8TH ISAN IDEAS SUMMIT
WEDNESDAY 16 NOVEMBER 2011 SCOTTISH YOUTH THEATRE, GLASGOW
Produced by: In partnership with:
Welcome to the Ideas Summit, part of the 5th Biennial ISAN Conference.
The Ideas summit has become an indispensable element of the ISAN conference. Now in its eighth year the event harnesses the immediacy and simplicity of a ‘speed dating’ format to ensure that the maximum number of delegates are introduced to a selected group of artists and companies. In past years the Ideas Summit has been instrumental in inspiring new commissions and creative collaborations and forging new working relationships between street artists and promoters.
A record number of artists submitted proposals for this years’ event, demonstrating the vibrancy and enthusiasm of the outdoor sector in the UK. It is never easy selecting from such a wide variety of projects; the 2011 line up consists of 33 companies selected carefully to offer work of a variety of scales and styles and of the best possible breadth and diversity.
This booklet not only includes information about the artists and companies presenting but also those who are unable to attend. We hope this booklet will be a useful reference for your work for long after the conference.
For those of you who are new to the format of the summit, the artists stay stationary, each with a table space and some chairs, whilst the delegates move round. The idea is to get right round the room and have around 5 minutes with each artist/company. If you’d like more time because you’d like to develop the idea discussed, please arrange a meeting with the company for a later point – that’s the whole point of the summit.
We hope you enjoy this event and we look forward to hearing your feedback.
The selection panel for this event was Bev Adams (Faceless Company), Bill Gee (Independent Producer/ISAN Board), Frank Wilson (Event International), Maggie Clarke (XTRAX) and Roger Hartley (Bureau of Silly Ideas).
CONTENTS
ARTISTS PRESENTING Contrapticus Copperdollar Akademi Curious Planet CIC Artizani / Abbozzo Debbie Robbins Bash Street Theatre DeLighters Bread and Butter Theatre Company Dodgy Whiskers Breaking Cycles Estelle Rosenfeld & Philip Parr Bright Night International Festive Road Bureau Of Silly Ideas Fighting Fit Productions C-12 Dance Theatre Fine Artistes Canopy Freestyle Engineering City Arts Nottingham & Kinetika Frenetic Engineering Cocoloco Heels Over Head Dance Theatre Dizzy O'Dare Presents Impossible Dudendance Theatre Jon Hicks Fittings Multimedia Arts Joy Bain Green Ginger Kinetika – Design Studio Helen Clyro Kivikidance Instant Dissidence Li Lu Jane Pitt Lucid Incident Lucid Productions Max Calaf Seve Macnas Ireland Megrez7 mimbre Phizzical Mischief La-Bas Pitch Black Arts Molly Orange & Circus Diaspora Position Doubtful Nofit State Circus Prospero Dance Company Pif-Paf Theatre Rachel Dean Ray Lee Company Ragroof Theatre tangled feet Reckless Invention The Hurly Burly & Circus Kinetica Restless Nights The Other Way Works Rovambira Arts Network Zimbabwe The World Famous Sauce and Spit Upswing Scarabeus Aerial Theatre Walk the Plank Small Encounters Wet Picnic Sophie Stuff Blaze with More Music and Dan Fox Big Band ARTISTS NOT PRESENTING Take New Take Talking Birds 30 Bird Productions TeatrodeCERCA Alexandria Patience The Delegates Bicycle Ballet The Sonic Manipulator BiDiNG TiME with Tangled Feet Theremin Hero Bootworks Theatre Tumble Circus Bright Shadow Wayne Sables Project Bui Bolg White Rabbit Chester the Giant City cic Witchfinder Productions Cirq'ulation Locale
ARTISTS PRESENTING AT THE IDEAS SUMMIT 2011
AKADEMI - SONG OF THE CITY / PARDISO
Monique Deletant Bell Administrative Director Interchange Studios, 213 Haverstock Hill, London NW3 4QP
E: [email protected] W: www.akademi.co.uk
Akademi champions and encourages excellence in the practice of South Asian dance in contemporary Britain. Through the production of innovative South Asian dance events in unusual spaces we engage the widest possible public with an art form that while rooted in classical tradition is at the cutting edge of contemporary culture and a particularly British creative force.
Song of the City is an abstract piece of dance theatre created to celebrate the 150th annivers ary of the birth of Rabindranath Tagore who was a Nobel Prize winner for Literature and lived in the UK. Inspired by his sketches and doodles Akademi brought CS Deepan (Dramaturge and Design), Ash Mukherjee (Dancer/Choreographer), Arun Ghosh (Clarinetist/Composer), Will Huntley (Film maker) and Professor William Radice (Tagore Scholar and authority from SOAS in London) to create a production to be performed in a Victorian Tunnel at the Southwark Playhouse, London. This production is a site specific experiment adaptable to the needs of a variety of spaces. Featuring ballet, bharatanatyam and contemporary dance set to a haunting musical arrangement, song of the city reveals the soul that pulses within the city. In our piece we have two men, one a Romantic or Creative and the other a Realist or Executive trying to live and co exist in a city. Together they represent the duality within a human being, in this case a Woman/Muse. We find this Woman/Muse striving to find harmony with these dual forces. We also find that these forces are at times unwilling to meet. What happens when they do meet?
‘Devam especially brings a serpentine intensity to every step. What started as a celebration of India's greatest writer has evolved into an engrossing urban seance.’ Clifford Bishop, The Independent
Type of show: Small scale | Estimated costs: Approx £2500-£3000
Paradiso is a site-responsive, open-air dance performance inspired by William Blake's vibrant illustrations of Dante's Paradiso and the language of South Asian classical dance. This piece aligns creative and operational aspects in a simple performance framework, producing a clean and seamless event. Paradiso is a powerful yet calm piece which takes a mobile winding pathway. A creative outline of the work Concept Paradiso is a low impact and highly portable outdoor promenade dance production, created for gardens, parks and green spaces. Inspired by Dante’s third installment of The Divine Comedy and the paintings of William Blake, audiences will be taken on a journey through the nine circles of heaven, encountering colourful and other-worldly characters in each new environment.
Three artists, using the site to represent the journey from Purgatory into Paradise, appear from behind site specific architecture or landscaping. Using bharatanatyam and contemporary dance, they wind their way towards a circular finale, through crowds and the outdoor site. This is a lyrical dance experience with softer musical dance interventions.The development of this piece drew on dance workshops with the local community in Sheerness .The length of the performance is 28 minutes and is available for touring from 21 July – 9th September 2012.
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: Approx £2500
ARTIZANI / ABBOZZO - YOUR NUMBERS UP!
James Macpherson & Sian Haslock Artistic Directors Hey Barn Farm, Glossop Rd, Little Hayfield, Derbyshire SK22 2NR
E: [email protected] | [email protected] W: www.artizani.net
Abbozzo is a new street arts company set up by Sian Haslock. Sian is a young woman described as an irrepressible force of nature – winner of the Manchester Evening News best newcomer award, co-director of Manchester’s brand new circus space: the Circus House and member of up and coming neo-Balkan rave-circus: Slamboree. Sian is a graduate of Greentop’s Circus Performance course, Lake’s Alive Street Theatre summer school and Artizani’s training show, the Cabaret of Dr Caligari. Abbozzo aims to realise her ideas in the street-arts arena where her twisted surreal humour meets hard edged urban steam-punk visuals. Artizani is an established international street arts organisation touring a wide repertoire of performances from small to middle scale and with a strong record of collaboration and arts funding.
Your Number’s Up! is an installation concerned with investigating external and internal space simultaneously, designed for a large urban space or park. Although available for one day bookings, ideally the installation (which consists of two stacked shipping containers) would be delivered to the space earlier. In this phase it is wrapped as a giant parcel addressed to the festival/event both as tease and publicity. Once unwrapped, externally we see the two containers – industrial, functional and out of place.
To gain entry to the internal space the public take a ticket and just like at the cheese counter, wait until their number is up…. Only the entry is visible and so whilst in progress passers-by are presented with an image of people waiting their turn to be packed into a container with all the resonances of immigration and human trafficking that has.
When your number is up you will be processed: shoes and bags removed, documentation stamped and masks and goggles fitted. Squeeze through a small opening and enter a 3d maze, inspired by Dante’s Inferno and Odysseus’s journey through the underworld. Dark tunnels, textured sound, video temptations, internal winds bringing smells, and then surprising rooms of tranquillity or challenges to overcome in order to move on. Like human snakes and ladders, you move onwards and generally upwards until the last room at the very top where you will need to make a leap of faith to escape – down the slide and back to everyday life, (where your shoes will be waiting).
Applications for funding are currently being made and we intend to tour minimally in 2012 and fully in 2013. As well as the two main collaborators we have a team of experienced designers and makers lined up in a range of areas. These include: Dr David Southall, engineer; Karen Lauke sound design, Sidsel Bech; Scenography; Designs in Air, sound and light in inflatable sculptures.
Type of show: Medium Scale| Estimated costs: 1day=£1200, 2days=£1900, 3days=£2600 7days=£4500
BASH STREET THEATRE - THE CIRCUS GIRL
JoJo Pickering Joint Director 35 Belgravia Street, Penzance, Cornwall, TR182BL
E: [email protected] W: www.bashstreet.co.uk
Bash Street Theatre was established in 1991 and has developed a national and international reputation for delivering exciting and dynamic street theatre shows. Using live music, silent comedy and physical theatre, the company tours its outdoor productions extensively during the summer months. The company has developed a successful model of offering a portfolio of work to potential bookers. Productions are toured for at least four years.
