Went to see 'Present Attempt’s' new work yesterday - Networks 2.0-Walking (s)miles – starting at Stoke Newington International Airport. Interesting new venue (to me). Noticed they were appearing in good company too – 'Action Hero' playing later in the evening.
Networks 2.0- Walking (s)miles is a one hour walk in which each member of the audience attempts to elicit as many smiles from complete strangers as possible. The walk is preceded by a photograph of each individual audience member (not smiling and smiling) and a general briefing on how to proceed.
It was enjoyable. At least it was enjoyable some of the time – when not sinking into moody depression. These mood swings were of course linked to the endevour – some success, a couple of smiles, you were on a high; a couple of rejections and you were wanting to go home.
Through this task, as an audience member, I gained considerable insights. Positioned as a kind of desperate outsider, looking for approval, the world is a different and rather difficult place.  As an audience, we experienced a great many transactions of many different kinds. It was noted that where merchandise was involved – walking into a shop for example – smiles were more readily acquired. Another sly walker took to admiring babies in their prams – another sure fire winner where their mothers were concerned.
It was great to be out and about on the streets of Stoke Newington, with a secret mission, making new friends, and generally startling the inhabitants. Each smile returned was marked by sending a text back to headquarters - where two members of the group were keeping elaborate charts and records, shown to the walkers on their return, with the group's usual blend of charm and serious concern.

A good example of contemporary practice - making work in and of the world around us, and heightening our experience of it in new ways.  In terms of finding new links between people - making new connections - the work links with Present Attempt's earlier work Networks 1.0, an inspiring odyssey through the UK climaxing in a 2.0 am visit to the Forest Fringe at the Edinburgh Festival, recorded below.

Networks 2.0- Walking (s)miles travels to Manchester next weekend.
Meanwhile, since returning from Canada on Thursday, have managed to catch up with Tom Espiner's Sound&Fury workshop in the Top Floor Performance Studio in the Top Floor Performance Studio at Central, ans see something of the work which is going on.

The room has the slightly chaotic feel of work in the early stages of rehearsal as Tom explores some early ideas for a new show in a brilliantly open and inclusive way.  The image above is a moving swirling one, created by a group working with some basic materials and light to create an image of the evolving universe. More about this will follow I feel sure. 

By an odd coincidence, I was able to see the North American Premiere of Deborah Pearson's Table Talk  in Toronto tonight, only days after sitting huddled in a tent with her at Central to share her more intimate piece – Music Ruined by Dating - part of our first Forest Fringe Friday evening.

Tonight's performance was an awe-inspiring event, made on a large and ambitious scale, which tells us much about the individual contemporary practitioner, and the place of writing in contemporary practice.

I first knew of Deborah as one of the directors of the Forest Fringe at Edinburgh - a calm presence enabling other artists to produce their work in the best possible circumstances. I also saw a miniature work she created this year in a small second-hand bookshop - quiet, intimate, involving total audence immersion in finding and reading extracts from a series of books, following clues, and writing a particular message at the end.

..Something Very Quiet is About to Happen 20 August, 10.30pm, secret location (meet

First afternoon of workshop led by Tom Espiner of Sound&Fury hopefully happened earlier today. I hope it went well. As I'm 3548 miles away, I haven't heard yet if it happened or what happened.

I know this is what he intended:

Initially I am keen simply to explore playing with poetic text and sound loosely associated with the subject of cosmology and astronomy, stars and darkness and I am looking forward to sharing this with you and getting your ideas and responses too!

Has anyone written anything yet about what unfolded this afternoon? Please use the comments box below to copy in comments or indicate any useful links. For me, this will need to be an exercise in filling in the pieces of information from a distance. Useful test of rapid documentation - from multiple sources? We can see.

Heavy week for the Convenor of the Practitioner Study Unit leading up to last Thursday's Exam Board  (for last year’s MA Advanced Theatre Practice). Rapid mental switches required between the work of last year and this year sometimes creating interesting juxtapositions and fresh insights.  The Exam Board is a kind of performance in itself  – full of nervous anxiety associated with performance. Is every detail properly prepared? Will the voice work properly? Will I be capable of pronouncing difficult names?  The good thing is that the Board is chaired by practitioner Ross Brown – sympathetic to the idea of External Examiners (Teresa Brayshaw and Joe Kelleher) and me bunking off to see see the work produced on the course this week. So in no time we’ve done our bit and we’re off to see the work produced with Julian Maynard Smith ... thanks Ross. And we’re not disappointed. There’s a great range of work demonstrating various takes on the telematic theme  – exploring different ways of creating performance outside the performance space and bringing this work to an audience within. And there are some sharp juxtapositions placed within this work as well – action skyped from McDonalds in the Finchley Road; a performance relayed by radio mikes from distant points just visible from the large window in the New Studio; a cunning arrangement of mirrors relaying action from a small room next door; and a live video feed from the corridor, with a breathless messenger rushing back and forth delivering instructions to one performer within the space and one outside it.  These were clever theatrical machines, showing enormous invention and potential. Perfect exercises for the year group to start flexing their muscles – working in new partnerships in new ways.  Afterwards, have a drink with Julian, Teresa and Joe and discover Julian’s father was a Professor - while discussing a show Teresa is planning on the subject of this unusual breed of complex living communication machines.

