harness some material to play with in September. I was grateful that a final task would harvest the groups’ ideas of what they would like to ask people if they were the interviewers…

Some questions for a teacher, governor, retired teacher, dinner lady, caretaker or current student:

How do you deal with trouble?

What made you choose a career in teaching?

What is your favourite subject and why?

How many keys have you got?

What food do the children hate most?

What do you think of the exclusion policy for primary school students?

And with that the final prepping workshop drew to a close. It’s been a great summer - join us next term!

PRIMARY 4 - No one’s mentioned learning anything!

By Georgia Clark

Apart from some dismissive remarks about not liking maths, the fact that a significant amount of time at primary school was spent being taught things had barely been mentioned in the first three workshops exploring how we remember ‘Primary Schools’. As curious as this was, it was leaving a gap in information that couldn’t be ignored and Peth wanted us to explore this a bit today.

‘I learnt that teachers aren’t always right’
‘I remember learning the times tables’
‘a Cypriot dance that went something like this, we all learnt it and performed it’
‘I made a Viking hat’
‘igneous rock’
‘if you mix all the colours together you get brown’
‘I learnt to be stressed at primary school – I went to primary school in Singapore’

There are over 80 pages in the primary school curriculum about English! And 60 for Maths! Science not far behind with about 40, leaving a few pages a piece for Art, History, Geography, Languages and the rest… How does a teacher interpret and animate this dense web of instructions?  

And if it were up to us? In small groups we devised short performances which had to convey the key learning points for some of the Key Stage 1 subjects. After each performance was shared, those in the audience tried to pinpoint what these learning points were.

Snippets of history spoken out in well-timed relay - ‘Christopher Columbus sailed to the Americas in 1492’ – conveyed the broad learning points set out in the History syllabus through specific historical events. A sheet of paper pulled out from someone writing on it and replaced by a smart phone demonstrated the sweeping changes that advances in technology have made to national life.

A raised platform looking on to the Thames provided an impromptu stage for Geography to ‘inspire in pupils a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people’. The Physical Education group also performed outside, inviting, or, more accurately, instructing, audience members to join in with a P.E. class. Adults were cast back into eager and quivering school children, darting and racing and protesting.

Singing and dancing through the Music Key Stage 1 curriculum.

This ambiguous and experimental exercise put us in a sense in the role of teachers, creating a short class plan to perform to (or teach) the rest of the group. The challenge that this posed made me see teachers in the light of curators. Is how they interpret the curriculum ‘script’ and aim to inspire through their delivery a form of performance? It felt a bit of a scrabble for my group to get our heads around the subject matter and think of interesting ways to convey it in the time that we had. How did our rushed and sparse attempts at this tally up with the real constraints in both time and resources that teachers face?

The whistle stop tour through four of the Key Stage 1 subjects was overwhelming in its data load (what a lot to learn in those first years!), and left a slightly disjointed and inconclusive feeling as we had spent much of the session in smaller groups and journeying around the Bubble building and its surroundings, but it was fantastic to see some of the interactive and imaginative ways that the learning points were conveyed.

I was interested in how Pip, one of the developers of vernacular theatre, felt about what had come out of the activity, “it’s about seeing how people respond to things, too early for anything else at the moment. Exploring the subject matter.” I think this open and exploratory approach is really interesting in how it elicits a wide range of moments and responses – both comfortable and uncomfortable – and allows for things to not work, making the process itself human. I’m looking forward to see how the dynamic of this process manifests in the final show.

We also created a timeline of playground crazes through the ages: from marbles and dominos in the 50s and 60s to Pokemon cards and pogs in the 90s and today’s Pokemon Go and Candy Crush.

PRIMARY 3 - Who Knows A Clapping Game?

By Georgia Clark

This was the first question put to us at the third of our explorations into ‘Primary Schools’. A mixture of tentative and enthusiastic hands went up, and those that didn’t know a clapping game were soon learning one from someone in the group that did. It did seem to fit the stereotype at first that it was predominantly the younger people and females in the group who had a game to teach, but the games and chants soon proliferated around and before long people were sharing their newly learnt game with someone else.

A simple exercise, but it brought the intergenerational value into sight as younger and older shared clapping games from their days in the playground, intersecting age, background and gender. Conversations I had with people that evening emphasised the value in the wide variety of people that take part in these sessions; a returning member said she comes back because ‘it’s inclusive, being here isn’t dictated by age or anything else’, another person who enjoyed her first session at Bubble last week, and plans to come back, shared her first impression of the group - ‘it’s interesting how many different backgrounds and ages there are here’.