Current productions include: • CLIFFHANGER! (Winner of ‘best street show’ at Tàrrega, Spain in 2006) has been touring for ten years and will continue to tour while there is demand • THE STATION has attracted bookings throughout the UK and Europe. It was developed in 2008 with a co-commissioning partnership. • THE LION TAMER, an indoor production for rural touring schemes and small venues. It was developed in 2009 and successfully toured throughout the UK and Wales.
The Circus Girl (working title) will be set around a travelling circus, with an old fashioned showman’s caravan and trailer. The characters will include a strongman circus boss, his ‘put upon’ daughter and an itinerant traveller who arrives looking for work. The storyline will be devised and developed in rehearsal, incorporating circus skills, magic, physical theatre and live music. Inspired by Charlie Chaplin’s 1928 silent film ‘The Circus’, this show will see the company revisiting its circus roots in a silent movie style, with original music and a monochrome set design.
We are looking for 10 co-commissioners who will contribute £1,500 each towards the development of the show (to be paid by December 2011). In addition, each commissioner will book the show for at least one performance during the summer of 2012. We would also like to discuss with the commissioners other potential opportunities for working together: opportunities for ‘tryout’ shows, joint-marketing initiatives, introduction to other potential commissioners etc. In addition we have secured a residence at Le Fourneau (Centre National des Arts de la Rue en Bretagne) in March 2011, which includes some performance tryouts. We are also looking to secure a further residence at a Creation Center in the UK or Europe for spring 2013. During its development year this show will tour exclusively to the commissioning partners in the summer of 2012.
In 2013 the show will then be available for booking throughout the UK and will be presented at selected UK and international showcase festivals. We expect the show to continue touring until at least 2014.
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: £1,500 plus travel accommodation and food
BREAD AND BUTTER THEATRE COMPANY - THE DINNER LADIES
Garry Gifford Director 12 Beech Bank, Ulverston LA12 7EZ
E: [email protected] W: www.breadandbuttertheatre.co.uk
The Bread and Butter Theatre Company started thirteen years ago as a one–man, one pair of underpants outfit. We have, over the years, grown into an innovative and professional company performing our unique brand of comedy at street theatre and community events all over the world. We have had the pleasure of performing in such diverse venues as the Commonwealth Games, the village halls of Shetland and World EXPO 2010 in Shanghai. No matter how big or small the event, we always have a fresh and friendly approach to our work.
The Dinner Ladies is a two-man walkabout street theatre performance specifically devised with food, drink and lifestyle festivals in mind.
Creative Director Garry Gifford and performer Phill Gregg have created Freda and Rita - two good-time girls serving up a large dollop of foody fun from their gorgeous gingham-clad serving trolley. Their culinary capers will entertain and their giant turkey will wow the crowds. From fingernail checks to orderly line (dancing) these luscious ladies will spread their healthy eating message using comedy, music and dance. As with all Bread and Butter Theatre performances, the strength lies with the performers' ability to improvise and interact with members of the public, creating an organic, accessible and personal piece of street theatre for people of all ages.
The Dinnerladies made their début at Cardiff International Food and Drink Festival and have also performed at Holmfirth Food Festival. These two bookings funded the cost of devising the characters including props and costumes.
This is a portable, small scale piece of street theatre which is developing all the time. We would be interested in getting feedback from potential bookers as to how the act might be able to fit in with their event and how they would like it to interact with audiences.
Type of show: Small Scale | Estimated costs: £600 per day plus travel expenses (+VAT) for 3 x 40 minute walkabout performances (two-man)
BREAKING CYCLES - DUNG BETTLE
David Morgan Executive Producer 5 Salisbury Terrace, Liverpool, L15 4HD
E: [email protected] W: www.breakingcycles.co.uk
Breaking Cycles is an artist led company dedicated to the creation and production of inclusive, highly energised, emotionally conflicting physical theatre – crossing and challenging the boundaries of multi disciplined art forms, layering contemporary vision with classical inspiration.
Breaking Cycles is dedicated to creating excellent, engaging theatre and to helping others do likewise. Our aim is to speak to a wide range of audiences through our performances and to provide guidance and support to young artists through teaching, mentoring and work experience.
Dung Beetle is a new 20-minute solo promenade performance for the outdoors, written and directed by Benji Reid. The work highlights the shallowness of the modern consumer culture and the damage that it does to the environment.
The whole piece revolves around one central character – an old woman who lives amongst the detritus of the rest of society. She is an urban survivor who sifts through all of the rubbish and junk left behind by others in order to find everything that she needs to survive. All that she collects is carried around in a giant bundle on her back. As she travels through the performance site she gathers up objects and sifts through rubbish whilst delivering a monologue reflecting on the inequality in the world and the carelessness of society.
The show requires one performer and one stage manager and will also feature a live musician. Dung Beetle is currently in the early stages of development and should be ready for presentation by Summer 2012.
Type of show: Small Scale | Estimated costs: £1,250 per day, covering up to 3 presentations a day in a single location.
BRIGHT NIGHT INTERNATIONAL – JAMP
Phyllis Martin Special Projects Producer Flat 1/1, 11 Kersland Street, Glasgow, G12 8BW
E:[email protected] W: www.brightnightinternational.com
JAMP is an explosive performance bringing parkour together with acrobatics, gymnastics and dance. Set on an ordinary bench and a bus shelter, JAMP is a truly Glaswegian project - cheeky, mischievous and fun. Perfect for outdoor arts festivals, JAMP combines accessible entertainment with incredible skills. It is family friendly and inspiring to all ages - especially young people. The set was custom built with teaching in mind. Total beginners can try parkour and circus for themselves as all our performers are qualified coaches. JAMP has a 4 person version available for touring Summer 2012 to venues and festivals, and an outdoor only 6 person version in development for Spring 2013.
"A buzz of parkour and freerunning was flowing through the city for days! The people loved it." - JAMP Spoffin, work in progress showing
Jamp- In linking vignettes JAMP explores the dynamics between 5 characters, using structures designed to look like a bus shelter and a bench. Each structure needs a clear flat floor space of approx 4m x 4m. Intended for outdoor daytime performance, the full JAMP set takes up about 10m x 15m. The cast brings together performers and non-performers, seasoned professionals and emerging artists with a huge range of skills. Skills include stunts, mixed martial arts, French-trained parkour coaches, competition level breakdance as well as acrobatic and contemporary dance skills.
Creative team fields and experience: Director - Tim Licata (20yrs theatre, clown); Choreographer - Will Thorburn (10yrs capoeira, contemporary); Co-producer - Jon-Leigh Cassells (5yrs running BNI); Co- producer - Phyllis Martin (8yrs outdoor/circus events project manager); Sound design - Steve Bain (Head Tutor Technical Theatre, Stow College) & Andy Moore (musician with nofitstate); Parkour Advisor – Chris Grant (5yrs running Glasgow Parkour).
Progress: 4 structures designed (by architect, parkour traceurs, acrobats, structural engineers), 3 built; 8 weeks cast development including group sessions with choreographer and personal training. 2 weeks full time development on Big JAMP May 2011 with 2 showings in East Kilbride and St Andrews. 1 week development on a 4 person version (Wee JAMP) with 1 showing at Spoffin Festival, Amersfoort. 2 further weeks development and 3 weeks Highlands & Islands tour of Wee Jamp fully funded for Spring 2012.
Type of show: Small to medium Scale | Estimated costs: £5000 + accommodation + travel for a 3 day stand, including 2 shows per day + a minimum of 2 x 60 min workshops
BUREAU OF SILLY IDEAS - THE TRAM PROJECT/ SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS
Roger Hartley Director Arch 18 Valentia Place London SW8 2DF
E: [email protected] W: www.bosi.org.uk
Bureau Of Silly Ideas create inspired madness and controlled chaos in the public realm. With a true belief in the power of silliness, we make engaging installations, superb shows and surprising interventions which bring magic to the mundane and encourage people to look at the everyday in new ways. We embrace the public realm, using it in ways we believe will create shared emotional experience and build stronger communities.
The Tram Project (Working Title)-Inspired by Gil Vincente’s Triologia das Barcas ("Trilogy of the Ships") Gil was a Troubadour in the 15th Century and often referred to as the "Father of Portuguese drama". The original work sees all walks of life negotiating with Ferryman Kharon as they cross the River Styx and makes grand social comment and judgment as the passengers' fates are decided. For this touring piece an everyday piece of commuter transport will become our "boat"; and the audience will be engaged through digital media from the moment they register to get a ticket. Once inside the “boat” the audience will be entertained and asked to help hold court as they decide the fate of their fellow passengers and themselves. The narrative will raise political issues of the day including climate change and passing judgment. How much room is there on the boat of life? We are currently talking to Brazilian director Jorge Lopes Ramos, and Portuguese Film Maker Antonio Ribeiro and expect them to be key members of the creative team. The boat experience will last approx. 60 minutes and involve elements of promenade as people board and leave the boat.
Type of show: Small –Medium Scale | Estimated costs: £5000
Sweet Smell Of Success-Live performance, a digital platform, and close work with local media are the backbone to a national campaign that uses humour and a fictional multinational corporation to enable people to find and celebrate success within themselves. We are nearing the completion of our R&D and launch the digital platform in November. We are looking for more partners to help create a national map of success. The live performance is scalable and we are looking for producing partnerships that will enable us to work with more regional companies. We are looking at how to use this art project as a tool to measure the well being of the nation.
