Wmiere.Son Tadeusz Ka Women's Images Street

-INTERVIEW.

WMIERE.SON TADEUSZKA WOMEN'SIMAGES STREET FORKBEARDFANTASY REVIEWS LISTINGS VIDEO

PROGRAMME Wednesday August 27th John Russel/Roger Turner/Mike Johns. John Tchicai Saxophone Quartet (inc Andrea Goud beek, Francois Jeanneau, Philippe Mate) Keith Tippett. Thursday August 28th Richard Goldman & Yotande Snaith. James Newton. Irene Schweizer/Rudiger Carl/ artists nevv-sletter Maarten Van Regteren Altena. Friday August 29th A new monthly publication for artists, Company. (Derek Bailey, Georgie Born, Lind craftsmen and photographers. say Cooper, Evan Parker) Tristan Honsinger, Maarten Van Regteren Altena, Frank Perry. AN aims to create a dialogue between Saturday August 30th (Afternoon) Steve Lacy & Kent Carter. Maggie Nicols/ artists, artists groups, arts organisations Peter Nu/Loi Coxhill. John Stevens/Peter and funding bodies. Brotzmann/Peter Kowald. Saturday August 30th (Evening) Information on resources, awards; jobs, I.C.P. Orchestra. (inc MishaMengelberg & Han materials, galleries, workshops, visual arts Bennink) Diamanda Galas. Iskra 1903. (Paul Rutherford/Barry Guy/ Phil Wachsmann). catalogues, open exhibitions, fellow Sunday August 31st (Afternoon) ships . .... Alterations (Steve Beresford/Peter Cusack/ Terry Day, David Toop, Paul Burwell & Max NOW AVAILABLE Eastley. This Heat. Sunday August 31st (Evening) Annual subscription Bill Dixon/ Alan Silva/Kent Carter. Evan (12 issues) £3 Parker/Paul Lovens/Paul Ly;-ton/Alex Schlip penbach. Alan Tomlinson. Subscriptions to: Artie Producers, Lectures Bill Dixon, 'Black Music Aesthetics' (Saturday 17 Shakespeare Terrace, Sunderland, Tyne and Afternoon) Evan Parker 'Current Tendencies Wear, SR2 7JG. In Improvised Music' (Sunday Afternoon).

ToOCT 25 BRIANCATLING RICHARDMACKNESS STEPHENCOCHRANE (with Loi Coxhill) JAYNEPARKER STEPHENDILWORTH IAINSINCLAIR DAVIDDULY ELAINESHEMILT TOMGILHESPY SUEWOOD 'Imaginationisthe venom passing slyly through the vein' SCULPTURE,DRAWING,PERFORMANCE,FILM,WRITING Events:October11 Cochrane&Coxhill performance 10·6 October16 Films by Duly,Shemilt,Parker&Sinclair

OCT27-NOV 15 Keith Frake Installation

October30 Performanceby Keith Frake 7pm November6 ...... November20Performanceby Catherine Elwes 7pm

NOV1-29 ArtsCouncil Approaches to EducationExhibitions (Partof IkonEducation 80) IKON GALLERY TEL , (021) 643 0708

Editor Rob La Frenais Review Editor Luke Dixon Design Editor Chloe Nevett CIRCUS LUMIERE 13 Associate Editors Pete Shelton Marguerite Mclaughlin Bruce Bayley STREET PERFORMANCE IN LONDON Contributors Andrea Hill AND PARIS 16 John Roberts Neil Hornick Tom Castle Paddy Fletcher WOMEN'S IMAGES IN PERFORMANCE 19 Ian Hinchliffe Charles Hustwick Silvy Panet Raymona Simon Thorne TADEUSZ KANTOR'S WIELOPOLE, Lyn McRitchie WIELOPOLE BY CRICOT 2 20 Typesetting Blue Lotus Printing Calverts North Star Press Ltd FORKBEARD FANTASY 23 Cover photo Peter Sayers

Copyright© 1980 ISSN No 0144-5901 REVIEWS: CONTROLLED ATTACK, YOUTHANASIA/'PREJUDICE, ROUGH The Performance Magazine receives assistance from the MAGIC, COLOURSPACE, NFT FRINGE Arts Council of Great Britain. THEATRE FILMS. 26

LETTERS 28

VIDEO, HINCHLIFFE 29

LISTINGS 30

AUDIO ARTS sound archive of contemporary art

6 BRIARWOOD ROAD, subscription details from LONDON SW4 9PX

·C u.r: The path of the Western Avant-Gardist may be way on, or to be more consistent with his recent gastronomic ward, even implausible, but John Cage is as sanguine produtions, rumbles on. It's two years since he was in and productive as ever, still battling alone against taste London to deliver his Thoreau Empty Words lecture. and tonality when pupils turned apostates have been This July with Merce Cunningham he has been holding fiddling about with harmony and periodic time for a series of interdisciplinary workshops at Goldsmiths' years. The cut-ups and indeterminate music then rattles college under the aegis of Bonnie Bird, one of the first

This issue of Performance Magazine has been reproduced as part of Performance Magazine Online (2017) with the permission of the surviving Editors, Rob La Frenais and Gray Watson. Copyright remains with Performance Magazine and/or the original creators of the work. The project has been produced in association with the Live Art Development Agency. dancers Cage wotked with. There have also been Silvy Panet Raymond: I see Reagan has been pushed performances at Goldsmiths' (Credo in US, Dialogue, forward. and a recital of early non-indeterminate compositions John Cage: Its very unfortunate, we're all very alarmed. including In a Landscape), Riverside Studios (Dialogue), On the other hand if he's really bad, if°we have a really Sadlers Wells (Fielding Six and Tango) and a lecture on stupid president it might help the whole social situation by Futurism and an introduction to Jean Paul Curtay's making us change it. We need a little intelligence. Lettrist poetry at the I.C.A. H ever a man has come to John Roberts: Things will be far better ifwe suffer from wear his art then Cage must be the bespoke champion. stupidity? The art is tailored to complement the man, the Cage: · So that we would be obliged to introduce intelli life-style: ascetic, unassuming, calm, with a joyful gence. comic glint of the absurd. JR: I don't know if the Soviet Union would see it like But this is plainly a matter of taste and taste is a that? matter of values and a hierarchy of values for Cage is Cage: I remember once when in Seattle there was an neither proper to music nor the 'multi-centredness' of earthquake, in other words not a state of human stupidity man. Cage's chance operations thus have a frustrating but a catastrophe of some kind, which wouldn't have to paradoxical nature to them: they deny taste, habit, come from the earth itself but could come from Reagan, memory in the manner of their operation but signify in (laughter ) but then people come together who formerly their wider orbit a whole realm of personal preferences had thought of themselves as separate and they try to use and feelings. All the same this doesn't in any way alter their togetherness to change things, from unfortunate to the very real liberating rejection of musical 'results' for fortunate. process which released composer and choreographer JR: .Are you still very optimistic then about the state of from narrative and psychology - or the 'boom-boom' things? school of dancing as Cage has called it. Cage's music is Cage: I'm trained to be optimistic. I have little training to not about refusing the emotions and imagination free be pessimistic. I think it would be more intelligent of me rein, but offering them a wider berth by not giving them to be pessimistic but I'm just not good at being pessimis expressionist cues, that is why the music is at its most tic each . day I wake up . What I've done is that in the face rewarding when its accompanying dance, when the of the news each day pessimism seems reasonable, but viewer can 'discover' accidental correspondences optimism is merely pushed into the comer, you might say between the movement and sound. It could be said of smaller groups of people . There's no reason to be pessi though that Cage's greatest influence has been on mistic about my friends for instance, we know how to deal artists rather than musicians: Rauschenberg, Johns, with the most miserable situations. I remember a beauti Fluxus etc. Cage's early work and manifestoes extended ful remark of Jasper Johns: he said 'I've been poor and I the Dadaist spirit of the homespun, the egalitarian, the know how to do that, I've been rich and I know how to do amateur; a catch-all use of materials and resources: that.' He said that in response to my warning him that 'each artist works as he sees fit'. And Cage saw fit to perhaps people might eventually lose interest in his work replace the term music with sound. There had plenty of so he ought to save a little bit of money, but he said he precedents for this, particularly Russolo and Satie, but didn't mind being poor. Cage brought to it a quirky American charm, while at SPR: Was that a reflection of your own like of his work or the same time, and of far greater importance, recog was that a reflection on what you could see as the reaction nising and developing the wider possibilities of inter from the audience? media work, which was to result in the Black Mountain Cage: No he had a tendency, and an interest, in buying experiments. The collaborations with Merce Cunning property here and there so I was suggesting that he not do ham - Cage and Cunningham never work together as that sort of thing . I was criticizing his lifestyle. such, but in isolation with the barest of outlines of what JR: Are you still friends with all the artists you worked the piece might be - have been influential in the with and knew in the fifties? gradual de-balleticization of dance. The question of Cage: There was a break in my friendship with Rausch collaboration or co-existence provided much scope enberg but its been repaired and the only reason we don't during the week at Goldsmiths' for some really stodgy, see each other frequently now is that he lives in Florida staged debate vis-a-vis endless either-or harangues. To and I live in New York. But I enjoy seeing him now. what extent does Cage 'illustrate' Cunningham's ideas? JR: Will there be any collaborations in the future? How much does prior knowledge of these ideas deter Cage : There might be. There was one fairly recently a mine the result? H these questions seem empty, old and piece called Telephones and Birds in the music , it was called boring it is because people like nothing more than Travelogue in the dance and Bob did the sets and cos seeing Cage contradict his own indeterminate methods. tumes. And I did a homage to him by introducing to the Now 68, and working hard on the mammoth Atlas telephones because years ago he made a dance accompani Borealis and the Ten Thunderclaps based on Finnegan's ment using only telephones, he only used the telephone's Wake first begun in the sixties, Cage was over primarily tone, whereas I found all the available recorded messages to teach and promote his new book 'Empty Words'. He and then had three telephone operators in the pit calling has said that he wants to get on with lots more teaching anyone of thes~ through chance operations. So we had a and writing and doesn't like spending time reminiscing collage of many such recordings. or reflecting on past achievements. This time in JR: What have you being doing recently with Mark London he repeatedly refused to give interviews. Lancaster? However, after numerous phone calls and a brief intro Cage: Mark has done much of the lighting, sets and cos duction he agreed to speak to me and Silvy Panet tumes for the company . Raymond. Tired but cheerful after a panel debate on JR: Did the sets look similar to his recent painting at the Collaboration or Co-existence? we spoke to him in his Rowan? room at the Laban Centre. Cage: There is some connection between those paintings John Roberts from the austerity of his grid paintings, which is some-