When showing the clapping games back to each other, we pondered as a group what it is that makes clapping games an enduring phenomenon -  are they just something to do to extinguish playground boredom? Is it about something creative? Or is it about winning? A mum and daughter showed us back a clapping game that elicits a winner and a loser, the mum squealing as she made a mistake and lost. It seemed there was pleasure to be had in racing to go as fast as you could, with a mistake costing you the game.

Tic-tac-toe

Give me a high

Give me a low

Give me a three in a row

Don’t get hit by a UFO

Now who can remember making or looking at a ‘nature table’ at primary school? This was next on the evening’s agenda; in small groups we set about making our own ‘nature table’, the contents of which would be centred on one topic and could be as wide and as playful as our roaming imaginations. Groups set off round the Bubble building and surrounding park gathering objects to illustrate their chosen theme, thinking also about how to arrange and 'present' their table to the rest of the group. It was a rewarding exercise in thinking laterally about a topic and tuning into environment to spot objects that would convey an aspect of something, as well as an exercise in teamwork.

Attention and importance was given to the process of explaining and demonstrating the contents of each nature table; the group curating ‘water’ demonstrated buckets and bottles and watered some plants in front of us, the ‘rainbow’ team were inspired by the brightly coloured T shirts of the group and incorporated themselves into their nature table (the inclusion of the white/off white/yellow toilet roll caused confusion and discussion as its colour was debated!). It was interesting how the other themes - pets, summer, an office - had a similar simplicity and naivety to them. Maybe this was a reflection of how we were approaching the broader subject matter at the moment, or perhaps to do with people gently getting to know each other.

We wondered what our ‘nature tables’ of primary school might look and feel like if we were to curate one about school celebrations or teachers, or maybe school dinners, or the playground. A group applied this to 'school chants' by asking to be greeted with 'good morning everyone' before replying in monotonous unison with 'Good morning Mrs. Henderson’. What might the others be like?

And what if we did one about teachers? We would need to include their mannerisms and body language; it was time to get into our bodies and relive the physicality of being in that environment. To get this started we mirrored a partner’s movements in pairs, echoing the lines their limbs sketched out, and then mimicking the particularities of how that person walks across the room and sits in a chair. Watching these back as a group was entertaining and brought out people’s different nuances, it was a chance to get to know each other non-verbally by noticing each other’s movements and relationship to space.

Translating this into recalling our teachers movements brought into sharp relief some of the particular movements and body language we remembered from school. We curated these in small groups to perform back; the sharp, energetic and demonstrative pointing of one teacher balanced by the still, moody, expectant stance of another. Theatrical and dynamic sketches were beginning to emerge…

PRIMARY 2 - Salutes and Lifts

By Georgia Clark

At our second meeting the previous week’s memories of primary school had been strung back up and welcomed returning and new faces alike. After we had explained to those joining us for the first time what we had done the previous week, new faces were invited to add their memories to the collection.

Meanwhile, returning faces were asked to travel in their mind to a particular room, place or short journey that was significant in their experience of primary school, and write about it or draw it in detail. To begin unlocking some of the details of school buildings and our journeys to them we were asked to think about the smells, sounds and qualities of that place. 

We had begun the session with an amusing game of creating a ‘salute’ for each other in partners that were based on our day’s activity. We shared these back to the group, along with our names, and proceeded to wander around the room in wonderful chaos communicating with each other through our personalised salutes; it felt like the awkwardness and hilarity of this had shaken off some initial shyness at being in the same space, and enabled us to arrive in the room and be present together in some way.

With this initiation behind us, and a collection of new memories amassed, we re-joined as a group to listen to the memories of childhood which had just been harvested. The terrain was becoming more familiar now to those of us returning, and the recurrence of themes and images provoked great enjoyment or disgust in turn.

The exercise of taking a person to our chosen spot felt evocative for me, reminding me of how space affects our thoughts, feelings and movements, and vice versa. I took my partner inside the lift at the foot of the stairs in the Bubble building, which for me represented the phone box in my primary school boarding house where we'd take turns to slot our pre topped up phone cards in to the machine to call our parents. The tinny and unsentimental atmosphere of the lift lent itself well to transporting my partner and I to the place in my memory. I also listened to my partners chosen place, a section of the library with beanbags and stacks of books which you could retreat to in the early years of primary school, a comforting place to travel to which softened the rigidness of the lift.