Estimated costs: £500 - £3000
C-12 DANCE THEATRE - VAN MAN
Annie-Lunnette Deakin-Foster Choreographer 30 Bushberry Road, Homerton, Hackney, London, E9 5SX
E: [email protected] W: www.c-12dancetheatre.com
C-12 Dance Theatre aims to create and construct a new atmosphere within the performing arts community by entwining both dance and theatre disciplines to deliver an innovative and emotional blend of physical dance performance with a theatrical narrative. C-12s choreographic style is a fusion of contemporary and modern dance techniques and was established in 2005 by co-founders Annie-Lunnette Deakin-Foster, Nasae Evanson and Adam Towndrow. The Van Man is choreographed by Annie-Lunntte who has also worked with Zoo Nation, Candoco, producing, choreographing, and performed in international festivals and theatres across the UK for C-12 Dance Theatre.
Van Man is a weird and wonderful explosion of live theatrical dance, floating set and an interactive audience experience, set in, on and around a Luton Van! This will be an interdisciplinary creation, The Van Man quite literally delivers a high tempo and high impact heart felt story, video projection, all through contemporary dance theatre. Immersed with the van and the vans contents, the audience are a part of the courier business.
Combining contemporary dance, physical theatre and a interactive set. The Van Man is an entertaining and captivating performance exploring the life a courier driver. The audience are stood or sat within the Van’s depot, observing and at times assisting with the Van Man’s work, life and home. Exciting high impact and technique movement, video and a rich original sound score, brings this original experience together. There are 3 fantastic eclectic performers that deliver a multitude of characters and personalities in this lonely but definitely wacky world of courier driving!
We are looking to create The Van Man in March/April 2012, based on the idea and concept we have managed to secure 4 dates. The concept and idea are currently going through a GFA bid.
This piece is choreographed by Annie-Lunnette Deakin-Foster (Creative Director of C-12), assisting her is Raquel Gaviria (principle dancer of C-12 and Dance Captain for the London and Europe run of The Snowman 2011-2012), producer is Adam Towndrow (Creative Producer of C-12) who produced C-12's "The Chair" tour 2010-2011. The music is composed by Kweku Aacht who has worked with Avant Garde Dance and Vocab, the set and lights are designed by Ingrid Hu who's installation work continues to be shown at London's Kings Cross.
Type of show: Small- Medium Scale| Estimated costs: Approx £1,500
CANOPY - SEARCH PARTY
Sonya Moorhead Lead Artist 819 Burnley Road, Todmorden, West Yorkshire, OL14 7EF
E:[email protected] W: www.canopyintheorchard.com
Canopy make outdoor performances for unlikely locations. We are currently focusing our work in rural areas and utilizing public rights of way. Our aim is to saturate imaginations, inspire bravery and nurture a sense of well-being in the great outdoors.
Canopy's small-scale strolling performance, The Preeners, successfully toured several outdoor festivals and events in 2011 including Kendal Mint Fest and Six Summer Saturday's in Birmingham. Their latest project, Search Party, a rural promenade adventure, had its inaugral outing in October and is in development for performances across 2012.
Search Party is the outcome of Canopy's 2011 internship with IOU. It’s a medium scale production and transferable to suitable rural locations. Our first outing of the project was made possible by IOU and Cornholme Community Project this October.
We have since been approached by Deer Shed Festival, and discussing the prospect of developing Search Party as part of their 2012 festival programme. This is subject to additional fundraising and/or a possible co-commission.
Canopy’s on a mission to find special places in which to perform Search Party. There are countless beauty spots known only to local people, lesser-walked paths leading to hidden gems and glorious views. The vision for each performance is to respond to these landscapes and showcase the potential of public rights of way.
As with all of Canopy's work, our priority is to spin a great yarn. Weaving together local folklore, puppetry, song, chocolate and the unknown, we have created an epic story with minimal tools. Audiences may pause along the path to meet wild and wonderful characters but as soon as they move on so does the theatre production. Beautifully conquered in a flash mob style, we'll sweep you up and away then vanish as if we were never there. Nothing is left behind and the performers carry all they need with them, creating as little impact on the environment as possible.
Treading the fine line between giggly adrenaline rush and genuine spook, Search Party is a dusk adventure and not for the faint hearted, we aim to inspire a little bravery in our audience. For their efforts however, each group is brought back to safety and served supper at “home”, gently delivering them into the real world with smiles on their faces.
Recent audience feedback includes “There are images that I will stay with me till the day I die. “ – Pam Warhurst, Chair of the Forestry Commission.
Type of show: Medium Scale
CITY ARTS NOTTINGHAM & KINETIKA - IMAGINATION OUR NATION
Alison Denholm Creative Programme Officer Unit 6, Newdigate Street, Radford, Nottingham,NG7 4FD
E: [email protected] W: www.city-arts.org.uk
City Arts works to develop and inspire arts participation that brings people together, stimulates change and creates stronger, healthier communities. We believe that participation in the arts can enrich, and often transform people’s lives and have been pioneering this approach for over 30 years. Kinetika was founded in 1997 by Ali Pretty and specialises in the design, production and performance of extraordinary shows that retain the essence of carnival whilst telling a story, working with professional artists alongside young people. Ali is the director of Imagination Our Nation, which she has creatively led from conception to delivery to date.
Imagination Our Nation instigated by Kinetika, is a five-year national project engaging young people and their communities from across the UK. We have created an interactive spectacle of puppetry and music consisting of the exceptional ION family of puppets, accompanied by City Arts unique giant musical instruments. This environment, part performance, part participatory will allow the audience to be more that just a spectator and join in with the creative experience.
Each puppet takes a team of five people to operate. As so many puppeteers are needed to bring one character to life we will teach members of the public to be part of the team. Initially, the puppets will be ‘sleeping’, with one lead puppeteer waiting for a team to help wake them up. Supported by our expert puppeteers, members of the public will learn how to operate the characters, bring them to life and become part of the performance themselves.
The puppets are ideal for unusual spaces and environments. Because they walk directly into communities, they reach an audience who would not necessarily choose to engage with the arts. They have visited community centres, schools, libraries, housing estates as well as parks and open spaces. We anticipate this performance will engage hundreds, if not thousands of people.
The giant Chimes offer a soundtrack to the arrival of the puppets, as well as creating a musical atmosphere throughout. These instruments are tuned to a five note pentatonic scale which means they are never out of tune with each other – no one can hit a wrong note or create a discordant sound. The public will participate in music making as well as experience performances of original compositions and improvisations. The space is managed by a team of outstanding musicians who offer support and informal workshopping to the public.
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: £6,700
COCOLOCO - MOBILE CONFESSIONAL / PEEP SHOW
Helen Statman Co artistic director Elliotts Dairies, 109 Shacklewell Lane, London E8 2EB
E: [email protected] W: www.cocoloco.co.uk
From a world where Alice in Wonderland meets Clockwork Orange, performance troupe Cocoloco presents raucous, hilarious and ever so slightly bent theatre. This is cabaret performance and street theatre with a twist. Cocoloco's work has been described as "the high art of madness to perfection", as they delve into David Lynch's notebook and present Salvador Dali-esque, truly bizarre street theatre. A performance company with a love of the unexpected, Cocoloco brings anarchic, eye-catching, quirky and wildy funny peripatetic performance to theatre festivals throughout the world!
Mobile Confessional - A priest/counselor type figure on a contraption e.g. bicycle with a side-car set up - essentially, a screen/grid/lattice on wheels. There is a small speaker playing appropriate music. The Priest wheels the contraption through the streets. On one side there is sign “The priest is in/out”. The priest stops, takes down two stools and places them on either side of the lattice. He invites an audience member to sit down. Other members of the audience gather round. The priest changes the sign to 'The priest is in". He sits on the other side of lattice and the confessing begins.There are various types of 'confession', depending on the audience: • The audience member talks and the priest is bored. He reads a newspaper, opens a flask of tea (gin), has forty winks • They make conversation (football, pop music etc) • Social work - concern • Religion with humour (Buddhism, Muslim, Judaism, Shinto, witchcraft…) • Priest thinks he is `Elvis’ • The priest is garrulous - “you think you’ve got problems!”
Type of show: Small Scale | Estimated costs: £700
Peep Show -Cocoloco wants to attack the street phenomenon of the PEEP SHOW by bringing the usually discreet structure from the backstreet to the front. We propose to set up 2 gazebos with black curtained sides one with a wooden front with peep holes. The front gazebo is a performance area, the rear gazebo, a dressing room. Audience observe by coin operated slots. The whole basis for the money exchange at a Peep Show is compound: money in the slot as a sexual sublimation / guilty transgressive action / the thrill of the lucky dip chance win / a curiosity charge for taboo behaviour… so this is contrary to many free festival philosophies but the audience (18+ or at the discretion of the barker) sees an interior dimly lit but for a small spotlit stage where a female puppet is stripping. As the female puppet becomes more indiscreet and bold in her dance, the puppet stage collapses revealing the puppeteer to be a white faced sad vaudevillian who attempts to cheer up the ‘peepers’ with small defiantly surreal magic. He is pulled off backstage with a traditional hook. An opera singer presents a beautiful aria. The peepers are in a state of confusion – this is no ordinary peep show – it’s an opera house (or madhouse). The opera singer is replaced by a country and western singer then a strong man and then a saxophonist and lastly the barker as a joker (there will be some doubling of roles). The players try to compete for attention and push each other out the back door. It’s a full house on stage with all the players in the arena much like the Marx Bros Night at the Opera in the boat cabin. Eventually the puppeteer gets everyone out backstage and resets his puppet strip show and the cycle repeats.