Julian Maynard Smith starts his workshop this afternoon by showing images of some of the extraordinary range of work he has achieved with Station House Opera over the last twenty-five years.  It's a wonderful archive which ranges the world - large works, small works, indoor works, monumental works outside. It's a staggering display of one man's intellect - made visual and concrete - a series of moving images, with their own complex inner logic and rules. The audience does not seem particularly interested or impressed, when I go in, and I wonder if they are picking up their mood to some extent from Julian himself. He projects a mood of boredom and disdain about his own work - none of which is quite what he would like it to be, and which always falls short in some respect, of what he would wish for. In speaking about it, he does tend to emphasise the enormous difficulties he has encountered in making the work.  This is not what people necessarily want to hear. This can be the physical difficulty of arranging  a mountain of breeze blocks, the communication difficulties of working across time zones and various cultural expectations, or the intellectual difficulty of following a set of challenging instructions in a performance situation. He sets himself these difficulties of course deliberately as almost impossible obstacles to overcome, and labours intensely  to come close to achieving what he hoped for - which is usually an impossible task. None of this makes for easy listening but I do find myself getting a little irritated at times with the way the group is apparently taking Julian's own critical and detached opionion of himself at face-value. So why don't they give him something back? Applaud or exclaim when another  breathtaking image fills the screen? A sharp intake of breath might give him some encouragement. We are fortunate enough to be dealing here with one of the major artists of our time.

Next week's workshop will be run by Julian Maynard Smith of Station House Opera. The subject he will be exploring is telematic theatre. This is the start of his introduction to the project:

Telematic theatre employs some method of sending and receiving theatrical information over a distance.  Telematics usually implies the use of telecommunication devices, but there is no reason specifically why this should be the case. 
If theatre is viewed to have the use of present performance as its primary means, and if that means the audience needs to be physically in the same space as the performance, telemetry would seem to have a limited role in theatre.  If by telematic theatre we do not mean theatre that has telemetry as merely one of its elements, the notion becomes rather paradoxical. 
There are many uses of new media that engage an audience, in a greater or lesser extent, in a performance, but its theatre potential has not been adequately explored.

Images from the Garrick Club. Also Red Ladder performing in the New Studio at 6.0.































Below, Liam and Hannah preparing for debrief of Thursday's memorable Analogue/MAATP showing.
So what was it all about? Suddenly I get pangs of feeling restrained and protective, just as I criticised others for feeling earlier in the week - the difference being maybe I'm feeling protective about the experiences and achievements of a whole group of people - who have been on a journey together. I have that feeling that some of what the group arrived at with Liam and Hannah this week is still in a delicate newborn state, needing to be nurtured a little longer, within a kind of protective bubble of shared experience, without too much exposure all at once. It does seem to me that a little of what I saw could - in its own small way - make its own contribution to the way we see and experience contemporary performance in the future.
Difficult in these circumstances for Red Ladder Theatre to enter this bubble of shared of experience with the show they were kind enough to bring to Central at 6.0. This was full of energy and commitment - of another kind.
Andy Field called in to see the space and begin to plan his Forest Fringe event next Friday. We need to start planning this, and making sure it finds its audience.
And the day ended for me with a formal dinner at the Garrick Club - the Shunt Lounge of its day. Of course the absolutely fascinating thing here is the emphasis which its theatre-loving inhabitants of the past placed on documentation of live theatre - within the constraints of their day - covering every inch of the walls with paintings, as well as filling the place with letters, objects and even sculptures of actors' heads - attempting to penetrate the mystery of what live performance might be. The whole place is a kind of temple of documentation. I found a drawing of Henry Irving in the Gents. And Garrick's Chair sits potently empty on the stairs.

Showing of work 4.0 PM. What an absolutely brilliant and exciting 45 minutes of immersive theatre. It seems to me that this combination of Analogue and this yeargroup has worked like a dream. And the the work they've produced together in just four afternoons is a bit like a dream. Will write more about it tomorrow.

Thinking of conversations in the Hampstead Theatre, and since I haven’t been consulted on the matter in any shape or form, I would like to take this opportunity of putting forward my ideas for the future of the Hampstead Theatre – at this time of change. What is needed in North London, it seems to me, is a centre for theatre-making. The whole world is popping with theatre and performance-makers – some of whom have already appeared in this column. We spend enough time in the bar – why not allow us into the rest of the building? Nothing wrong with this notion of putting on plays of course - (should it be this sort of play, that sort of play, or the other sort of play?) – but by and large that period of literary management of theatre spaces has served its time. Nobody wants it any more. Why try to hold on to it against the torrent of other kinds of work? Why not let it at least be infected, stirred up and modulated by what is happening in the world? The best plays have in any case often been born out of intensely theatrical situations (early days of the Royal Court) – in which all sorts of other aspects of the work (design, approaches to acting, relation to work in mainland Europe) were being re-considered at the same time. I shall return to this subject, in due course, as time allows!