Others travelled to their first aid room which ‘smelled of disinfectant but at the same time, biscuits’, or  classrooms with ‘the smell of school dinners’ wafting in through the door and ‘loads of colourful stuff on the walls’, music halls filled with piano notes, ‘a garden at the end of the playground’, spaces filled with sounds of ‘singing, giggling, laughter, footsteps and chatting’, a library with wooden shelves and tables, a dining hall with a cheerful dinner lady and the smell of fish fingers.

This felt like an exercise in tuning our senses in to the material, and preparing to recognise the sensory elements when ‘foraging’ for more information. The focused one to one listening about ‘place’ also felt like a precursor to the interviews ahead which some of us will carry out.

In a final task we considered how we could gather material about some of the different themes we had established, which generated ideas about things to begin looking for and bring to the next session; clapping games, school timetables, report cards, school songs.  

PRIMARY 1 - The start of a new project

By Georgia Clark

Last Thursday a group of people met at London Bubble to begin a conversation about how we remember and think about being at Primary School. We would also be thinking about how we could gather information about this time in life that most of us experience to develop a piece of theatre.

               

The evening began by us sharing our names and why we were here. Most of us had taken part in previous intergenerational projects with London Bubble, most recently Grandchildren of Hiroshima. As for me, I’m a member of Bubble’s Adult Drama group but this would be my first experience of taking part in Bubble’s intergenerational projects, and I was keen to see what we would get up to.

We were invited to think about and write down or draw memories of being at primary school. Sheets of paper were laid out on three different tables, and at each table we were invited to consider either the ‘early’, ‘middle’ or ‘final’ years of Primary School, including perhaps any experience we had of revisiting primary schools since leaving. We set to the task and began taking our minds back to days of running around playgrounds, navigating early friendships, the intriguing, comforting or unsettling quirks of our first teachers, and getting used to the norms and rules of school.  

A piece of rope strung out between two chairs accumulated these stories, impressions and scraps of memories as we attached our papers to them with wooden pegs, an evocative process in itself. With the group’s memories before us, we took it in turn to share verbally with each other what we had chosen to depict on paper. The personal nature of what we were sharing fostered an intimate and supportive atmosphere. I found that listening to everyone’s experience brought out diverse feelings; the stories were enlightening and funny as well as sometimes sobering and frustrating. As we listened to each other recount our memories, some themes were already beginning to emerge out of the similarities of our experiences.

Now that we had begun to scope out the material of our subject through our personal experiences, we came back together to name and explore what we felt were some common themes. The mind map we began spanned friendships, school values, games, teachers, rules, and a category reflecting the commonality of 'blood, sick and milk' in our memories, among others.

This week promises more thinking on how we will gather material to inform our exploration, as well as beginning to ‘sculpt’ and give form to our initial responses and ideas.

PROMMERSIVE IN BRIGHTON Part 3 - Digging for Shakespeare

Bright and early the coach from the centre set off into the outskirts of Brighton. To some allotments.

Digging For Shakespeare by Mark Rees aided and abetted by a lecturer, a superb actor/dancer/presence, a youth chorus and a huge valley of allotments and allotmenteers. Oh and the words of Shakespeare.

Mark in his tweed suit with orange tie, orange garters and orange megaphone (well.. more mustard but it was a good attempt) was our guide and focus. The show wove autobiography, local history, Shakespeare on nature, and really wierdy-wierd installation come dance-chant plus knitting and gifts. After a walk through the woods and a slide show in a machine shed, we were set free to roam. No headphones. No challenge. Just a rough map and an hour to wander in the hot May sun.

 

We clambered about in the patchwork valley chatted to the allotment holders and giggled at the knitted characters from Shakespeare presented in greenhouses and beside water butts. At first sight Digging for Shakespeare had no profound message - but the spirit of horticulture seemed to have been dug into the show. There was a relaxed generosity within the performance that seemed to match the burgeoning growth of the fruit and veg around us. At each orange flagged allotment we were invited to take a post card with a gardening tip. At the end we got a mug of tea and a Tunnocks tea cake.

I socialised with gardeners, fellow audience members and with Mark, our guide. My eyes were bathed with the relaxing greens of spring and my skin was warmed by the Sussex sun. I was concious of experiencing deep joy.