Type of show: Small Scale | Estimated costs: £1200
DIZZY O’DARE PRESENTS - THE APOTHECARY
Alana Jones Artistic Director Sea Monkey, Port Werburgh, Vicarage Lane, Hoo, Kent, ME3 9TW
E: [email protected] W: www.dizzyodare.com
Dizzy O' Dare Presents… a contemporary circus theatre company. Artistic directors: Alana Jones and Michael Imerson. Alana is the leading tightwire walker in Britain. Michael is as an actor, writer and director. Current Work: From The Inky Deep: midscale show combining tightwire and aerial circus. The Tiny Travelling Tightwire Show!: A roaming, street theatre, tightwire and puppetry piece. Currently being translated into French. Cabinet of Curiosities: A mysterious old cabinet wheeled around by two down and outs full of bizarre and obscure artifacts. Currently being translated into French. Continuous Wire: Short- listed by Jeunes Talent Cirque Europe 2010.
The Apothecary is a sequel to Cabinet of Curiosities. Cabinet of Curiosities shows Floggit and Scarper as Victoriana down and outs peddling daft and comical curiosities. They are endearing and charming ‘chancers’ in life and The Apothecary shows the same characters with their new enterprise - Their success with the Cabinet of Curiosities has led to the acquisition of the bizarre and mystical Apothecary, where potions, super cures and strange therapies are prescribed reminiscent of the old snake-oil salesmen. The Apothecary roams an event and stops to ‘cure’ or ‘treat’ anyone as it goes.
This roaming pop-up apothecary is pulled behind Floggit and Skarper’s tricycle and is based on the design of a Chinese puzzle box. A beautiful and ornate 60cm cube unfolds to reveal the old fashioned apothecary and thearapy centre compiling of racks of potions and herbs, drawers containing bizarre therapies, and in the centre a patient’s therapy chair.
When Floggit and Skarper stop the cube is unfolded and ‘patients’ are encouraged to take a seat. Floggit concocts daft fabrications to diagnose the ‘patient’s’ ailment. Skarper then brews a treatment utilizing the various herbs and remedies or prescribes a specialist therapy such as hot stones (stone puppets with fake eyelashes or a latin lover moustache) or aromatherapy (aromatic smells both good and bad).
The show has been commissioned by Applause Rural Touring for 2012 and is currently in pre-production. It is a theatrical and interactive street theatre piece with two performers and is self-sufficient. It is easily accessible to all audience members and the apothecary will be a visual spectacle in it’s own right.
As with The Tiny Travelling Tightwire Show! and Cabinet of Curiosities we are looking to translate these pieces into French and build upon the contacts made in France with the previous shows.
Type of show: Small Scale | Estimated costs: £600 plus travel and accommodation if needed.
DUDENDANCE THEATRE - OUT OF THE WILD
Clea Wallis Director Battlehill Lodge, Battlehill, Huntly AB546HX, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Dudendance started in 1984 and have pioneered an original voice by layering film, soundtrack, narrative and movement. Currently based in Huntly Aberdeenshire Dudendance have spent the last ten years creating site-specific performances in and around the local landscape. The starting point remains physical and is devised from rigorous research. In 2010 the company created a large scale site specific public piece ‘Into the Wild’ which included 20 young people and 40 local to save a local woodland. They were part of the British Dance Edition in Birmingham, Made in Scotland Edinburgh fringe showcase and IETM Glasgow with their latest piece Spaceman. They are currently developing a new piece This Side of Paradise with a small cast of young people from Huntly.
Out of the Wild (site responsive promenade performance) will be a re-mounting and further development of Dudendance’s successful public art piece Into the Wild created for the Battlehill Woods Huntly in summer 2010. This unique performance promenade bought into focus our relationship to modern day “wilderness” by creating a surreal landscape that allowed the audience to re-discover a space on the brink of it’s disappearance (the woods were felled early 2011).
Out of the Wild will take place into locations which are under threat - each version of the performance will be uniquely adapted into each site. ”We are looking for "spaces" (geographic, social, cultural, imagined) with potential to flower as autonomous zones-and we are looking for times in which these spaces are relatively open, either through neglect on the part of the State or because they have somehow escaped unnotice by the mapmakers.” Hakim Bey on the Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ) Inspired by the cartoons of 19th Century satirist Granville, the performance promenade creates a parallel world – both strange and familiar transforming scenes from day to day life into something otherworldly. The audience are given binoculars and accompanied by a guide, much like a wildlife expedition. They are led round and given the chance to silently witness surreal creatures- half human half animal involved in slow motion hypnotic scenes.
A fragmented fairytale emerges to create a mesmeric, beautiful experience, opening up the landscape in ways people do not expect. Out of the Wild involves a core of professional performers facilitating a group of young people. The producing team of three members of Dudendance would need to be on site- two weeks prior to the first performance to choreograph the work into the site and conduct a workshop with 10-20 local young people to take part in the performance. The set-up is fairly simple but practical and technical help will be required from each promoter. The workshop would need use of a rehearsal space for 5-7 days.
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: 5K
FITTINGS MULTIMEDIA ARTS – THE JUDGEMENT CHAIR
Deborah Wintle Administrative Director The Bluecoat, School Lane, Liverpool, L1 3BX
E: [email protected] W: www.fittings.org.uk
Fittings Multimedia Arts is a disability led NPO with offices in Liverpool and Scotland. We have been developing mixed media projects since 1995.
We fuse different styles of storytelling. Visual and tactile artworks, music, dance, narrative and physical theatre, film, puppetry, sign language and lecture to make performance works that address serious issues in the language of variety theatre. Our work is created with artists and performers from a variety of backgrounds and life experiences. We make our work to reach out to audiences from diverse cultures, ages and educational backgrounds. We work in a variety of settings from streets to theatres creating work that is exciting visceral and engaging.
The Judgement Chair is a collaboration with Glasgow based Kinetic Sculpture specialists Sharmanka. Fabled sculptor mechanic Eduard Bersudsky, theatre director Tatyana Jakovskya and Performer Director Garry Robson have once again joined forces to create a new show, a show for our times.
The work begins where the Caucasian Chalk Circle ends, as Adzak the Judge, the village drunk with the wisdom of Solomon disappears. We pick up the story some years later when he returns from exile bringing with him the fabled Judgment Chair.
As the West faces an uncertain future and all our lives are held in the balance these masters of mechanical wizardry and theatrical flim flam will create a machine for our times, a machine that can weigh a human life in the balance and objectively judge their worth, their chances of salvation. Forget post code lotteries and the vagaries of welfare reforms, the Judgment Chair is an objective measure of those whose lives are worthy of salvation and those who must be sent to the wall.
The Judgment Chair is a booth show performed in it's own portable stand alone space where, small groups of patrons are invited to hear the story of Adzak’s journey, sit in the Judgement Chair and discover their fortunes in an intimate consultation with Adzak the Judge. This is a show that will change lives - forever! The Judgment Chair is at present in development, the story is being created, the deigns for the booth are being made, the Kinetic that will become “The Judgment Chair is being prepared and we are looking at designs for the wood carvings that will represent the seven deadly sins.
Type: Small- Medium Scale | Estimated costs: £3,500 for weekend of performances (two days) – negotiable daily rates. (all approximate at time of writing)
GREEN GINGER - THE SUBMARINE
Chris Pirie Artistic Director Unit 18, Albion Dockside Estate, Bristol, BS1 6UT
E: [email protected] W: www.greenginger.net
Green Ginger is a theatre company based in Bristol & Wiseppe, France. Founded in 1978 it makes innovative and award-winng entertainment and regularly tours throughout the world. Green Ginger enjoys collaboration with major arts organisations, including Welsh National Opera and Aardman and its members teach at University of Bristol, Ecole Superieure National de la Marionette (France) and the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama.
‘There is always something wonderfully anarchic about Green Ginger's work, an inspired mix of art and lunacy.’ THE GUARDIAN ‘Psychologically astute and caustically comic.’ NEW YORK TIMES
The Submarine- A team of marine engineers and artists will create the UK's first Submarine Theatre as an interactive attraction in Bristol’s Harbourside. The Theatre is a hybrid of Victorian fairground show and modern simulated rides. 24 passengers at a time will experience the illusion of submarine travel, created by large-scale effects including underwater puppetry.
Aims: • The Harbourside is focal to Bristol’s tourism yet its polluted water is a giant bath tub that one cannot play in. The project reclaims this no-go zone, taking the public on an unforgettable voyage. • The project will showcase Bristol’s diverse creative industries, embracing historical and environmental themes in a playful and imaginative way. • A cost-effective visitor attraction it will stimulate links between industry, arts and tourism.
The Submarine Theatre employs large-scale illusion to recreate the sensation of an underwater journey. It involves two separate vessels; one visible from the quay as it dives and resurfaces, a second semi- submerged vessel which receives 24 ticketed passengers, led to believe they have embarked onto the former. Once seated, their journey is simulated by controlled motion, sound and underwater special effects visible through the portholes. Immaculately costumed performers will act as crew for the duration, from ticket purchase to disembarkation.
Meeting the core aims: • The Submarine Theatre is an original, artist-led project inspired by the people of Bristol and its Harbourside. • The project will be completed by June 2012, but has been conceived as transportable with future re-siting currently discussed with promoters in Norway and The Netherlands. • The project embraces good cultural practice by being accessible to the entire community. It generates a positive legacy through the large-scale animation of public spaces in an imaginative way. • Disabled inclusion and access will be prioritised throughout the project.