Charleston, bt Mark Lancaster. what reflected in his set for Square Game, which is a white be strings but wind instruments because it seems to me floor with green around it. It's a bit like his early work that at the present momem: we are not on earth but in the whereas Tango is like his later work. air. Its a lovely project and ought to be done but it would SPR: Does he use a different video every time? require committing myself to an institution - not an Cage: ·We are taking it right off the air, we haven't chosen insane asylum but a technological institution - and I anything. really don 't like that experience but I would have to do it in SPR: · So where ever you happen to be you turn on the order to get this done. television? JR: ·How much does new technology interest you, syn Cage: ·Exactly. thesizers etc.? SPR: Were you drinking coffee at one point? Cage: It interests me very little, partly for the reason it Cage: It was hot water. That waving sound at the begin interests so many other people, and other people are doing ning is the coffee pot heating up. At the last part of the such excellent work in that field, but I don't think anyone dance I'm accompanied by swilling the tea with the throat will do this Thunderclap piece until I do it. microphone attached to my throat . The middle part is the SPR: ·Will the voices in the piece change as though it were television set, the first part is the piece called Letter to Eric through history? S atie which is the name of Eric Satie pronounced first and Cage: ·No they will fill up the envelopes of thunderclaps. then ostinati formed through chance operations from all You know the meaning of the word envelope there? An the other letters of the alphabet than those letters and all of evelope of a sound is how it begins, continues and how it the alphabet going at once - that's what happens in the dies away, so it's like a body of overjoins; and the differ first part of the dance. ence between your voice and my voice is the difference of SPR: · Is there a project you've been wanting to tackle, overtone structure and that's the same kind of difference that you want to set time aside to do? to a thunderclap so when we would speak, if we had the Cage: I would never set time aside to do something be proper equipment , it would act to fill up a thunderclap. cause I'm generally doing three or four things at one time, You wouldn 't hear what we were saying but you would so there are several projects I have in mind that I haven't hear thunde r. It exists, they were inventions years ago for yet started. Its not because of the time but because of the radio advert ising, they would make people sound like rail facilities I would require. The one project I've had for way train s when they spoke. many years that remains untouched is Atlas Borealis with JR: ·Your music has never been aggressive, it may have the Ten Thunderclaps. It would be the Ten Thunderclaps been loud , but never overbearing. of Finnegan's Wake but produced by a chorus and orches Cage: ·I don 't try to impose a point of view. tra. Instead of sounding like music it would sound like a JR: · So how much are you in sympathy with people who thunderstorm but it would be produced by musicians, the have taken your ideas and subjected to the most violent singers would have contact microphones or some kind of kind of treatment? I'm thinking particularly of Fluxus. gadgetry on them which would bring about their filling up Cage: ·Well I'm not aware of any who have done it. the envelopes of actual thunderclaps when they pro JR: ·A lot of Fluxus events were extremely aggressive. nounced the letters and syllables of the Joycean thunder Cage: ·But there are different kinds of violence. I claps. And I was taught by Marshall McLuhan that those remember being frightened by a performance of Nam thunderclaps in their progress through the Wake are a June Paik 's and I would think twice before going to history of civilisation and technology, so that the rain another one. would be produced by the orchestra also with gadgets SPR: ·Did he assault you directly? attached to the violins that would make it sound as though Cage: ·Yes he came up with a pair of scissors and cut off it were falling on different materials that would simulate my tie and then asked me to take off my jacket and he the change through history, so that finally there wouldn't began slashing my shirt - you didn't know where he was