Writing now I realise that I very nearly mistook all this for the context - that initially I thought of the nature as a backdrop to the narrative. Reflecting some two weeks later I believe that our physical interaction with the allotment and the elements was the content.

Perhaps the humour and thoughtful words that went before were just preparing us for therapy.
Performance as preparation, then the setting as the maincourse - the content.

Make the audience chuckle, make them jump, make them think, then confine them in a dark shed listening to deep thoughts before setting them loose under the bright sky to commune with nature.

I wonder if that was the plot.

PROMMERSIVE IN BRIGHTON - Part 2

At dusk I received a text message from the Blast Theory/Hydrocracker axis with the location. Then on arrival, a second text suggesting I look around for fellow audience members - and yes, there were 9 of us in total - clutching fully charged phones and smiling nervously at each other.

Obeying another text we strode down the road to bang on the door of a boarded up shop and meet our 'handler' who would be 'running us'. This was good. I was convinced - well I wanted to support the endeavour because the acting was solid and the environment was credible and we were offered a mug of tea and I'm waiting for the last episode of Undercover to air on TV and this was a bit like being in it.

The briefing made it more intimidating - then off on our assignment. With our back story intact and working in teams of three we were off to infiltrate a right wing meeting at a disused pub in the back streets of Brighton.

After drinks, and nervous small talk I finally engaged with our 'POI' (I was too polite to ask at the briefing but assume it means 'person of interest'). And yes I got some 'dirt', not a lot, but enough to feel I'd delivered, and then we received the text - 'get out - it's going off' and were met in the street to be debriefed. This was the only disappointing bit for me - I wanted to go back to the room to find out more about what others had found out - I wanted my info put on their pin board with the mug shots.

At our second, post show, de-brief - chatting to the creative team later, we learnt the size of the project - a cast of over 30, some of whom were local amateurs. But it needed that - the pub wasn't heaving but there were enough drinkers to legitimise the alpha male brushing me out of the way as he passed.

The piece had been made with care, the improvisation/calculation had heft and the over-hanging sense of urgency, edginess and political extremism was on the money. And I got a lot of eye-contact from actors who were in the zone. Craft.

So after performance on a beach then a back street pub, what next ?

PROMMERSIVE IN BRIGHTON 1 - I'll tell you when I'm participating!

I'LL TELL YOU WHEN I'M PARTICIPATING !

Saw a perfectly nice piece of theatry-art this morning. Headphones, ponchos, hand stamp (number 1139) an hour long potter along the beach under the pretext that I and my partner (number 1138)  were visitors returning to earth sometime in the future to look at the remains of a holiday resort. I enjoyed it. Quite a lot of care had been taken making a binaural soundscape and burying bits and pieces in the pebbles.

                                                 Number 1139.

I had a nice time. Until I sat down afterwards and read the programme.

"AOD have developed a method of working that links choreography, sound and fine art to create a visual aesthetic that encourages interactive responses and all participants to become the active co-designers of their own exploration"

OK I missed the choreography - although maybe that was when we were asked to lie down, but there was no way I was an active co-designer. I followed instructions. I moved quickly when asked so that I wouldn't lose the thread. The idea suggested in the notes that "people are free to remove their headsets to talk" - suggesting freedom or disobedience is technically true but if you don't want to get left behind (or if you want to remain connected to the narrative) it is not possible.

"The pleasure of making participatory work is the exchange between imaginations: what we as artists create and what the participants then bring to that and share with each other." Sorry - there was no opportunity for me to share my imaginings with the artists - this was one way traffic. Yes our imagination is provoked by the props and instructions but we do not share with "each other".

This is sloppy thinking. This is gobbledygook arts-speak and as someone who make participatory, to an extent co-created participatory work - can I say this is not co-designed, and it's not really participatory work. Call the Art Police !

                                       Number 1138

The Work of Play (a guest blog by Adam Annand).

Adam is Associate Director at London Bubble (he's the one with the lighter hair)

At London Bubble we have been running the Speech Bubbles project in schools since 2009. The project has been developed to bring a playful, creative approach to support children in KS1 (aged 5-7 years) with their communication, confidence and wellbeing. The children we are working with have all been referred because they are not quite managing in the classroom and they need a little extra input. Working in small groups, no more than 10 at a time, we give the children the time and the space to tell their own imagined stories to an adult and then act them out in the small group. The evidence tells us that this is effective, that the children’s confidence, communication and wellbeing are improved and that this has a positive knock on effect of improving their literacy. The children thoroughly enjoy the programme; schools are keen to book it in, the drama practitioners and schools staff who work on it say that it is improving their practice and parent/carers are happy that their children are being creatively supported. 