Type of show: Medium- Large Scale | Estimated costs: £10,000 per week
HELEN CLYRO - BOUDICCA RIDES AGAIN
Helen Clyro Designer/Performer 2 Golf Links Road, Llandrindod Wells, Powys, LD1 5NY
Since being diagnosed with MS in 2002, I have adapted to new ways of working despite using a wheelchair. In different ways I continue to, perform, write and direct with various theatre companies having trained at CSSD. Flexible, and able to move between performance mediums, I have appeared in a variety of television, theatre, outdoor, community and site specific projects. I am very comfortable in improvisational areas such as street performance and characterisation. Having recently performed The Phoenix at Greenwich & Docklands Festival, I am keen to develop ‘Wheel-About’ as a new and vibrant form of street theatre.
BOUDICCA Rides Again- Boudicca (or Boadicea) was the wife of Prasutagus, head of the Iceni tribe in East England during the time of the Roman occupation. The history and image we hold of Boudicca is one of passion and rage, love and hatred, a vengeful spirit and a people’s champion. Famous for her chariot, I feel that the ‘Wheel-About’ would be the perfect platform for telling her story. Having established The Phoenix as a gentle, interactive street show, Boudicca would allow me a much wilder performance aspect to the ‘Wheel-About’ concept I am developing as a viable form of street entertainment for a wheelchair user.
My chariot would be ‘pulled’ by galloping mechanical puppet horses built on to a new bespoke wheelchair- make. A visually stunning costume and evocative, raucous sound track, will add to a performance which has the potential to be a whirlwind of excitement and entertainment. Boudicca will tear about the streets looking for Romans to pick on! There is great scope for comedy improvisation, adding a sense of fun to any day. The Romans touched so many places in Britain and this show could tie in to Festivals and events in many of these towns and cities.
The design team would include myself, Rob Hill, Andrew Purvin and Sarah Townsend. The production team on site would be myself as performer, Rob Hill as Production Manager and Shona Wright as Stage Manager and Access Assistant. I am currently working on designs for the build and costume as well as performance and script ideas. Whilst still a one person street show, it is planned that Boudicca will be a much bigger and bolder development of the Wheel-About and would sit alongside The Phoenix for a long time to come as I develop my work in this field.
Type of show: Small Scale | Estimated costs: Rough estimate would be around - £1,500 for 1 x Day and £2,200 for a (2 day) weekend
INSTANT DISSIDENCE
Rita Marcalo, Artistic Director Floor 4, Joseph Brennan House, Bradford, BD1 2HF
E: [email protected] W: www.instantdissidence.co.uk
Founded in 2002, Instant Dissidence is a Leeds-based performance company creating conceptually-driven cutting-edge performance work, which challenges audiences and invites them to surrender boundaries. The company is known for its risk-taking approach to performance and for its aesthetic of hyper-romanticism which surprises and wonders.
An outdoor performance piece which has as its inspiration the Disney character ‘Herbie’. The work combines performance and dance, automotive mechanics and aspects of animation and augmented reality.
How is it experienced by the audience? Our car will be parked somewhere outdoors. As a member of the public you don’t immediately identify it as an art work, because the car which looks just any other car parked around the area. As an audience member you use you smart phone to scan a QR code that is found on the outside of the car.
What happens? • As an audience member you continue to align the film with the reality of the car and are taken to different parts of it. • At one point maybe the phone points at the windows and through your phone you view some performers inside doing a dance, whereas in real life they are not there. • At another point maybe the phone points at the whole car and you see it (though the phone) turning into an animation of a car, so that maybe it has eyes instead of headlights and it smiles at you, like a cartoon. • Or maybe you actually open the door of the car (in real life) and sit in the car (in real life) and point your phone at the front windows. And then you see the car driving somewhere. And maybe we can still use mechanics to get the car to shake a little so you feel like you are driving somewhere... • Or maybe you point the phone at the whole car and it falls apart and it reconstructs itself. This could easily be done by taking the car apart and then using stop animation to put it back together.
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: £2,000
JANE PITT - SOUNDING TOURS
Jane Pitt Artistic Director 2 Brisbane Road, Chatham, Kent, ME4 5PE
E: [email protected] W: www.janepitt.co.uk
I am a multi-disciplinary artist who creates participatory and interactive works in public spaces; such as magical peep-show installations for outdoors (Wunderkammer 2005-2009) using pre-cinema moving image technology inside strange objects and sound tours creating instant mobile choirs, where participants vocalise phonic descriptions of everyday sounds encountered enroute to compose sound poems unique to their location. I have long experience of working in Street Arts. Currently realising ongoing audio/vocal project 'Fl-utter-ances' in North Kent, making an 'Eccentric Pub Opera' commission for a pub in Tunbridge Wells and developing 'Soundings' for national & european festivals. I also perform with French Street Theatre company Jamais 2sans3 ( http://www.ciejamais203.com/ ).
Sounding Tours can happen anywhere, they are unique participatory mobile sonic experiences where the public become an instant mobile phonic choir. Led by Sounder Guides the public probe the sound scape; murmurising through public space in a gaggle of fellow auditory beings; tuning in to the sounds around them, vocalising them together phonically (bii-ip, pwssch'nsch, shevn'shevn'shix etc.), weaving a strangely potent, subversive and funny digression. Each Tour is digitally recorded as it happens.
Two options are available:Soundings Tours that can happen up to 4 times per day for 15-20 people per group lasting 30-40mins. Up to 3 simultaneous 'Soundings Tours', on 3 different routes are possible, with 2 guides per group depending on the venue; Sounding Residents, working with a community choir or other group over a defined period to co-compose a local phonic vocal piece for performance. The Soundings process has been developed by Jane Pitt, the guides are all performers with an interest in public art, performance and sound. Where more than 2 guides are required they can also be sourced & trained locally. A meeting place for tours is required, with a steward, where the guides can rest between tours, each tour will start and finish there. The space can also be used to create a temporary documentation of the tours for the public to view.
LUCID PRODUCTIONS - SUITCASE DANCING / THE PRINCESS Sian Thomas Co-director 6 Hawkenbury Way Lewes, East Sussex BN7 1LT
Lucid Incident formed in 2009. The aesthetic of our outdoor work is surreal with an emphasis on dance- theatre, music and visual concept. We are excited by the possibilities that participation can bring to a show. We are a core team of artists working collaboratively under strong dramaturgic overview from the artistic directors. We have a small scale eccentric dance show Sink Dancing, directed by Sian Thomas, currently touring major street arts festivals in 2011. The Princess has been invited by the Bucks Olympic Manager to be part of the rowing events, pending an ACE decision.
Suitcase Dancing- A person arrives in a crowd, a street, a park…wherever. She is carrying a beautiful wooden suitcase which she opens. Inside the suitcase is a pair of tap shoes. She unfolds the suitcase and places it flat on the ground so that it makes a small wooden platform. She sits on the case and changes her shoes. With the tap shoes on, she steps onto the suitcase platform and begins to tap dance. Another person walks into the space and repeats the same process, they join in exact unison with the other dancers steps, so now two tap dancers are dancing a rhythm in unison, chorus, only it appears to have happened in a relaxed and slightly random manner. A third person moves into the space and does the same.
Now there are three tap dancers on suitcases all in syncronisation. They can dance apart in the crowd and/or move to form a line together. This is a very percussive dance orientated piece, so at present it is not envisaged that there would be any accompaniment musically other than some effects placed in the suitcases.
This process could work with three or more tap dancers. There might be an option to do a workshop on a previous day and involve a number of ‘participant’ tap dancers as chorus. This would mean us having a number of back up suitcase platforms.
Type of show: Small Scale | Estimated costs: £750-£900
The Princess emerged as a show in its own right from an Arts Council supported R&D process on a large- scale project called ‘The Box’. Imagine the streets filled with boxes of all shapes and sizes that people can look into and explore...a row of first floor windows opens and brass instruments jut out and play a fan fare... a princess wakes up from a deep sleep and sings a song as she is levitated above the crowd....a weeping widow mourns the death of a giant sandwich.....an operatic birth scene is being played out on the river...a wedding party is being prepared on the high street. (The Box) The Princess is a mid-large scale spectacular yet intimate show. It includes storytelling, composed live music, working with core and local musicians and local radio. A princess and her entourage are awakened from their clamped down forest held prison of a box. She is elevated from her dark world to a great height as she sings a beautiful song of freedom. The show involves dance, innovative engineering and pyrotechnics. We aim to reclaim the eerie and surreal nature of this fairy-tale from the sentimental to the authentic, from Disney to the street! The show can involve invited participation in the months leading up to, as well as during the show itself.
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: £8,000 - £11,000 depending on degrees of participation
MACNAS - THE MELODICA
Noeline Kavanagh Artistic Director Fisheries Field, Salmon Weir Bridge, Galway, Ireland
E: [email protected] W: www.macnas.com
Macnas is a site specific theatre, spectacle and processional company. Macnas consists of a hybrid collective of visual artists, composers, performers, designers, inventors, dancers and pyrotechnicians. Our work is narrative led with a strong visual dynamic. Macnas theatrically and visually transform streetscapes, landscapes and sites providing an original, interactive experience for our audience. The audience is at the centre of our work .The combination of quality artistic vision, live original work and the variety of different art forms encourages the audience to meet the artist creating exhilarating experiences, and unlikely encounters. Every place serves as a stage and any element can be dramatised.
The Melodica set in a post apocalyptic world a young girl inventor (18ft high puppet) grapples with the burden of an unexpected inheritance from a long-lost Uncle: the blueprints of an engine/machine powered by melody - The Melodica.