This issue of Performance Magazine has been reproduced as part of Performance Magazine Online (2017) with the permission of the surviving Editors, Rob La Frenais and Gray Watson. Copyright remains with Performance Magazine and/or the original creators of the work. The project has been produced in association with the Live Art Development Agency. going to stop. You had the feeling he would kill something sounds, I wondered how you felt about that? or smash something or that he could kill himself. I Cage: ·I have no objection to dissonance. (laughter) wouldn't say that was influenced from me. What is your SPR: ·I know you have no objections, but I wanted to question? How do I feel about such things? My feeling is know whether you felt any pleasure that things were that if I know it is going to rain I will stay out of the rain. coming round to your way of things. (laughter) Cage: ·But it isn't is it? Isn't it a regular beat? JR: Do you see much performance in New York? SPR: Not all the time. Cage: Now and then I do, but mostly after working all Cage: .I think its part of show business. day long I want to relax. I saw recently a beautiful per JR: ·Aren't you? formance of Alison Knowles. She was assisted by Jackson Cage: No. MacLaurel, Phillip Komer and Malcolm Goldstein and an JR: In a marginal way? Italian dancer who did a kind of whirling - North Cage: ·No I'm much more part of music as a means of African. changing the mind. JR: Do you enjoy the work of Robert Wilson? JR: ·A therapy. Cage: ·Yes. And I enjoyed a short performance I saw of Cage: Not a therapy - that's healing the body. You Laurie Anderson and I was fascinated recently to meet mean healing the mind? Perhaps if you want to say that, I Marina Abramovici-Ulay. I haven't seen her performance wouldn't myself. with Ulay but I hear they're going off to Australia to live JR: .Opening up the mind. for a year with the aborigines. I think she's a very con Cage: ·A means of converting the mind, turning it vincing person. around, so that it moves away from itself out to the rest of JR: ·I haven't really enjoyed their performances. One I the world, or as Rama Khrisna said 'as a means of rapid saw involved Ulay running with straps of elastic attached transportation.' to a wall, gradually forcing himself forward further and JR: . So your music in itself is not that important? further to the point of exhaustion. Marina was standing in Cage: .The use of it is what is important. the performance space some five yards away from the path JR: ·The use rather than the result. of Ulay and then mid way through somebody came out of Cage: .That's what Wittgenstein said about anything. He the audience and hit her. It was obviously prepared, it said the meaning of something was its use. looked prepared. JR: Have you still no use for Beethoven? Cage: ·There is a kind of violence in her work, a desire for Cage: .If he's well played I will forget my prejudices and it seems to me. She gave a talk recently at a symposium listen, occasionally that has happened, but it's very rare - arranged in the South Pacific by Katherine Berel. She well I haven't really been subjected to much Beethoven came but not Ulay, and she gave a - we were each to give recently. twelve minute talks-very aggressive, violent talk, not all JR: .What about the last String Quartets? the way through but at times. Actually she's very sweet, a Cage : ·I haven't heard them recently - they're probably beautiful lovely person, but then that business of cutting very beautiful. I remember hearing the Bagatelles and her body with razor blades and the performance with the thinking they sounded more modem than most modem snake - did you see that? Did you hear about that? - in music. which she and Ulay in the nude behaved like snakes with a SPR: · Do you ever feel the urge to compose that way? real snake, in front of an audience. Its the sort of thing I'd Cage: ·I don't proceed by urges. I think music is too time rather hear about than experience . There was another consuming to pursue that way. For instance this project I performance artist from Vienna -you probably know his described to you is more.like a conviction than an urge, name. something ultimately I will do. JR: ·Herman Nitsch? JR: ·Do you ever worry that your producing too much Cage: ·That's it, who did some shocking things involving work? blood. Cage: ·It's clear that I am and now on top of all the music JR: ·I thoroughly enjoyed Credo in US at Goldsmiths'. and writing I'm deeply involved in macrobiotic cooking How different was the piece to the original, which was first and now the making of etchings. In the last four years I've performed in 1942 wasn't it? made nearly a hundred etchings. Right now the series I'm Cage: .Yes. Yes it was very different. Merce's choreo making is called Changes and Disappearances, it's an graphy was for two dancers and it involved a text which attempt to bring into graphic art some of the experiences Merce had written so that in 'holds' - when my music I've had from musical practices, and ideas about graphic comes to a stop then starts again - there would be words. possibilities that I didn't see being done by other people. JR: Were all the bluesy passages for piano scored? SPR: · Has any of it been sparked off by the way that you Cage: Yes. (long pause) I was aware ofboogie-woogie at put sounds down on paper? the time (laughter) Cage: No, but by the indeterminate aspects of music in SPR: ·How do you consider new popular music - punk, recent years, the use of chance operations. The people I New Wave? work with are willing to take extraordinary pains so that a Cage: ·What is the New Wave? I don'treallyknowwhatit single etching recently had forty-four plates and a is. If you could point it out to me I might have some hundred and twenty colours. reaction. SPR: ·Have you ever shown anywhere recently? JR: ·It's very simple, three, four chord stuff, aggressive, Cage: Yes some of them have been shown in the West, fast. some of them in New York and some in Switzerland. Cage: ·There's a good deal of dancing on the part of the JR: ·You once said 'I'm not interested in whether any of performers? my works are good or bad' but all the same you're much SPR: ·Usually jumping up and down. concerned with the quality of your performances. Is the Cage: ·I've seen something like that. It was entertaining to latter compatible with the for.ner? see but not very engaging. Cage: .You mean I'm not concerned about the quality of SPR: But it made me think - they use very dissonant the composition but I am about the quality of perform-

This issue of Performance Magazine has been reproduced as part of Performance Magazine Online (2017) with the permission of the surviving Editors, Rob La Frenais and Gray Watson. Copyright remains with Performance Magazine and/or the original creators of the work. The project has been produced in association with the Live Art Development Agency. scholarships were handed out to young professionals. But barked so effectively that, at first, people looked under not before an audition, where numbered dancers scram their seats for a stray beast. All this lasted nearly an hour. bled to keep pace with the instructions that, to some, came Previously, group 1 had performed part of 'Canfield', like gunfire. Half the dancers were streamlined into an formerly in the Company's repertoire and gave a display of intensive schedule of composition and repertory classes their composition studies. Later that evening, Cage and with Cunningham and two Company members. The other Cunningham performed 'Dialogue', an independently half was handed over to Bonnie Bird and Fiona McPhee, devised collaboration. Each of them is seated at a desk on both from the Laban studios and Peter Logan, a opposite sides of the stage; Cage with a microphone, lamp, kinesthetic sculptor who also headed the group of visual notepad and telephone - slurs, slices and stretches artists. The project to be developed was based on a 1939 words, dials, gets up to slowly drag a trolley towards the piece 'Imaginary Landscape' choreographed by Bonnie other side of the stage. The sounds transform the trolley Bird, with a score by Cage. Two aspects of the original into a new instrument. Cunningham gets up, marks out work were used as the starting point for an 'Imaginary the space with steady footwork, sits at a chair and con Landscape of today'. The visual artists working with the tinues to dance. His range of movement has had to be dancers had to effectively 'mask' the body. The musicians curtailed somewhat over the last few years, partly due to a had to retain the overall notion of the 'Imaginary Land nasty touch of arthritis in his feet; but the movement is scape'. They worked separately with Cage, and were only still as strong, direct and unusual as before. Throughout brought together with the dancers and artists at the the piece, they merely share the space and time, and the performance of the event on the last day. What the college audience is free to make whatever association it feels. staff had not anticipated was the unrest which this caused Also during the week some rather ineffectual 'dis among gronp 2 (dancers-artists), who were to have very cussions' took place. One of the issues was 'Collaboration limited contact with Cunningham, and that they would or Co-Existence: . two approaches to inter-disciplinary have to revive a 40-year old idea which was not even work in the Arts'. Cunningham's. Cage: ·Both exist. Personally, I try not to make selections, After much furore, the dust somewhat settled in mid but leave myself open to observation. air, and the company members tried to palliate the A work of art is finished once it's begun, providing that situation by giving samples of what the other group was you give equal attention to each part. busily learning. There followed a round of apologies by Cunningham: Music has never been unwelcome. More the College administration on this 'oversight', everyone often than not, I only get to hear the music the day before tried to find some way of catching up on lost time and to the performance, if it's ready. I used to tell the composers make the best of the situation. But what still puzzled those the length of my piece, but now I don't. in group 2 was the link between Cunningham's approach Audience: ·Mr Cage, why bother writing music for dance, to movement and collaborations and the project brief, as if it has its owQ rhythm. outlined. What transpired from the couple of workshops Cage: ... (after recounting an old Chinese story) which that he gave, was that his notion of 'isolated movements' translates into this: 'The highest purpose is to have no did not really correspond with that of Ms Bird. To him, pun,ose at all. This puts one in accord with nature in her isolation does not really exist as such. He illustrated this manners of operation. If someone comes along and asks by breaking down a combination of thirteen separate, why? there are no answers.' simple actions, then doing them consecutively. This could SPR: ·Mr Cage mentioned to his students that music is only be achieved by relating each part to the next. Ms subservient to dance. , Bird's initial concept would perhaps have proved more Cunningham: (eyebrows raised) Oh, he did? Are you stimulating if she had also taken into account the changes sure? and experiments in movement over the forty years since SPR: .I think it was in reference to the present situation, her project. where his music stops when the dance ends. Each visual artist was assigned to a small group of Cunningham: Well, I guess, on that point, it could be so. dancers and each group had to find their own answer to the SPR: ·Have you ever rejected an artist's contribution to problem of collaboration or co-existence. On the third your work? day, the artists were given some basic materials: wooden Cunningham: ·Very rarely. I had devised a solo of jumps rods, string, hessian, paint and corrugated paper. During and leaps. David Hare had designed my costume in plaster improvisation, the dancers balked at the literality of some and cement. I put it on and couldn't get out. Jumps! artists - 'you are the sun, I am the river' - and that Forget it. feeling was reciprocated as regards to stylisation. Eventu Cage believes that once artists have agreed on the ally, most groups decided to leave the choreography to the specifics, that each develops his/her own idea. 'Initially, movers and, if the visual artists, apart from creating sets what we have is quality, what we want is more and more of and/or costumes, still wished to be physically active, that these good things'. it be done in the true sense of co-existence. When Steve Paxton was asked to comment about his For the Event, groups performed in relays of two's and former teacher he said: 'What Cunningham has given us is three's in three large rectangles. One of the artists, Glenys clean mirrors, mirrors in fragments and whole, darkened Johnson walked on the perimeter counting out the time, mirrors and distorting mirrors. From some viewpoints, although this was lost, rather engulfed by the extra they were empty and from others, they were full of reflec ordinary mixture of sounds emitted by the musicians tions, images of the watcher's mind'. scattered throughout the Great Hall. One man, seated under a plastic sheet, rubbed a microphone on the Silvy Panel Raymond material while above him, another man squeezed, hammered and slapped an array of objects. For his 'sounds', a pianist relied on the melting of a small chunk of ice which affected the strings: another ran around the balcony, peered out of the wmdow into the space and