In the morning, meet up with Hannah and Liam over in the Hampstead Theatre to discuss the questions which have arisen. Liam is busy writing his address to the MA Advanced Theatre course about the issue of authorship which has come up - offering alternatives about how to proceed. In fact, we've all cooled down a bit by this stage and appreciate how important an issue it is that's been raised. Those who brought the subject up were quite right do so, as it's the kind of issue that any devising company does well to face up to when they start to work together. In the event, everyone listens respectfully to Liam's thoughts on the matter, and offer of various alternative ways forward, and vote more or less unanimously to continue with the workshop as originally planned. But the good thing is that the subject has been aired, and everyone's a little bit clearer about where they stand. Thanks for your supportive comments about the Practitioner Unit - those that made them. And thanks for your questioning - those that questioned this approach. I have the feeling we're all in a slightly stronger and better informed place as a result of the discussion.
Found Tom Espiner (Sound&Fury) at a neighboring table and talked about the possibility of his working with us. We talked about research and development and how this is perhaps becoming an increasingly important part of the contemporary scene. We thought this might be partly to do with funding - the funding opportunities which exist for developing a new work; and partly audience driven - audiences looking for and encouraging this kind of work.

Start of Analogue residency in the New Studio. It's a start which in its way is surprisingly controversial. Hannah Barker and Liam Jarvis begin by telling the assembled company something about their work and show a promotional DVD of 'Mile End' to give an idea of the work. They talk about their most recent show ' Beachy Head' and the work they are currently making. It's around this - the involvement of the participants in the work they are making - that the issue arises. We have briefed the companies involved in this Unit to see these workshops as opportunities, where possible, to share with the students the research and development they are currently undertaking - rather than simply running a straightforward workshop in the more conventional way. Hannah and Liam have entered into the spirit of this idea in a very positive manner and spent a good deal of time creating an exercise or brief - which could conceivably help them in the development of their next piece of work. Obviously the contribution which anyone else is likely to be able to make to this development is likely to be quite marginal - a greater understanding of a particular part of the work, perhaps, and the possibilities which exist around it - but I would like to think that the student group could contribute in some small way to Hannah and Liam's thinking and make a modest contribution to the work they are making. But apparently some of the participants have voiced a concern about this - that their ideas may be taken and used, in this way - and feel some sense of grievance around this. Well, I must say I feel quite shocked and surprised to hear this objection - which in a way undermines the whole idea of the Unit (that companies will be willing to come and share their ideas with the participants and invite the participants in some small way to share their ideas with them). I feel quite shocked and surprised to find that this issue has arisen - and so not surprisingly does Liam, who calls me later and leaves a couple of messages on my phone. Although he doesn't spell this out, in so many words, I can tell that he's concerned now about the ideas he is bringing to the workshop - if this is the way the participants are thinking. If the participants are concerned about their ideas being 'taken', it somehow suggests that this is their frame of mind - and they would have fewer qualms about 'taking' Liam and Hannah's. Feels like a bit of a breakdown of trust, quite frankly, or is that being melodramatic? So what's to be done? Talk about it tomorrow I guess. Please post your comments.

In response to a request from Gail Hunt, I spend a bit of time writing a kind of press release on the forthcoming Forest Fringe residency for the plasma screens at Central - typical job for the conscientious convenor I suppose, and surprisingly difficult to try to encapsulate what you are doing (and attempting to achieve) in just a few eye-catching words. Here it is:

Forest Fringe Residency

Fridays November 13, November 27, December 4th

Following their success at the Edinburgh Festival, MA Advanced Theatre Practice has invited Forest Fringe to curate three evenings at Central. Spread over three separate Fridays, directors Andy Field and Deborah Pearson will present a programme of performances giving a sense of the full spectrum of the work they support and develop at this innovative venue.

This initiative has been supported by the Centre of Excellence in Theatre Training.

With a short notice of this kind, every word seems to be crucial and telling a story - so I spend a ridiculous amount of time crossing words out and swapping them around. Is it a 'residency'? Should I qualify 'success'? Has the word 'innovative' been worn out by over-use? What's the point of doing all this heart-searching anyway?

What I realise, as I write, is that this humble notice is one of constituent parts of the frame for the event, and that framing the event is somehow an (increasingly?) important ingredient of what the event will be. We want to be prepared for what we will experience - as what we will experience becomes wider and wider in its range of possibilites. Reading about the event, hearing about the event, wondering about the event - becomes as important as experiencing the event - or rather becomes part of experiencing the event. I look forward to seeing my notice (in some shape or form) on the plasma screens! And what I realise now - imagining it there, as I glance up from the queue for coffee at some future date - is that it needs an image. I'll write to Debbie and Andy and ask for one - either pictures of themselves, or better still, a picture of (or from) the Forest Fringe.