Despite explicit ancestral warnings, the girl is lured by personal gain and tries to sell the blueprints of the Melodica to the well-oiled world order. Recognising the disastrous consequences the Melodica would have on their balance of power, the world order witch-hunt the Girl inventor and ridicule her suggestions. Overcoming massive obstacles, the girl inventor manages to salvage the Melodica and its blueprints; a journey that brings her on an exciting adventure encountering unlikely heroes, hybrid animals, a giant rhinoceros in a wheelchair, a flying dragon and an insect inventor amongst others. This troupe of misfits, schemers and dreamers assist her in this quest, all working in the belief that future generations might be ready for such radical invention with the unveiling of the Melodica comes a brave new world.
This is a site specific theatre show that is story led and visually dynamic. All key characters are large scale. The language and style of letters from a lost uncle is intrinsically poetic. It is set in a post apocalyptic universe. The design is a hybrid of decayed vaudevillian cabaret fused with junkyard mechanics and rag and bone imagery. The imagery and the machines will be a fusion of objects trouvees- found objects crafted and sculpted, furniture made out of palettes, mechanised puppets and lantern sculptures. The music and costumes reflect this rich, luscious but debauched genre. The music is live and performed in a circus cabaret style and it is in this context that the girl inventor’s story is played out.
The designers of the work are Dave Young, Gavin Lewry, Noeline Kavanagh and Peter Casby. The show has been presented to an invited audience as a work in development. The images that need to be made are The Melodica, a story machine and an illusion bicycle. The art forms involved are a combination of large scale puppets, images on plant hire machinery, lantern sculptures large scale light steel towers of invention, bespoke costumes and handmade smaller images. The music is original and devised in house. The story is told in retrospect via spoken word, song and music.
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: £35,000
MIMBRE – FALLING UP
Emma Forster General Manager Studio 320 Netil House, 1 Westgate Street, London, E8 3RL
E: [email protected] W: www.mimbre.co.uk
A physical tale of 4 women's physicality, 4 real stories about 4 real bodies. Athlete, Performer or Model, there is no such thing as a perfect body, but each one is extraordinary. From the UK’s premier all female street theatre company Falling Up celebrates the beautiful reality of every body and what we’re capable of. Using what might be assumed to be a limitation as a strength; the very thing that stops us falling down and instead propels us upwards into something beautiful.
Falling Up is a small to medium scale acrobatic theatre production designed for audiences on the street, in parks and squares or any other public space. Following research and development at the National Theatre as part of the Watch This Space season in 2010 Falling Up has confirmed funding and support from Arts Council England, PRSF, Detmold European Street Theatre Festival, Winchester Hat Fair, Cirques Jules Vernes and Laban Theatre.
The production begins rehearsals in November and will be using mimbre's combination of acrobalance, theatre and dance. The show will be directed by mimbre's Lina Johansson with Dramaturgy by Cecile Brommer and Choreohraphy by Silvia Fratelli. The score will be composed for the show by Bela Emerson and the design will be by Anna Fleischle. The performance is flexible and can be performed with a standard, single location, staging. However, where space and audiences allow, it will begin in four separate locations, with each performer telling an individual story. The performers will slowly draw the four separate audiences together as they meet and the visual elements grow, culminating in the more spectacular physical choreographies group acrobatics is capable of. The cast are Emma Norin (of mimbre), Charmaine Childs (Betty Brawn, The Strong Lady), Alison Halstead (credits include Graeae’s Iron Man and Red Earth Theatre’s The Lost Happy Endings) and Annemie Pierle (credits include The Land of Ny and Circus BAF)
We will be creating a dedicated workshop programme alongside Falling Up that can be delivered to any sector of your local community; young people, aspiring amateurs, professional performers or novice adults. The workshops will explore the strengths inherent in every body and how you can use those strengths to express yourself and tell a story. We offer packages for workshops from one day to week long residencies.
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: The show will cost £3900 for 2 days (4 performances) and £4600 for 3 days (6 performances)
MISCHIEF LA BAS LTD - ZOO PLAN B
Ian Smith Director The Brigggait
E: [email protected] W: www.mischieflabas.co.uk
Approaching its 20th anniversary, Mischief La-Bas has evolved from small-scale interventionist activity in nightclubs to an organisation capable of presenting large-scale international collaborative work. An extensive experience of Live Art and Experimental Performance genres are often applied to these larger artistic projects, alongside the companies basic characteristics of accessibility (usually presented free of charge to the public in public spaces) irreverence and humour. This underlying approach to presenting quality work with a distinctive style has led to the company being recognised as a principle provider of outdoor work in Scotland. Their current status as a ‘Flexible Funding’ client of Creative Scotland reflects this, being supported in touring projects and domestic and international ambitions.
Zoo Plan B - Following the research and development of a potentially large-scale touring project of international stature, it was found that the depressed financial climate and escalating expectations of realising such a grand ambition (a full-sized Zoo) were counter-productive to creative thought. The figures began to suffocate the art.
Reacting to this, we decided to return to basics, retain all the good creative aspects and ambitions of the research, and attempt to present them in a viable small scale form that would not require the economy of a small country to develop and present. To keep the vision, maintain the exciting artistic and promoter connections that have been made, and develop the project at a scale enjoyable to create, and enjoyable to present.
In a nutshell, we will achieve it with one 40 foot container and minimal crew. Professor Hilderburg’s Hibernating Zoo Renowned naturalist and explorer Professor Hans Hilderburg has made it his life’s work to locate and protect rare species in hostile climates. His expeditions have led him to discover creatures occupying habitats so remote, with such extreme temperatures, that they have never before been seen by mankind. Creatures discovered during his latest expedition into the extreme terrains of Antarctica, though varying in constitution and appearance have all one thing in common. A profound hibernation pattern that sees them somnambulant for nine months of the year.
ARTISTIC PRIORITIES FOR ZOO PLAN B To create a public experience that is accessible, interactive and provokes poetic thought. 1) Watching a short presentation ‘en masse’ as a classic spectator, seated in the dark 2) Undergoing short personal and individual performance interactions. 3) Being given the freedom to explore and interpret poetic exhibits and artworks individually.
Promoters hopefully wish to present a project that is fresh, attractive to the audience, worthwhile artistically, and viable to tour. We have: Connections with interested artists. Connections with interested promoters. A budget and capability to realise this viable smaller scale project.
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: 4,000 - 5,000
MOLLY ORANGE & CIRCUS DIASPORA - LITTLE WONDER
Lucy Frost Molly Orange Founder 25 Corkland Road, Chorlton, Manchester, M21 8UP
E: [email protected] W: www.circusdiaspora.co.uk
Little Wonder is a new collaboration from emerging street theatre company Molly Orange and Circus Diaspora, combining our backgrounds in design, circus and physical theatre. We are interested in illustrating the relationship between body and object through these varied yet linked mediums. Artists Lucy Frost and Owen Gaynor met on the Manchester cabaret circuit and recently performed together in a traditional theatre setting and are continuing the partnership in creating this new production specifically for the street and non- theatrical spaces, with support from Circus North.
Little Wonder takes us back to when we were young and the simplest object was fascinating and had a thousand uses. A playful acrobatic performance that explores everyday items on a bigger scale, inviting the audience to see them as more than they appear through equilibristics and acrobalance. A large cotton reel becomes a tightrope when unravelled, and an oversized marble is a walking globe on which doubles acrobatics are performed. Our two characters are recognisable yet timeless, and view the world from a Lilliputian angle. Their journey throughout the performance reminds us of how we were all children once and reflects the beautiful naivety with which we once approached the world.
Initially we are looking at enlarging three primary objects/apparatus; a marble which is used as a walking globe, a cotton reel which is a slackrope and a match box which becomes a springboard. The objects place the performance in a universal place- that drawer full of bits and bobs that is in every home.
In terms of performance skills one of the main areas we are looking to develop is doubles globe. To our knowledge this is an area of circus that has had little exploration and we wish to combine traditional walking globe with areas of acrobalance to create a unique performance style for this collaboration.
Lucy trained as a scenic designer and has a first class degree in Performance Design and Management. She began with Artizani in 2008 touring with Desert Island Discs. In 2009 Molly Orange was formed and appeared with small-scale walkabout Spit Spot , for which Lucy was named a 'bright young thing in outdoor performance' by Total Theatre Magazine. In 2009/10 she devised The Cabaret of Dr Caligari with Artizani. The creation of a static performance in collaboration with Circus Diaspora will be a culmination of all this previous experience and now is the optimum time to launch her career fully in the street theatre industry.
Owen initially trained in circus skills and performance with Skylight Circus Arts from a young age before going on to set up his own company Circus Diaspora. In his time as a performer Owen has worked with amongst others Walk the Plank, Bassline Circus, Shademakers Karnival Costumes and Ramshackle Circus. He has also collaborated with a number of other organisations in creating new work including Noisy Toys, Circus to Gaza and The Spokes. This current collaboration with Molly Orange represents a real opportunity to create an exciting and engaging piece of new work for 2012.
Type of show: Small Scale | Estimated costs: Two performances per day @ approx 35 minutes for £700 (+ travel)
NOFIT STATE CIRCUS – THE FABULOUS FLYING FOUR
Adie Delaney Performer, liason Princess of Wales Building, John st, Cardiff CF105PE
E:[email protected] W: www.nofitstate.org
NoFitState was created in 1986 and has grown to be one of the UK leading contemporary circus companies. The Fabulous Flying Four has come from an act that was originally created for one of the larger touring shows, but has stood alone in many different incarnations before becoming the piece it is today, a hilarious 12 minute escapade with feats of daring and triumph.
The Fabulous Flying Four is a comedy petite volant flying trapeze act. It was created by the performers in 2008 under the direction of Firenza Guidi for Tabu, one of nofitstate's larger touring shows. During the three years it was performed for this show, it was also recreated as a full show on its own under another company name with the same performers and director, where different ideas and creative impulses were explored and added. After Tabu, it was reviewed and refreshed for a new site specific outdoor show, where the most recent version of the act was consolidated.