----;

portico of St Paul's Church to make ~ING OF his London debut. It was in the exquisite Japanese "'~ Q) -0 Garden, created on a bomb site by C :, volunteers, that I saw 'Mudsalad' at (1l CJ) ~ the first of Covent Garden's neigh > C C bourhood festivals in those seemingly Q) far-off days before the new develop c. 'formance ment stilled much of the sense of become better heeled and more excitement one had come to associ numerous. The Piazza Performances ate with the area. That garden, and aim, say their organisers, 'to create a Garden the others which have come and place where people may go at any gone since then, are survived only by time and see something interesting, a small Italian Garden. But since and an opportunity to groups and 1975 the various gardens have been individuals to experiment, and for the sites of the festivals which have the public to witness their latest been so central a part of community work.' The GLC, though it does not company's first Christmas show, life in Covent Garden. own the site, has a music and dance 'Scrooge and the Magic Lamp', dealt Into those magical spaces and licence for the Portico and as well as with the then particularly topical spilling out into the streets around, being a striking and historic setting subject of property speculation. performers from throughout Britain it is also a good sounding board. At The strongly recognisable style of have congregated for little, if any, the offices of the Covent Garden Covent Garden Community Theatre money to participate in the Metro Community Association is a perfor which has characterised all their polis's only festival of its kind. For mance chart where potential perfor work since was discemable even in years there has been no better place mers can book themselves in and be their first production. The songs, for fingering the pulse of contempor issued with a 'performance pass' jokes, banter with the audience, ary street performance. From the which will ensure that they are not rough exuberance, energy and - fairground antics of the now defunct arrested by Bow Street's eager very importantly - puppets, were Salakta Baloon Band to the un policemen. all there. expected surrealities of The Phantom Fire regulations limit performance It is singularly fitting that one Captain, it has all been there to see, in the covered market and individual should associate puppetry with the yet despite the national importance performers may only busk in the work of this group for centuries of the events the festival has retained small Italian Garden at the East end before them Mr Punch, newly its peculiar parochial flavour. of the Piazza unless they have the arrived from Italy, had chosen the Over the summer weekdays since official blessing of one Norman

In this unequal world there are some companies that are for as far as he is concerned he remains the only Polish worth catching a bus to see and some that are worth contemporary artist. spending a day on the train. Cricot 2, on this basis, should Wielopole-Wielopole is the name of the village where gladden the hearts of British Rail executives. For them to Kantor was born. The new production of the same title be able to perform in Edinburgh and London it has was developed by Kantor from completely original required a daring financial commitment, one which material, from memories of his own childhood, developed should be well justified by response to their work alone. through a massive portfolio of his own drawings. Scripted, Not that Cricot 2 are strangers to generous sponsor rehearsed and directed to the final detail by Kantor alone ship. Their new production Wielopole-Wielopolewas seven it promises to be at once an enormously egotistical creation months in rehearsing, during which time they were and a remarkable personal statement. provided with a church as their rehearsal space and Cricot 2 last visited Britain in 1976, where as well as theatre, sumptuous accomodation and a considerable performing in the Edinburgh Festival they came to the as income. The bill was footed by the Comune di Firenze and yet unfinished Riverside Studios. The atmosphere created the Teatro Regionale Toscano from Florence. The reason by their production Dead Class was much enhanced by its that Cricot 2 was coaxed to leave Cracow and work in presentation in an only partly completed building. This Florence was surely not only to provide exceptional was to be great art in a barn, the work was to be so impor working conditions for an excellent company. Inseparable tant that the audience would be prepared to suffer discom from the reputation of Cricot 2 is the company's director, fort to see it, there would be no complaints from the the one time stage designer, visual artist and creator of audience that they would be crowded into a tiny corridor Happenings, Tadeusz Kantor, considered by many to be until the great artist they had come to see was ready to let the foremost artist working in Eastern Europe. them enter the auditorium. It may sound like a fairy-tale, Kantor began his work as a director of performances in but it is true. Kantor's reputation was such that a little 1942, in the now celebrated underground cellar, and in sycophantic genuflecting did not seem out of place. doing so crea(ed not only performance in Poland , but also Needless to say, had the artist and the company not lived what is now seen as the prospering Polish avant-garde. up to their reputation there would be few interested in Not a position that he would be pleased to acknowledge - trying to bring them back to Britain, but they did, and are

0 C: ·;: "'0 "':, co 0 ·;:; ·;: :,

~"'