Whilst this is all very positive, it does seem that that what we are doing in the sessions is increasingly at odds with the rest of what is happening in KS1. In Speech Bubbles the children are learning through play, they move around, they tell whatever story they want to tell, in whatever way they want to tell it. Perhaps we should be saving this stuff for the early years, the nursery and reception classes where it seems a more natural fit? 

Then I remembered this passionate, urgent and insistent creative piece told in Speech Bubbles by a six year old boy for acting out by his peers. This boy was struggling in the formal classroom, but was thriving in Speech Bubbles sessions;

I play music, I play jumping, I play Ben 10, I play sonic, I play power rangers and I play games and I play jumping and racing, I play skipping and jumping and I play games

Ok so this is useful, it reminds me of why we are doing what we are doing, but still we seem to be flying in the face of fashion, should this just be for the early years? So I went in search of reading, or guidance about learning through play in KS1. I searched and searched and I struggled to find reading to support the work, everywhere I looked, everyone I asked pointed me to great resources, but they were all for the early years; books, activities, schemes of work but nothing substantial for KS1.  

So I decided to go to the top, the Department for Education must have something to say on this matter, I follow them on twitter so I sent this tweet;

@educationgovuk what advice is there for learning through play in KS1?

And got this back, 

@londonbubble_ed  One for Ofsted rather than us, this is useful: http://ow.ly/X0DIR

I replied, 

@educationgovuk Thank you. That report is about early years just wondered if you have anything about play in KS1? I will ask @Offsted news

and I got this reply from Ofsted,

@londonbubble_ed nothing specific to KS1, but this may be useful? : http://ow.ly/X0DIR

IT’S THE SAME EARLY YEARS REPORT!!!!!!

Surely learning through play can't be over by the time you're 5! If it is then I’m not sure what our six year old who likes to play will have to say about it, not that anybody is asking him.

To top all of this, I have been hearing how in some year 1 classrooms things have changed dramatically in the last couple of years, increasing pressure on English and Maths has led to much more formal teaching. From parents, teachers and support staff I have heard stories of the adults and children becoming increasingly frustrated and constrained.  Two particular anecdotes stand out: 

A year 1 teacher planning to give up at the end of this year because she didn’t have time to read her class a story until January, (that’s four months into the school year!) 

A friend who is a parent of a boy in year 1 being astonished by the changes since her older child was in year 1 (he’s only in year 3 now) because the lack of play opportunities was making the children ‘sad’. 

So how relieved was I to find this petition https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/121681 asking for an extension of the early years curriculum from, birth to 5 years to birth to 7 years. The petition has been set up in light of growing concerns about children’s mental health, illiteracy and teachers leaving the profession in droves. 

Of course there was no guidance on learning through play outside of the early years, because 5-7 really is part of the early years, if only we would recognise it as such. 

The children in Speech Bubbles have all been referred with a communication need that is stopping them effectively managing in the classroom. Those children take 45 minutes away from the curriculum each week to make up stories and act them out, and they enjoy it, they smile, they have a twinkle in their eyes, they laugh, they move around and they have ownership of their own stories. However, at a time when 8 year olds in England are reported as 13th out of 16 countries for self-reported ‘happiness’ it strikes me that we have to move to a system that gives teachers space and time to bring some of that playful learning to all children, 

So go on sign the petition https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/121681

PS In case this all sounds a little arty and not that rigorous you can check out our evidence of impact here http://project-oracle.com/projects/info/speech-bubbles/

On the ownership of theatre (or, sounding like a hippy in Bristol).

I was invited by Neil Beddow at ACTA in Bristol to make a short contribution to a seminar on Ownership in/of Community Theatre.

After talking a bit about how Bubble go about creating a feedback loop between volunteer artists and specialist artists I tried to make a more oblique point - that you can't actually own theatre.

What I was trying to say was that Theatre in it's purest form, exists in the space between the actors and the audience - in the moment that the person watching responds to the performer, and the performer responds to the response. That moment is ephemeral, and it can't be owned.

We try to find ways to own theatre. Tickets, Scripts, DVD's, live cinema screenings. But are these not just reports of the sightings of theatre. If the actor cannot respond to the gasp or chuckle of the audience - if the audience are deprived of their rarely used, but highly feared, right to boo because they aren't there, then it's not actually theatre.