As well as flying trapeze, the act is strong in physical comedy, the narrative based around the clown character 'Augustina', played by Marcella Manzilli, who has studied clown with Phillipe Gaulier. The act also uses static and swinging cradle techniques. Recently we have added live accordion into the act, to strengthen the narrative and vocal elements.
The creative team comprises of the performers (Petri Equvist, Marcella Manzilli, Adie Delaney, Tanwen Watson and Peter Swaffer) and has been directed by Firenza Guidi in the past.
The Fabulous Flying Four is a compact rig that is staked to the ground and can be erected by the performing company plus one rigger. The audience can be seated (or standing) from as close as two feet.
Type of show: Small / Medium Scale | Estimated costs: £100 rigging fee, £500 per flying performer, £200 musician. Up to three shows a day possible. TOTAL: £2300 + travel and accommodation included. Longer packages to be negotiated at lower rate.
PIF-PAF THEATRE - THE FLIGHT OF FANCY SIMULATORS
Pete Gunson Co-director, theatrical engineer, performotech Unit 4 Petre Drive, Sheffield, S4 7PZ
E: [email protected] W: www.pif-paf.co.uk
Pif-Paf is a genre-crossing performance and sculpture company working with theatre, engineering, sound and natural history to surprise and inspire audiences in unusual and outdoors performance contexts. Now an established company we work in the UK and beyond developing our popular and highly visual exploratory work, looking for new formats and styles of art in the great outdoors! Currently a Puppets About resident company with The Puppet Centre Trust and mac Birmingham we are exploring object and impulse around a mobile counterbalance aerial crane/giant transforming puppet with leading dance and physical performance practitioners. This work also involves partners Circus North and The Bartlett School of the Built Environment.
COMPASS! If you had a Flight-of-Fancy simulator, a healthy dose of imagination and a pilot that knew what to do with them where would you go? In Pif-Paf’s newest outdoor theatre exploration we un-pack the desire to pack your bags and go, exploring our urges and memories of travel and bringing them to life just for you (and one friend)!
Audience queue up to be welcomed 2 at a time by alternating pilots. Asked about their earliest and strongest dreams of travel we then create these Flights-of-Fancy through improvised collaborative storytelling as we wizz together amongst the crowds in “The Flycycle”. Audience leave exhilarated and inspired to set themselves new challenges. Onlookers wave, laugh, smile, and dream. Each Flight-of-Fancy lasts around 5 minutes, with the same before-hand to get to know each other. The nature of the journey relies on the passengers’ dreams.
The Flight of Fancy Simulators Half runaway carousel ride, half story-tellers’ chair, half low carbon chitty-chitty bang-bang, wrapping up dreams of bikes, boats, biplanes and more. At the heart of Compass is The Flycycle, built from a remodelled classic bicycle, Spitfire dashboards, steel, canvas, my granddad’s drill and (of course) a brass doorknob.
Over time we hope to build up a small fleet of these wonders. We have just had commisisoning confirmed for the second Flight of Fancy simulator “The Submercycle” for 2012. In 2012 Compass will pay tribute to the people that have striven to get themselves on the road, often against great odds, no matter how they’ve got here. Whats more one of the pilots is fluent in French and Spanish! Compass was inspired by the works of Gustav Mesmer and conceived after Pete Gunson’s PCT Travel and Training Bursary funded travels to Theater Titanick and La Machine.
All work has been commissioned by Sheffield Childrens Festival Directed by the Company, Engineering by Pete Gunson, Costume by Eleanor Hooper, Music/sound by Daniel Weaver, Performers tbc
Type of show: Small Scale | Estimated costs: £650 per day for one Flight of Fancy simulator, £900 for two plus travel and accom. We are looking for further commissioners for Flight of Fancy Simulators at approx £3,000 for simulator and pilot character
RAY LEE COMPANY - CHORUS
Ray Lee Artist 47 Spring Street, Chipping Norton OX7 5NN
E: [email protected] W: www.invisible-forces.com
Ray Lee is an artist who makes music that moves. His spectacular sound art works have transfixed and delighted audiences the world over. ‘Siren’ a sound installation and performance has toured worldwide since 2007 with performances in venues and festivals including New York, Vancouver, Minneapolis, Auckland, Melbourne, and Amsterdam. ‘An amazing spectacle’ Daily Telegraph, ‘Mesmerising’ New Yorker Online. ‘Forcefield’ won an award at the 2008 Prix Ars Electronica and his new work ‘The Ethometric Museum’ is set to tour extensively from 2012 onwards. “If you’re after something genuinely different, ‘Ethometric Museum’ will take your breath away.” Three Weeks
Chorus (Working Title) -Towering above the audience a series of giant metal tripods support rotating arms. At the end of each arm loudspeakers emit precisely tuned musical pitches creating a pulsating, harmonic drone, singing out a hypnotic siren call to all those present. Red lights at the end of the arms create the effect of a whirling swarm of fireflies, or of planets in motion, like mesmerising orbits of colour. These intersecting lights trace rings above the heads of the audience, while the combined chorus of the spinning speakers creates a cohesive harmonious whole, ‘a sticky flux’, that is both uplifting and transfixing.
Chorus is a monumental and impressive installation of kinetic sound sculptures that is a significant new development of the internationally successful ‘Siren’ by Ray Lee, that has toured three continents.
Creating large scale immersive sound and spectacle is a trade mark of sound artist, composer and performer Ray Lee’s work. This large scale spectacular work will have the capacity to transform and animate large open spaces, town squares, parks, urban or rural environments and will create a stunning audience experience that will amaze and live long in the memory of those present.
The creative team for this project is led by the artist/producer team of Ray Lee and Simon Chatterton who were responsible for the world wide hit ‘Siren’. Specialist technical advice will come from the hugely experienced mechanical set constructor Charlie Camm.
The project is at the prototype stage and is being developed with support from Newbury Corn Exchange. The sculptures will be 3.5m to 5m tall and in the region of 18 will be made for the initial showing.
Type of show: Large Scale | Estimated costs: The estimated cost will be in the region of £8000 - £10,000 based on a run of three days of performances plus costs.
TANGLED FEET - ALL THAT’S SOLID MELTS INTO AIR / THE HIDE
Kat Joyce & Nathan Curry Co-Artistic Directors 7 Scott House, Caledonian Road, N7 8TJ
E: [email protected] W: www.tangledfeet.com
tangled feet are one of the UK’s leading physical theatre ensembles; dedicated to devising original, accessible and innovative work. We are inspired by strong narrative threads, told through physical story telling, and make work that makes us see the environments we inhabit with fresh eyes. Over 40,000 people have encountered our transformative theatre in public places, found spaces and theatre buildings.
“A glimpse of magic” Lyn Gardner, The Guardian
All That is Solid Melts into Air -Presented at GDIF 2011 as a bespoke one off event we are now looking for partners to help us produce a tourable version of the show. A city’s story is an epic and perpetual tale of regeneration and change. Industries have changed, bombs have fallen, tower blocks have soared and markets plummeted. The past is wiped away and new futures promised. How does a city survive as all that is solid melts into air? What does it take to let go of the past when the future is still out of reach? tangled feet tells the exhilarating and moving human story of regeneration in a gravity-defying piece of highly physical storytelling on a specially constructed scaffold stage. The show is made for an audience of 500- 1000 and can be performed during the day or night. No text is used so the performance is accessible to non-English speakers.
The piece was conceived for an urban setting, originally a site of regeneration, development or old industry. The show can work well in most urban settings. The show resonates best in areas where recent or ongoing urban redevelopment is visible. There is the possibility of community engagement through a partnership with local schools. The students would perform in the finale of the production.
The Hide- Presented as a work in progress performance as part of Gi20 2011, we are looking for partners to help us develop the show and produce a tourable version. We love watching other people; there are an infinite amount of stories in the everyday; theatrical moments of happiness, hope and despair fill our streets. What if we watched the everyday as if it were an Oscar-winning film, or an intimate moment of nature – what if we used performance to explode the everyday?
What appears to be a bird-watching hide sits in an urban square. Long slits down either side allow audiences inside to gaze out across the natural habitat of humans. They can see out but no one can see in. They watch the everyday activity waiting for the passers-by, in this public space, to perform- as Robin, our human expert, narrates their stories. Into this landscape we place four performers - at first they mix with the everyday and behave in a naturalistic fashion, but over the course of the performance these actors enact a physical routine mixing naturalism with more abstract and choreographed movement to explode the scene into theatre. The Hide is a performance that happens both inside and outside the structure. A small audience watch in 10-minute slots inside The Hide, whilst outside a larger audience will have the performance happening all around them and be part of moments of it. The show can happen in 1.5 hour slots (13 internal shows), twice a day and needs a site of busy pedestrian traffic (eg shopping centres, park or town square).
Estimated costs: All That is Solid Melts into Air: between £6,000 & £7,500 / The Hide: between £1,500 & £2,250
THE HURLY BURLY & CIRCUS KINETICA - BIRDY
Mella Faye Punchard Artistic Director Leaves Cottage, Storrington Rd, Thakeham, West Sussex, RH20 3EF
E: [email protected] W: www.thehurlyburly.co.uk | www.circuskinetica.com
The Hurly Burly and Circus Kinetica are 2 established, award winning festival teams that share a passion for original and sustainable art. The Hurly Burly provide performance interventions at festivals, combining dance, live music and physical theatre. Circus Kinetica provide large scale sculptural works that fill a festival sky with butterflies, feathers or water machines.The core creative teams behind these two companies are conspiring to create something away from the roar of music festivals, their own mobile magical space, and within that space, a beautifully crafted and intimate piece of original theatre.