This issue of Performance Magazine has been reproduced as part of Performance Magazine Online (2017) with the permission of the surviving Editors, Rob La Frenais and Gray Watson. Copyright remains with Performance Magazine and/or the original creators of the work. The project has been produced in association with the Live Art Development Agency. .tpologetic figure with a microphone, and sented as a double-bill with 'Vicious the dialogue is more or less lifted from Circle', another piece based on first hand Rosemary's encounter with the wizard. experiences of gang action, teenage bore REVIEWS Then Dr Mathew Nostromo reveals - 'I dom and ritual warfare and violence, this built him in the Science Lab at night.' The time set in a ca,·e-cum-youth club in performance is done with a lot of rushing London . around and gallons of sweat by Leslie Mil In 'Vicious Circle' the three boys - Controlled Attack diner, Alan Gilbey and Eamonn Duggan. Knuckle, Bollock and Benny are waiting They all work as part ofTHAP , the Tower for the rest of their gang to arrive so they Theatre Space, London. Hamlets Arts Project. can go and 'ruck' with a mob from Willes There is something extremely off-putting They are all quite young, so their mem den Green who are in the Wimpy across the about the combination of the word 'edu ories do not have to be stretched too far for street. The wait is longer than they expec cation' with a description of any arts activ material. A lot of it has the essence of good ted and the time is spent discovering things ity. One immediately thinks of things like contemporary satire, particularly in the about each other that they never knew 'Theatre in Education'; troupes of per pupils treatment of the teachers. The Radi before. The hard-edged Knuckle is per forming teachers, rather like seals, who are cal Teacher. 'I'm the hero of this show' is suaded to read his poems which he had employed by education authorities to regaled with 'You a gay teacher sir coo are never shoj n to anyone before. Benny, who macically crank up the process of assimi you going to come out in the classroom ahh looks a tough, aggressive skinhead type lating facts. The group Controlled Attack go on sir please come out in the classroom emerges as an extremely sensitive chap use education as a theme, not to really tell go on sir .... ' And always those key words of whose gross racism and hatred for 'wogs' is us anything about schools, but to use the abuse 'You wobbler!' Whatever that discovered to be based partly in ignorance more ridicuk,us and absurd aspects of them means. ('Of course, the Russians are black bas in terms of a performance. Controlled As I mentioned, Controlled Attack think tards' ) and partly in a history of badly attack seem very modest about their aims. they have an appeallimited to the East End associated images - black tadpoles in bio 'It's really something that can only be of London. Well maybe. But if they get logy class which he found disgusting and understood by someone who has experi another performance together it will be his sister having an abortion, after 'being enced an East London Comprehensive' worth kicking around the country a bit. screwed' by a black man, manage to merge they say, Maybe. But for me, the whole Rob La Frenais in his mind creating a loathsome mix of feat thing seems equally as close to Hellhole and hatred, a potent exposition of the School (Prop. Grimly Fiendish M.A. ) as psychological basis ofFascism. Bollock, the described by Nicolai Tolstoy in 'The least mature of the three, remains the butt Horror of Hell Hole School' in a best of their humour and scorn with his selling childrens book of the late sixties. obsession with girl's breasts and his The modern comprehensive, with its vast juvenile sex fantasies but manages to drive corridors and dehumanising tannor system a strong point home when he turns on is a far cry from the bleak mansion where Benny, who has 'screwed' a girl through children are locked up for a life-sentence of force, saying 'You're the sickest. I only canings and where the masters visibly rot think about it all the time. You go and fuck into the staff-room arm chairs, but it all up so that chaps like me can't treat Controlled Attack have managed to turn a them well afterwards'. modern First Day At School into a gothic Gaynor, the only woman in the piece, nightmare. One of the things the group Youthanasia helps her sister run the cafe, and is a sharp manage to do is to balance the everyday observer and commentator on the state of with the absurd. The cry 'You're a loony' is Oval House, London. things , trying to make them realise that no doubt often hurled at many slightly less there are other things to do. The gang conventional teachers, but in this per In a garage underneath a block of flats in glimpse a brief understanding of their formance the epiphet is made somehow Paddington, the Rubber Glove Firm meet predicament, before being pulled into their chilling by the fact that all the teachers are to consider their next 'job'. This gang of immediate environment by an act of harsh indeed completely and utterly mad. The youths have so far been into petty crimes violence. English Master, who sprays essays with like mugging the dossers under the West Devised by Richard Morley, who works deodorant before marking them, who way, knocking over stamp machines, with youths in London, 'Vicious Circle' is a stares at the class through binoculars, smashing telephone boxes, pissing in the powerful study. clearly conveys the sort of psycotic lifts but tonight their leader, Tab , offers The evening also contained a short set of approach that some teachers, (many of them a chance to get into The Big League songs and poems performed by Patrik whom have some sort of personality defect) - nicking SOOcalculators from a neigh Fitzgerald , who has a single out seen on the adopt towards their charges. Indeed, it is a bouring warehouse ... Final Solution label, distributed through well known fact, that some sort of eccen In a very convincing graffitti-r idden en Rough Trade, called 'Tonight' . tricity is one of the best protections against vironment built by Mark Instrall, we wit The Forum Alternative Youth Theatre a young enquiring mind that an older, dis ness an interesting study in gang relation is run entirely by young people between the illusioned shagged out version has. ships, structures, authority roles that are ages of 12 and 21. A previous performance, Controlled Attack are quite convincing. played out in a most naturalistic manner. 'This Green and Pleasant Land', by They have the right sort of energy, the The power of a password, for instance, or Damian Duggan-Ryan toured schools, right sort of ideas, and the right sort of the motivational difference between the community centres, the Soho Poly and the twerpishness in their performers to be ambitious leader and the plain boredom of King 's Head theatres. effective schoolboys as well as teachers. the rest of the gang who are content to leave F.A.Y.T. also has a film group, Forum They borrow from the 'Widard of Oz' the job till tomorrow because they want to Youth Films, which is at present working theme heavily in presenting an innocent watch 'Star Trek' or 'wash their hair' , takes on a film called 'Millions Like Us .. .' a live pupils quest to Find Out What Education us into the world of teen-age memory when wire post-punk documentary... a self Is All About, a task that necessarily entails we belonged to a gang of some sort - per sponsored and unusually vivid attempt to seeking out the mysterious and elusive haps not as ambitious as Rubber Gloves but capture both the intensity of audience Head, The Head is indeed a head, sus certainly as important to our social reaction and the truths and discrepancies of pended in a fishtank, apparently barking identities. various bands as proved by actual events at out orders across the tannoy. When the 'Big League' was constructed through the gigs' (Mark Ellen, N.M.E. ). innocent pupil is brought before this entity improvisation by Dom Shaw and the Bru ce Bayley there is, of course revealed the classic Forum Alternative Youth Theatre and pre-

This issue of Performance Magazine has been reproduced as part of Performance Magazine Online (2017) with the permission of the surviving Editors, Rob La Frenais and Gray Watson. Copyright remains with Performance Magazine and/or the original creators of the work. The project has been produced in association with the Live Art Development Agency. Tom Beaker lives behind the flash, sounds are beamed into the different cells Predjudice glitter and winking neon of London's Soho by highly directional loudspeaker arrays. Oval House, London. in the grubbily realistic environment Caro All types of natural sound and music are line Beaver has devised for Kerry Crabbe's used, and can be split into different This was one of the best short performan 'Rough Magic' currently playing at New frequency bands by the audio spectrum ces to be seen in a long time. In a swift End. There amongst· the rotting lino, analyser, operated by Robin Maconie and twenty-five minutes, four Rose Bruford inflatable women and battered copies of members of the Music Department from students performed a highly amusing and Spotlight, is a world as down at heel and Surrey University. The juxtaposition of sharply analytical show on prejudicial tackily romantic as Philip Marlowe's West such saturated colours appears to 'flatten' situations that confront black women in Coast, yet alone London's hinterland of sex space in this hermetic environment, so Britain: a harrassed mother trying to bring and theatre. dimensions are read by reference to the up a truant daughter while looking for ade Self-acknowledged to be one of the three scale of people moving within it, appear quate housing; the daughter, Doreen, worst theatrical agents in London, Beaker ing and disappearing at varying distances. being arrested under SUS and being has only two clients left on his books, one in It is an intriguing context for dances framed by the police for a theft which she work, filming on a far-off tropical island, concerned with both the articulation of did not commit; a secretary, bored with the other out. It is this latter client whose space, and the visual impact of such a being a door-mat to her efficient but violent personal affairs continually intrude concern. entirely unwholesome boss, deciding to into Beaker's life; the violence of his ailing Three dancers, ROSEMARY walk out of her job. marriage counterpointing the tired im BUTCHER, SUE MacLENNAN, and The show, which was primarily devised potence of Beaker's own. While the two GABBY AGIS, received Arts Council by the performers for an internal assess sets of partners spar a new secretary en sponsorship to develop new work through ment, played at the Oval earlier this year livens her hours at the office by going on improvisation and rehearsals through three and was brought back by special request. the game in the flat above. weeks giving three public performances The direction, from Siobham Lennon, Mr Crabbe's show is a comedy of des each weekend. They presented five pieces, was crisp, direct and wasted no time in un peration, enveloping serious concerns of three for three dancers, one for Agis and necessary meandering or padding while the marital breakdown, suicide, impotence Butcher, and a solo by MacLennan at each show, itself covered numerous incidents in and other grand themes but exploring them performance . For In line the three chose a home situations, the Housing dept ., for the most part with a richly aphoristic vista of seven units, yellow, red and in the official interviews, police interrogation, style and an ear for contemporary speech far distance a group of three blue units. boss-worker relations in the office and patterns akin to that once displayed by Joe Here they first appeared dressed in white, some hilarious touches of Television and Orton. indistinct, like creatures at the bottom of Radio Story programmes for children high The identification of the agent as pimp, a clear, deep sea, arriving next to the audi lighting the fundamental patterns of pre (a quote from Shakespeare's Pandarus ence by the end of the dance. The piece was judice. If anything the performance could decorates the programme), and the depic constructed by mutual selection of have dealt with a lot more in greater depth tion of sex and theatre as interchangable sequences of movement from each dancer and still retained the sharpness that it had, aspects of role play - ideas Orton would building up a vocabulary of set lines, if it was worked on for a longer time. have cherished - are clearly developed, rhythms and gestures. Their performance Paulette Randall , Joan Williams, Robert and the humour, wild and wonderful as it becomes an improvisation on the selected West and Patricia Hillaire alternated is, is done justice by the performers. elements structured by cue systems. rapidly between high emotion and extreme The flaw in the whole thing is Mr Picking up their cues, or adapting to comedy with such dexterity that they pre Crabbe's feelings of inferiority about his missed cues allowed them to push improvi served a sharp edge bringing every point comic writings which manifest themselves sation to its limits, as an end in itself. At its home to thEir audience with great effect. in odd passages of maudlin dialogue, bare most developed, they used the Colourspace Unfortunately, the en".ironment was so of jokes and presumably meant to highlight structure itself, falling against the sides, minimal that it tended to subtract from the seriousness of the emotions which are pulling down the walls and roof thus rather than add to the overall strength of the springboard of the action. In a film by obscuring and slicing off parts of the 'Prejudice' but, presumably, such is 'the Robert Altman such a switchback tech dancers in the distance · with wedges of limit of the budget'. nique can be genuinely disturbing , but The Oval House intend to bring this colour . Visually a knockout. here it merely irritates. The result, For Agis and Butcher's Up down bounce group back with some more work later on unhelped by the shaky pace and occasional the audience moved further into the struc this year. They are certainly worth seeing boring lapses of Dusty Hughes' produc ture . It was performed in a group of four and are able to say a lot briefly and with a tion, is as jerky as the lbert music which units forming a square and was princi great deal of punch . plays between the scenes. Bruce Bayley pally concerned with measurement and Luke Dixon human scale. Movements were formed by a process in which each dancer took measurements of parts of the other's body, Rough Magic gauged by the distance between the hands. New End, London. Colourspace Then slowly drifting apart they took the National Theatre Terrace. resultant lines and angles out to the As those of you will know who have dialled surrounding space. Passages of rapid the magic number and tried to get through Maurice Agis' Colourspaceis a honeycomb repetitive motions were also used by con to the offices of this illustrious magazine, structure consisting of 49 interconnected trast. However, such actions as measuring the technology of contemporary telephonic globular shaped cells or units within which the distance around someone's neck (palms communication can often be as much of a visitors can walk. Each unit is of a single encircling the bake, thumbs meeting at the hinderance :as a help. To Tom Beaker, colour - red, blue, green, yellow, plus Adam's apple) underline the dangers in im barricaded behind his desk with an ever areas which act in the interior as mixing provisation. For at that moment abstrac multiplying array of the telephone attach bowls for the coloured light from tion gave way to an inescapable image; it ments of Sir Keith Joseph's brave new surrounding units. Within, rows of units was memorable, but confused my percep world, technology has become a way of recede symmetrically through oval or tion of how I was intended to interpret their avoiding face to face confrontation. His almond shaped openings forming vistas of actions . latest gadget, a 'Speak-0-Phone', ensures different colour combinations. On entry, MacLennan made use of Colourspace's that not even his clammy hands need be in visitors are asked to remove their shoes and blower inlet and coloured cloaks flowing in volved in electronic conversation for if he put on a coloured cloak guiding attention to its air currents for her solo piece. She is cringes behind a filing cabinet his voice and the colour effects, and adding a touch of athleti c and graceful, and blower showed that of his interlocutor can still be heard . ritual at the same time. Sequences of off her strength and fluidity.