The response to my brilliant observation was polite silence and questions about other things I'd talked about. Maybe my point was blindingly obvious. Maybe it's just irrelevant. What I had suggested certainly wasn't a direct response to the question.

But in a way it was. One of the foundations stones of theatre (and certainly of community theatre), is sharing. The sharing of a word, action or story by a performer. The gift of listening and emotional engagement given by the audience. The dance between the two. And when it works well, the possibility that not only are the audience plugging in emotionally, they are also thinking ahead -deducing what might happen next. So rational brain and emotional brain are at work simultaneously, while outwardly we lean forward to signal our support for the actor to continue the journey.

It all requires sharing. And the moment cannot and should not be owned.

I think what Neil intended us to discuss was how some professional artists might disallow the voice of the participant artists and how some processes sometimes abuse the power relationship. But I believe that if we bear in mind that that theatre is created between us, then it's very existence is defined by, and dependent on, co-ownership.

Joining up the dots.

I've been meaning to write about the need for small-scale arts organisations to connect with each other. I believe we need to join forces, to compare methods, to explain what we do - we need to connect, assemble and aggregate. 

Bubble recently offered a flat pack version of a script to other small organisations to read locally and I've written previously about Hiroshima Dispersed - it was a simple idea and worked pretty well. Some of the responses are below - and I want to share them as they capture how people truly appreciated working locally and globally. 

FROM PUNE

To be a part of something that is much bigger than you, is a strange feeling. The emotion that such an experience stirs may range from being completely humbled to feeling immensely powerful. The humility stems from realizing how insignificant you are in the larger scheme of things; while the sense of power is inspired by the knowledge that your actions, no matter how small, contribute to this whole.

This ‘feeling’ is impossible for me to articulate in any language and the attempt in the previous lines may have been futile. But I felt just that, as part of a small, seven-member team that recently performed a reading of a play, to an audience of about 35 people, at an unconventional venue (a rock themed coffee bar) in Pune, on a sleepy (and rainy) August afternoon.

However, it wasn’t much the location, the weather or the size of the audience that made a difference. The feeling stemmed from what I was a part of – the play itself – The Grandchildren of Hiroshima – true stories of real people who survived the atomic bombing in Hiroshima.

Initiated as an oral history and performance project, by London Bubble, a London based theatre group, in the year 2014, ‘The Grandchildren of Hiroshima’ is rooted in interviews between local children in Hiroshima and survivors who were the children’s age when the bomb was dropped. The project aimed to reach out to people across the world through community performances in August 2015 to commemorate the 70^th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombings.

On August 6^th 2015 and over that weekend, community theatre groups across Hiroshima, London, Wimborne, Palestine, Johannesburg, Brisbane, Milwaukee and Manila performed readings of ‘The Grandchildren of Hiroshima.’ And we (Orchestrated Q’Works) became a part of this inspirational global movement by reading the play in Pune.

Weeks before our performance, when we had started rehearsing, these powerful human stories of people residing miles away initiated a subliminal emotional upheaval in me. I knew I might never be able to truly empathize with them, as I have never been through such horrifying circumstances myself. It made a part of me feel grateful for my own protected life. However this gratitude was smeared with a sense of melancholy as somewhere I could sense a portion of the pain they had endured.

Most of these stories are very detailed and skillfully paint a vivid picture of the massive destruction and it’s agonizing after-effects. Part of the play also presents historical facts about the bomb, the war and the politics and conspiracy behind it.

But beyond all the politics and war, these were stories of real human suffering, tales of survival against all odds and most of all rebuilding life and one’s own being, piece by piece. Underlying somewhere in the recounting of all the demolition and death, is a story of hope and peace – a story that goes beyond the bounds of language, age, culture and borders. 

Being able to share these stories; being a part of the vessel that transmitted the energy in these stories to others was an unforgettable experience. At the end of the performance, when we bowed, there was a sense of oneness … with the team, the audience, groups across the world who organized similar readings and with Hiroe, Hiroko, Teruko, Suzumi, Fumiaki and others who’s stories we shared through the play.

A feeling that is both humbling and empowering at the same time.

Contributed by Ritwik Borthakur

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FROM SOUTH AFRICA

Just wanted to give you feedback on the 6th August reading. We were a small group of 11 including my 7 year old daughter who sat through the reading listening intently.