This issue of Performance Magazine has been reproduced as part of Performance Magazine Online (2017) with the permission of the surviving Editors, Rob La Frenais and Gray Watson. Copyright remains with Performance Magazine and/or the original creators of the work. The project has been produced in association with the Live Art Development Agency. The three ended on a humourous note in (annoyingly without making it totally clear righteousness, 'What do we -really feel yet another part of the structure - a line of who was being interviewed), and generally about the old people in this country. I want bright light yellows. Flying and falling made it abundantly obvious why we should to know!' Whenever people say they 'want while jogging transposed movements from attach any particular interest to what was to know' something in that tone· of voice, the athletic field. They bumped into soft going on. We could have been watching you know it is time to vamoose. walls, peddled in the air, ran and leapt in anything. Andrea Hill and out of spaces. And however do you end Things livened up a bit subsequently, an improvisation when the one wants to but only to the extent that performances (or carry on and the other wants to finish? interviewees) were allowed sufficient time MacLennan's solution was simple; pick up in front of the camera to unravel their 'LEITERS the offending body and carry it off! identities and make known the full extent Charles Hustwick of the Phantom Captain strangeness. For Dear Performance, example, the church performance, with the Clearly Simon Kelly's article (no. 5) was Phantom Captain acting as officiators of written over some period of time, and NFTFRINGE their own rites, contained more than a few therefore I am slightly puzzled as to memorable moments - of which the most why we were not approached at all to THEATRESEASON memorable to me was the imitation by the find out what our position in Cardiff is. I was excited to see 'The Phantom Captain group of several different kinds of laugh, Since the writing/printing of the arti Appears.' Having never experienced a from slight movement of the lips to con cle . Reflex Action are, effectively , no Phantom Captain performance, but having vulsion of the whole body. Also this work longer resident at Chapter , the position heard many a lively tale about their ex (if it can be properly called anything so of the other 3 companies remains the ploits, I was expecting to be fully enlight somber as a work) made it clear - but not same, and we are based & work ing at ened and further enthused by this film of too clear, thank god - that there is an ethic Chapter. their work. informing the performances, and that the In April this year we presented a new I was nearly (almost but not quite) let encapsulating of the piece in a religious show 'Side By Side ' (which we then down. It wasn't the Phantom Captain setting brings to mind notions of art as a toured Wales with). We will be present themselves who were the letdown, and it's religion, as a thing or activity to be wor ing 3 weeks of street work in Cardiff in not entirely the fault of the film-makers - shipped and consecrated, and the ways in August; 2 one-man shows in October, 'The Ape Show' & 'The End of The but I find myself still more enraptured by which those notions can be usefully per my word-of-mouth infol'Il)ers than by this verted or overthrown or disrespected. Or World '; and a 3 week project of teach more official and permanent recording. the ways in which subversive approa,ches ing through workshops in the Vale of Here's why. - of satire, humour, surreal inconse Glamorgan resulting in another new The Phantom Captain, as far as I can quentiality - may be substituted for more piece , 'Pilgrim ' to be premiered in Dec make out, specialise in 'infiltration perfor traditional norms. ember . - All these pieces will be mance' - they inject a readymade situation Some subsequent events abounding in premiered (in some form) at Chapter, with their own brand of theatrical absurd silliness and at which I wish I'd been and subsequently will tour . ity. (Examples come later). Sometimes present, were the time they all disguised There are many items in Simon they 'give a performance', doing a whole themselves as Rip van Winkle with night Kelly's article which deserve comment, piece in one place at one time, but often dresses and nightcaps and burning candles but I'll leave that for another time , and their work just happens against an appro and invaded Waterloo Station, trundling confine this letter to bringing you up to priately mundane setting (Waterloo Station each other around in luggage carts and date on Diamond Age. the Roundhouse Restaurant). astonishing everyone in sight. Another Regardless of the fact that we were A film 'of something is analagous to a good evening must have been the time they not discussed in Simon's article , it was performance on a stage; you go along provided a menu of events at the Round great that the article was written, as especially to see it, it happens in a special House restaurant - giving customers the what is happening in Cardiff is mostly place without any superflous background chance to have a waiter spill something all unknown outside of the principality. distractions - without accidental inter over them and theri apologise grovellingly, Best wishes for the magazine! ferences or spectacular coincidences - and or to experience auto-eroticism by having a Yours sincerely , that's the end of the matter. Therefore, a toy car (an auto - geddit) run all over them. Janek Alexander film with even the slightest documentary For the second film I saw on the same Director, Diamond Age. pretensions (which this particular film did evening, Love is Like a Violin, I have Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff . in fact have) must establish from the nothing but horrible embarrassment to beginning exactly the context of its subject, reveal. If love is like a violin, then shame and give all the necessary history, infor and cringing humiliation are like a Dear Performance, mation, and atmosphere which make its resounding symphony, and I was deaf with I have just Rob La Frenais' piece on subject unique. In the case of the Phantom the sounds of the latter when I heard the Steve Cripps show at the Acme (no. 6) Captain, where a lot of work is unsuited to pious indulgence of this crowd of sincerity and thought I should write and clear up descriptions with a clear cut beginning and mongers expressing their deepest concern a couple of historical inaccuracies that end, the task is especially tricky because for the 'old people' (a homogenous breed appeared in the latter half, concerning one medium using a unified time and space without individual identity, we are made to performances Steve and I did together. format (film) is being applied to another believe) with whom they worked and for Firstly, the performance referred to in which has no equivalent wholeness (in whom they performed. Oh it was unen Birmingham was actually in Southamp filtration performance). As I see it, the durable! The more they attempted to be ton, where we did a performance on film-maker had two choices: (l) either do a poignant, interviewing 'old people' with the university campus in the open air film which attempts an equivalent random budgerigars and showing 'old people' that the college authorities were aghast ness - turns up in unexpected places, lasts singing along with 'old tunes' and playing at the thought of happening indoors for unspecified lengd1s of time, depicts un to 'old people' in the audience, the more later that evening, as had been explained events, or (2) attempt a straight you felt the 'old people' were being robbed planned. So I tied him in a chair, forward analysis or simple portrayal of the of all the dignity they were entitled to, and gagged and blindfolded, while a tape group's activities. the more you wished a veil of decency had recording of an interview we had done This film seemed to be caught between been drawn over the whole thing. The that morning for Southampton Radio the two approaches. To begin with, it worst, very worst and most sickening played . Later .I cut a hole in the gag, wandered into a friendly encounter with moment came in one of their interminable and released one arm, so that he could the group's various rehearsals and per collective self-searchings, when one of the play a very long, very quiet , plaintive formances, interviewed a few people performers declared with impeccable self- wind instrument, and then a very old

This issue of Performance Magazine has been reproduced as part of Performance Magazine Online (2017) with the permission of the surviving Editors, Rob La Frenais and Gray Watson. Copyright remains with Performance Magazine and/or the original creators of the work. The project has been produced in association with the Live Art Development Agency. football rattle. Was it the Twist That Started The incident of the tambourines hap pened at his previous show at the People Dancing Together Acme, well over a. year previously, in a Separately? trio performance with David Toop and If asked to place the plodders (plodders?- myself. Minutes into the performance, a sounds like something out of the Hotspur) to quantity of black powder exploded in demonstrate the "quickstep", I'd probably S.C.'s face, burning hair and skin, and reply "er, um, er, well" (oh not another bur getting into his eyes. I scooped up bling hangover) and start contorting my face some water ·in a shallow drum and (as if you're not ugly enough) into imagined ' shufflings. Given the frock-full of lass, I'd just threw it over him, to reduce the burns, about manage to rootle-tootle my down-at and gave him some more so he could heel patent leather poncers to pursue the odd clear out his eyes. stilettos for a couple of laps of the arena. I The performance- in Birmingham was don't frequent dance halls any more (much to a solo performance of Steves. the relief of Mecca Inc.). Years have marched Yours, by since then, and I've taken to puking on 'the Paul Burwell floors of lesser-known establishments. Bands C/0 London Musicians Collective like the Metronomes (should have been called Gloucester Avenue, London NW1. the Meaty Gnomes) the Regent Ballroom Huddersfield (what a dump) are all now ghosts of juvenile daftness. Gone are the days of the irate ballroom owner despairing at the pock Tambelli in Massachuset~ is a case in marked indentations gouged into the polished point. The· Montevideo Gallery in parquet by the Freeman Hardy and Willis . Amsterdam was used and the public was ankle-archers. Then came the "Twist" and 0 able to view the three artists "On-line "Stiletto heels are not Allowed" signsall over in Three Countries". Klinkowstein, who the gaff. It's probably a.good job too, Imagine CD has already been a pioneer in telex art some over-enthusiastictwister going it so hard (see message in Performance No. 5) that she drilled her way into the downstairs 'a initiated a live 'getting aquainted lavs below. Yes it all seems a million years ago. Only stigmatised feet to prove it all section' an exchange of recorded mate happened. But bugger me, what's this clip >·- rial, and a section of 'live interaction, clopping down the street? (not the Co-op where participants reacted to statements 4orse) ... No, by gum they're back again, and Beep beep beep doodle pip beeper beep made by those at the other end of the with a vengeance. Chemists shops.are doing a . "It's an oddity. I don't really know telecommunications link', roaring trade in bandages and safety pins. what it is, but it seems worth doing" John Hopkins has also conducted These for the purpose of strapping the ankles The first ... an audio recording of the such an experiment, using the Peacesat of those unfortunates who have fallen off signal used to carry slow scan video link in Western Australia , and the their shoes. Ladies who prolonged their images. The second, John Hopkins, Pacific, (an abandoned satellite donated agonies and stuck to those heels over the pioneer video user, now one of a small years have got used to altitudinal disfiguration by ' NASA for peaceful, 'non-political' and have acquired legs that the 3-30 winner band around the world using this basic, purposes) to transmit some of his taped low scale video technology. would turn green:with envy over. Even Green material. Rum gave up the ghost. Slow-scan is a way of transmitting a The second aspect is the direct slow The only poor devils that are put out with video signal down a phone line, scan image and its use in installations this revival are the blokes who suffer from bouncing it off a disused satellite, or and taped art. The image looks the same "ducks disease" (arse being too nea.r the just simply throwing it out into the as a. normal TV image, except that it ground) or just general midgetism. Not to short wave ether. In fact, radio hams consists of a series of still frames which worry, Gentlemen, at least the coiffuers night have been doing this for years, as John are replaced about every eight seconds mare, the dreaded "BOOFONNNT" is out of Hopkins discovered when he tuned his mode. That feministic characteristic could by a slow wipe . "one picture succeeds overshadow some of the taller of us jockeys, robot transceiver (the basic device for each other at about the speed that decoding slow-scan signals) to those fre never heed ripping hands to shreds whilst waves hit the shore." breaking through the concrete laquered quencies. On his collection of slow-scan So seeing an image being scanned in tresses during a quick hair caress. By the way, tapes is included a striking but naive this way can begin to alter your percep how do they keep those spiky hair dos on end decoded image of a cat, sent out from tions about the nature of what is these days? I bet it's not willpower. Finally, I somewhere in Eastern Europe, along actually being scanned. John Hopkins would like to apologise to my regular reader with friendly greetings in various lang~ has done a slow-scan version of the first for not submitting to the last issue. I was on uages scrawled out beneath the picture. version of the Lords Prayer which ran my holidays doing a spot of whale hunting at To watch it feels rather like being the Wapping Reach. I only caught eleven but have domly scans various cut-ups- "In rebooked next year as the Japs have promised recipient of a first message from an alien heaven which Art" "Art in Heaven" etc. planet, and this was precisely the sensa to do workshops in the correct usage of the Also a slow-scan transmission can be set stiletto harpoon, tion felt when Liza Bear, a video artist up in a single room, leading to various Ian Hinchliffe from Canada, first showed some slow installation possibilities. Moreover , the scan tapes at the Video 79 show in soundtrack of the video image can be Rome. Since then, not only Hopkins played alongside so you are hearing and Nowadays, technology is moving so · but a number of artists from different seeing the video image simultaneously. fast it is easy to miss the by-ways, to countries have set up slow-scan experi leave behind the little eccentri cities, the ments. It seems that there are two offshoots that don't seem immediately aspects to the fascination with slow practical. With slow-scan video, artists scan. The first is the intense personal are stopping to pick up the pieces. reaction to the opening of a new form Rob La Frenais of communication which can become More information: an art-form in itself. The mere opening Tom Klinkowstein, Herengracht 7 1 105 up of the new channel - the creation of BD Amsterdam. another accessibility as it's own end. Bill Bartlett, Direct Media Association The recent slow-scan experiment set up RRI Port Wasliington, BC Canada. by Tom Klinkowstein in Holland, Bill John Hopkins Fantasy Factory, 42 Bartlett in Western Canada, and Aldo Theobalds Road, London WClX 8NW.