We created an 'alter' of sorts with the image of the river and 7 candles which were lit each representing one of the rivers. We sat in a semi circle and basically read the script one line at a time going around in the circle, this was the best solution and worked well. At the end of the reading we had at least an hour sharing where all of us shared our responses and thoughts to the reading. This was very productive and heartfelt. Some of the reflections were profound and initiated a discussion of the contemporary relevance of the Hiroshima bombing, especially in post apartheid South Africa.

Thanks again for this opportunity, we thoroughly enjoyed being part of this process.

I hope to send a small video soon.

All the best

Colin

FROM MANILLA

Here are a few pictures from our gathering on Thursday. It was a tight international group of 12 (artists, cultural workers from different regions in the country), a good number for creating the intimate feel we wanted. Aside doing the reading (improvising props with whatever was at the house which also serves as a semi-storage room for our Ensemble!), we folded paper cranes, feasted together, and had charged conversations on peace, our role as artists and social beings in keeping & creating it, and what greater togetherness and solidarity can mean for us today. 

Thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to be one with you in this. We appreciate everyone's effort and generosity! It's been especially exciting to read how the readings have gone all over the world.

Wishing we meet in person soon!

All the best,
Sarah (in behalf of everyone from Sipat Lawin Ensemble)

FROM PALESTINE

Dear Colleagues, 

Hope that my email finds you well. I have attached here some pictures for our reading. It is worth mentioning that the event was attended by more than 150 individuals. In my next emails, I'll share you articles and TV interviews that were conducted by Palestinian and Japanese journalists to cover the reading.

Note: One of the Japanese citizens who is visiting Palestine right now, came to attend the event and brought with him a flame from Hiroshima that it is still lightning since 1945 as a symbol of peace. 

Regards

Saja Shami

Yes Theatre

00972- 2- 2291559

 https://www.facebook.com/pages/Yes-theatre-Palestine/289764851145997?fref=ts

FROM WIMBORNE

Dear Dispersers,

First, the twelve of us gathered in the nearby White Hart garden for a planning pre-read.  As we left to make our way to the Minster Green, a gardener having a pint, said, “I’m not into culture, but that was very interesting.’  

In the shadow of the War Memorial, commemorating the lives of local men who died in both World Wars, we laid several kimonos in the shape of the rivers and positioned ourselves in a semi-circle.  We wore black with brightly coloured scarves.  

Over twenty people gathered on the grass and the memorial steps to listen as we read ‘The Grandchildren of Hiroshima’ by Misaki Setyoyama, accompanied at times by live flute and recorded rivers - as well as the real sounds of aeroplanes, car horns, and rubbish trucks.  When we spoke the storytellers’ memories, we held up their portraits.     

A Japanese women and her daughter  travelled many miles to hear the reading and were moved by the retelling of the story they know so well. Somebody brought a basket of origami cranes to distribute to the listeners, and as we handed them around at the end of the reading, a dove was spotted flying over our heads to join its partner on a nearby roof.

Thank you, Peth and London Bubble, for this opportunity to look beyond our own lives, and to learn. We look forward to hearing more accounts.

Good wishes from Wimborne Community Theatre

Gill Horitz
on behalf of Wimborne Community Theatre 

www.wimbornecommunitytheatre.co.uk

FROM BRISBANE

At 8.15 Hiroshima time, we observed a minute's silence, standing in the space where third generation hibakusha Yukiyo Kawano's soft sculpture of "Little Boy" was hung, as a centre piece in our exhibition of artworks developed with atomic survivor communities. Simultaneously, on the other side of the Pacific, Yukiyo herself was also standing silent with a group beside a replica of her "Little Boy" sculpture in the Seattle Asian Art Museum. For us this was the start of a two day seminar attended by students, academics, art workers and others at Queensland University of technology, in their multi-media venue "The Block". We had twenty people present on that morning. After the minute's silence we proceeded with our reading of "Grandchildren of Hiroshima" and then discussion of the script. We selected Fumiaki's story to develop into a filmed reading, with "Little Boy" as the backdrop. We went for the simplest of staging – to speak the lines around a circle, facing each other, allowing contemplation of the words, rehearsal of the lines, and ultimately the filming. Once we'd done that we reflected on our responses to the reading and the play overall. Perhaps our feelings were best summed up by one of the students present. She had spent a year in Japan, and was familiar with Hiroshima and its Peace Park, and she told how moved she was by reading part of one family's story – at one stage almost unable to get the words out because she felt emotional, but determined to do them justice. We all felt very privileged to play a part in the project, and grateful that we'd made the connection that has allowed us to share in this important work. We will shortly edit and make available the film version of Fumiaki's story, along with coverage of the discussion we had after the reading. 