This issue of Performance Magazine has been reproduced as part of Performance Magazine Online (2017) with the permission of the surviving Editors, Rob La Frenais and Gray Watson. Copyright remains with Performance Magazine and/or the original creators of the work. The project has been produced in association with the Live Art Development Agency. FOrUREPERFORM Institute of Contemporary Arts. Info 01 930 NOTTINGHAM 0493 Selected National Performance Listings Midland Group Gallery. Info 0602 582636 September 9th-13th. Charlie Pig and Miriam Bird - Performance Music-Theatre and Performance art by Trevor BIRMINGHAM Two Classy Broads. Wishart. 'Fidelio' for flautist, actor, six suitcases Ikon Gallery. Info 021 643 0708 'Lizzie' by Miriam Bird. and six recorders; the first London Performance Several performances centred around the 'Nine Lizzie Boden took a axe of 'Tuba Mirium' for Tuba Player, staging, Artists' exhibition including a performance by Gave her Mother forty whacks audio-visual mutes and lighting unit; and the Stephen Cochrane and Loi Cox.hill. This will When she saw what she had done first performance of 'Pastorale-Walden 2' for extend from within the gallery into the streets of She gave her father forty one. flautist, tuba magicians cabinet, garden, stuffed Birmingham with 'structures attached to the 'The Ideal Woman' by Oiarlie Pig. birds, tapes, slides and visual effects. artist' and music. Lapin au Bonne Femme, or It Aint Easy Being A Also: September 16th-27th 'Circus Lumiere.' September 7th, October llth. Woman Even When You're Born One. (See article). Arts Lab. Info 021 359 4192. October 10th. (unconfirmed) Les Oeufs Pip Simmons Company - a new performance. Malades - 'Family Album' . 'A casino is ruined by the Mafia. Croupiers stage a two year long sit-in; Giscard D'Estaing closes LANCASHIRE (Touring) X6 Dance Space. Info 01 407 0439 the casino. When the English ran the Cote Welfare State International. Info 0517276847 August 22-24. D'Azur all was pleasant and elegant. What has New touring performance - The Eye of the Anna Vinteler, Swiss performance :irtist. Per Happened? 'September 23rd-27th. Dave Peacock, a Non-Stop Honky-tonk Pageant. formance and installations. Oval House. Info 01 Stephens - New World Sympathy. 'Stephens is a standup with all the time in the world. He's Oval House. Info 01 735 2786. September 19-20. actually rather invincible.' - Fuse. NEWCASTLE September 26-27. Spectro Arts. Info 0632 733686 'Moby Dick'. An large-scale spectacular out The Basement Group Performances. These are door performance, possibly the last to happen for regular performance evenings, with a mixture of a long time, with Jeff Nuttall , Ian Hinchcliffe, BRISTOL artists from the N .E. and visiting artists . Belinda Gerry Fitzgerald and Loi Cox.hill, among others. Arnolfini Gallery. Info 0272 299191 Williams - Three Performances From Perfor This is a 'jazz version' of Moby Dick, and the Performance - Tom Saddington, a jeweller/ mance. Uses film as a visual score for various live interior of Oval House will be converted into the performance artist who deals with 'squashed actions. Improvisation synchronised with dockside tavern from the novel. Sea food etc will objects.' For this event he will get into a train at emotions as depicted on screen. be served . Taunton sealed in a cigarette packet, travel to September 6th . Bristol Temple Meads and pmceed to the gallery Paul Bmwell - performance/musir September Bush Theatre . Info 01 603 3703 escorted by jugglers. (Performance Magazine 13tl1. The Phantom Captain - 'Abracadabra Honey will document this event next issue.) Previous Rob Con - solo performance. September 27th. moon' . Long awaited new performance devised events have included being freed from a baked by Neil Hornick and Joel Cutrara . A series of bean can with a giant can 9pener. 27th EDINBURGH 'imaginative' erotic episodes take place in a suite rumoured to be JOOfloors up in a 'Love Hotel' September. Edinburgh Festival & Fringe Cricot 2 Company - Wielopole, Wielopole by where every possible whim is catered for. Riverside Studios Info 01 748 3354 Tadeusz Kantor (See article.) September 3-14. BATH 26-30 August. Info 031 226 4001 Lumiere and Son - Circus Lumiere. (See Wielopole, Wielopole. Tadeusz Kantor and the Bath Arts Workshop. Info 0225 310154 Cricot 2 Company. (See Preview). The Pranksters. Subtle , reportedly highly effec article) August 25th-30th. Info 031226 5257. tive infiltration performance . Only perform Mary Longford - Looking Through The Action Space . Info 01 6~ 8270 about twice a year. (End of September, date un Window . Highly recommended subversive out October 16th-November 1st. confirmed , check for date and venue.) door performanc e. As we went to press she was A spectacular new performance by Fergus Early Moving Being - new performance - 'Monsieur phoning round looking for monkeys . and Jacky Lansly 'I, Giselle' at last liberates the Appollinaire.' (See Cardiff.) August 24th-30th. (Performances a climax of her traditional ballet character Giselle from her October 3rd-4th. 'Kutchure Shock Recovery Workshops' ) Info victim role. Early and Lansly have been leading Frome Cheese Fair . Natural Theatre Company 031 226 5257. figures in a new movement to reclaim the dance - Outdoor performance work. Info as above. Crystal Theatre - The Fatted Calf. form as significant performance, often using 17th September. August 25th-30th. Info 031 226 5257. highly unconventional means to achieve this . This performance is an important step in this direction , as it directly challenges dance stereo CARDIFF GLASGOW types . Chapter Arts Centre. Info 0222 396061 Third Eye Gallery. Info 041 332 7521 One of their resident companies Moving Being, Performance - Cioni Caipi. September 20th. Theatre Space. Info 01 836 2035 are opening their new performance. 'Monsieur September J0th-14th Appollinaire et le Cirque du Zodiaque.' A mina Forkbeard Fantasy - The Clone Show. (See ture surrealistic circus with the mythological LONDON Article. ) creatures of the Zodiac as performing animals. 'A Air Gallery. Info 01 278 7751 INFORMATION FOR NEXT ISSUES free association of mime, music, words and August 27-27. 'Resemble'. An indeterminate LISTINGS (November-December) energy.' Performan ce by Glenys Johnson and Janet to the Performance Magazine, JO Fleet Rd, September 15th, 16th, 17th. Davies. London NW3 by October 1st.

ABRACADABRA HONEYMOON A Romance in Various Positions

written by Neil Hornick & Joel Cutrara directed by Neil Hornick

Box Office 7 43 3388 Enquiries 485 7476

WHITE LIGHT

57 FllMER ROA[) TElEPHON~ OLOI7N3DON SW6 13291

Theatre lighting d es1gn,contr I equipment and h.ire o, Is it Art? I • Is it Political? Cs ,t Theatre? Audio-Vi. .suaI presentati Yes y · · an Any des1g d on, fitted i~~· yes and yes. 8 t one do it? n an projection Ma . o any one f u no, Perfo actP,;J~:: is the firs~ a~::e~ategori!:.fhce cannot be ~nd f"""5";',f~lng ;0 .. ~::!~guide to t~e"=':'"""" Equipment m a1ntenonce · an d ref urbishing ::~l~[e.i:~:·£i!F:C-=v.·:..~ =~~trform:n~~ r:certn~ddevel~~~::tilse· prJJvidfn';~a~u,.ntu~es to Installation t ln erested , v, eo d m expe . mng , dis ri.b ut1on . systems Performani! :olv~ lna~nyn~f't::1usic.If r;~~~I theatre, special effects , ------~zme is com ul ose areas, thee Please send ______P__s~'! reading! Name . . mean annuals b .. ------Address ...... _u scnpt1onto the Perfo - - - Start·,ng with· · · ·I · · · " • • • • " • • • · •· •· •· · · · . • • • • • • • • • • • • • •rmance M . OUR PRICES Cheque d ssue 1 2 3 ...... '9="' Rood L ' rafts ond p o 4 5 6 7 PLEASE RING US FO:RE COMPET!r!VE - 5 ·a· · · · · · · · · · ...... " · · · · · · A PRICE LI ST· OR Q UOTE Roles (& • NW3 20$ c;~1,1 · · · · · · · · f.:0 (iJ°,i"• Perto,mo!f'•= Individuals r::•post paid) lndi/d 7476). ce Magazine, 10 Fleet road) £7.00 ste . ' uals (UK) £4 . rlmg. lnstitutions°t!~~st1tutionsoad) £10 sterling.(UK) £7

ACTIONSPACE 16CheniesStWCI 6378170(01) · OCTI7-NOVI