Many thanks to London Bubble and all the contributing individuals and groups.

Best wishes

Paul

Paul Brown

Hon. A/Prof Institute of Environmental Studies, UNSW

Creative Producer Nuclear Futures

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FROM BOHOL

Dear Jonathan and  All

Good evening.

We NGO Ikaw-Ako in Bohol, Philippines finished our reading program today.

We held it at one elementary school in Ubay Bohol, explained about Hiroshima,

World was 2 and atomic bomb a little bit and read the script with 87 grade6 students

, 4teachers and one JICA staff and 2Ikaw-Ako staff at 9am.

We gave the script to school one week before we hold the program but

students prepared very well.

They read Fumiaki's parts.

We didnt have any music and items, so it wasn't a play but they enjoyed it.

Thank you very much to give us this oppotumity!

For Ikaw-Ako its first time to have like this program, because we focus on

environment basically and mostly our activity is mangrove planting ,

but it was nice challenge.

I put some photos today as attached file.

Thank you very much.

Best regard,

Miyuki Fukuda

Coordinator

Ikaw-Ako Bohol

FROM MILWAUKEE

Dear Dispersers-

Wishing you all meaningful readings and presentations of Hiroshima Dispersed.  I was reunited today in Milwaukee, USA with a wonderful former student of mine, Anne Schulthess, who I last saw in 1999.  Anne lives in London now, and with Bubble Theatre and Peth, brought this to my attention.  She will be with us in Milwaukee, USA tomorrow evening and join us in the reading of the play as a part of the American Alliance of Theatre Educators conference, where 350 Theatre Educators will be here and some will participate in the hearing and reading of this play.  Our presentation is scheduled for the Milwaukee Hilton City Center, Juneau Room, 5^th floor with young performers and adult performers at 4:00 pm Central Standard Time  (Milwaukee/Chicago time).  I believe we will be either the last or one of the last readings as these will begin shortly.

Thank you all and hoping for meaningful reports from you all.

Jeff Schaetzke
Company Manager

325 West Walnut Street | Milwaukee, WI 53212
(414) 267-2985 direct | (414) 267-2930 fax

FROM TOKYO

As promised, here's some photos from the event. We invited a "Tipi" making artist who makes Native American style tents with second hand materials.

After the talk back session, audience and participants and staff(Yes all of us)  joined to add a small decollation on the tipi with pieces of used kimono.

I hope you enjoy them!

In the post showing discussion, there were many participants and audiences who showed strong interests on knowing more about the war history and they mostly gave positive comments on the script as well as the entire project.

Best regards,

Yorie

FROM DEPTFORD IN LONDON

Our reading took place at the Deptford Creekside centre an extraordinary environmental education centre in the heart of South London on the edge of a creek which carries the water from the Quaggy, the Pool and the Ravensbourne rivers into the mighty river Thames. 

Exactly 70 people gathered to remember the events of 70 years ago. (It wasn’t planned that way but that is honestly how many people turned up.) Together we made and decorated lanterns and as the light began to fade, the script was read. As requested in the instructions we let the words do the work, adding just a few moments of simple imagery, wild rice scattered on a white sheet to represent the black rain, lanterns raised on poles during the final testimony.

The lanterns we had made earlier in the evening were carried down to the creek and people gathered on a footbridge to watch them being floated towards the Thames.

As a nod to the next part of the project in London, ‘After Hiroshima’ which will gather testimony about the Anti nuclear and Peace movement,  the evening was supported by a simple rendition of songs from the peace movement including Tom Paxtons  ‘Peace will come’. Amidst the noise and bustle there were moments when the city seemed to go quiet and reflect with us.

Adam Annand

FROM A READER IN WIMBORNE

I felt it was very powerful to read such moving stories while the world around us kept on moving.

A dust cart was uploading rubbish.

A child was singing and playing on the green near our performance place.

People were walking by chatting.

Normality and all I kept thinking was this is how it must have been just before the bomb was dropped in Hiroshima and how would my town be if that happened now.

The vulnerability of lives came across by performing it in such a familiar and open space.

Best wishes, Tracie.