Birdy- Long ago, the craftsman Daedalus fashioned himself and his son a pair of wings. Icarus, giddy with the experience, flew too close to the sun, melting the wax of his wings, until he was left flapping only his bare arms. This is how the story goes. What we didn’t now until now, is that lucky Icarus fell from the sky into the arms of a beautiful woman. They produced a baby girl. The bloodline of Icarus flowed on and held within it’s DNA, the desperate, unfulfilled longing to take flight.
August 2011, top floor flat of a London high rise. Obsessed from birth by feathers and flight, Ava ignores the chaos of the looting outside and works tirelessly on the wings she has been piecing together for years from metal scraps and found feathers. As her building shakes from the blast of another petrol bomb, and everything she knows is engulfed by flames, Ava attaches her wings and opens the window….
The performers have spent 2 sessions ‘playing’ together with the narrative and some makeshift ‘ kinetic wings’ and other props created by Circus Kinetica. We are planning to show the piece as a ‘work in progress’ run, as part of Brighton Fringe 2012, within and around The Hurly Burly Marquee, which will be sited on the disused bowling green in Queens Park. We are working so that the piece can be adapted to any space or location. In this first draft version we will be 3 makers, 4 musicians and 6 actors. It will be performed 16 times to an audience of 100. The piece will include promenade and physical theatre, live original music, old school animation and hand crafted costume and props.
Type of show: Medium Scale |Estimated costs: £2,600 £700 ????
THE OTHER WAY WORKS - THE BANDSTAND APP
Katie Day Artistic Director 13 Addison Road, Kings Heath, Birmingham B14 7EN
E: [email protected] W: www.theotherwayworks.co.uk
The Other Way Works is a Birmingham based theatre company led by Katie Day. We create highly interactive performance experiences, frequently for small audiences. We collaborate across disciplines, and work closely with writers, composers, sound artists, film makers, performers, and designers to create immersive experiences. Katie Day has a particular interest in pervasive media technologies and recently undertook a year-long placement at Watershed in Bristol to run the inaugural and highly successful Theatre Sandbox commissioning scheme, which enabled theatre companies to explore using pervasive media technologies in their creative work.
“A dynamic young company that is successfully exploring the possibilities of what theatre can and might be.” Lyn Gardner, The Guardian.
“One of the leading UK companies exploring the frontiers of interactivity in theatre.” John McGrath, Director, National Theatre Wales
The Bandstand App represents a new way to experience Theatre. With the App running on a smartphone (iPhone/Android), users will discover interactive content when they come within a short distance of real- world Bandstands in parks across the country. This App reinvigorates these spaces, filling them with memories and images, in the form of new performances. Bandstand is a location-based app that will feed off inbuilt maps and use the built-in GPS sensor and compass in iPhone and Android smartphones. Bandstand locations will be logged in a database and integrated with Google maps
With a solo or two-person option, just plug in your headphones and get ready to experience a new way of seeing. Solo version: The beautifully scored soundtrack will draw you into an imagined world filled with ghosts of the past and chance meetings yet to happen. Two-person version: Make your own piece of theatre for each other on and around the Bandstand. Its a lyrical story of love and loss, with a few laughs thrown in, and a sprinkling of old-time dancing. You are cast as both actor and audience member.
The stages of development for this project are: By April 2012: In collaboration with Black Country Touring we will: Create and produce three audio works by The Other Way Works (two for a solo audience, and one for a pair); Create a basic iPhone/Android Application to deliver these audio works on location at two local bandstands in the Black Country; Provide the files as mp3 downloads from relevant websites in order to increase potential access at this stage.
From April 2012 onwards: We are seeking to expand the platform and content offer: Create a nationwide Bandstand database and website & develop the iPhone/Android App; In the next five years: We would like to: Open up the web platform and App to user-generated and community content created for Bandstands; Expand the project Internationally to European and Commonwealth countries (where bandstands exist).
Type of show: Small Scale | Estimated costs: From £3,000
THE WORLD FAMOUS - ALL HANDS
Mike Roberts Director Boundary farm, Maidstone Road, Hadlow Kent TN11 0JH
E: [email protected] W: http://www.theworldfamous.co.uk
The World Famous is a company of creative pyrotechnicians with a passion for playing with fire. We use fireworks, fire, flame and special effects to animate, amaze, celebrate and communicate. Our aim is to combine the intimate with the spectacular, form with content, fireworks with theatre. Our shows combine pyrotechnics with performance, large images, music, projection, lighting, procession and/or community involvement. Our previous touring shows – Sticky (with Improbable), Blast!, Crackers? and Full Circle – have been acclaimed nationally and internationally. We are currently working on All Hands – a celebration of human collective endeavour, impermanence & change, and the power of connection.
All Hands is a celebration of collective human endeavour and the power of connection. It combines fire, fireworks, music and performance to create a spectacular and moving transformation of a site, driven by audience participation: if people engage, change happens.
The show is set to original live & recorded music composed by Kuljit Bhamra and David White, and performed by Anna Mudeka and Shahid Khan. The core TWF creative team (Mike Roberts, Mandy Dike, Maria Hingerty, Pippa Bailey) have been joined by sound artist Thor McIntyre-Burnie and lighting designer Phil Supple.
A series of interconnected tipping structures are created, using human effort and simple but effective technology (levers, pulleys, ropes and pivots) instead of cranes and telehandlers. Rather than creating a central structure, the final image envelops the whole site, connecting audience and performers as parts of the interconnected whole.
We are working to make touring the show as sustainable as possible. A small kit of equipment is toured, and the show is designed around locally sourced equipment & materials.
Working internationally we will adapt to use locally available fireworks. We aim to keep All Hands flexible – able to adapt to different sites, with different versions at a variety of scales for a range of budgets. There is potential to develop a large-scale version with many structures and more live musicians from the Ku-Da- Mix Orchestra.
All Hands is undergoing development through a series of three trials during summer 2011. Each performance is informing the creative process leading to a further development period at the end of 2011with the final versions of the show available to tour in 2012.
Type of show: Medium/Large Scale | Estimated costs: The smaller version of the show will be around £30K and we are interested in partners to create a bigger, all singing all dancing spectacular version.
UPSWING - RED SHOES
Ghislaine Granger Producing Manager Unit 1, The Energy Centre, Bowling Green Walk, London, N1 6AL
E: [email protected] W: www.upswing.org.uk
Upswing works with the human body to tell stories of people, their culture and the world we all share using high quality circus blended with theatrical performance, memorable music and the imaginative use of visual imagery. Upswing challenges assumptions of identity, place and our relationships with each other by literally turning the world upside down.
Red Shoes draws from the rich imagery provided by the Hans Christian Anderson fairytale. The piece explores themes of loss, journey, transformation and the relationship between movement and objects, circus technique and choreography. The piece creates a series of vignettes that follow two performers as they enter a place of threatening danger, or of refuge, or a chance at adventure. A place beyond the ‘normal’, where strange things might occur, and strange people might live, the home of magic, imagination and ultimately transformation. Inspired by circus artist Rowena Delatant who has developed a unique style on Chinese Pole following an accident in 2006. Rowena’s redefined physicality led us to explore new ways of working with the pole creating an aesthetic based on fluid movement sequences rather than purely strength-based tricks.
The set is designed to be viewed in the round creating an island of colour in the centre of the audience. The set will be slightly raised above ground level and constructed of steel deck with specially engineered docking points for two 5m upright Chinese poles. There will be an additional set of steel poles of different heights and thicknesses to create the effect of a forest of poles. The set will also function as a visual installation with and ambient sound presence in the run up to each performance. The costuming will incorporate layers of fabric, which unravel and detach to accentuate the sense of journey in the piece both horizontally and vertically and to explore the connections between the two dancers and between the dancers and the set.
The duration of the piece will be 20-25minutes and could be performed twice in the day. Between performances the set could stay in situ with the designed soundscape as a visual installation- Designer: Becky Minto - Directors: Vicki Amedume and Rowena Deletant Choreographic mentor: Maresa von Stockert
Type of show: Large Scale | Estimated costs: Presentations will be at a cost of £1900 for one day, £2400 for two days.
WALK THE PLANK - RAMA & SITA
Liz Pugh Producer 72 Broad Street, Salford, M6 5BZ
E: [email protected] W: www.walktheplank.co.uk
Walk the Plank is a creative force in cultural events, involving artists, theatremakers, pyrotechnicians and event engineers who come together on a project by project basis in response to particular locations or special occasions. The Company often works in collaboration with others to realise ambitious works of scale, and much of the company's work has participation at its heart. Current commissions include Gamestime in the East Midlands, Land of Giants in Belfast, Newcastle's Winter Carnival, The Moment When with Cheshire Dance, and Sparks Will Fly in Essex 2012. Collaborations have included carnival, theatre and processions with Kinetika, LUXe, Mandinga, Thingumajig Theatre, the Dhol Academy and Company Fierce. We have just been working with Annapurna Dance and Rani Moorthy to retell the story of Rama and Sita using shadow puppetry mixed with fire and special fx on a scale suitable for an audience of 3000.
Rama and Sita - Challenged to take the Manchester’s traditional Diwali celebrations away from the large sculptural bonfire that Walk the Plank have produced for the past few years, project director Nick Clarke, working with designer/puppeteer Eilidh Bryan, developed 'Rama and Sita', a new show that mixed shadow puppetry - using real dancers mixed with cut out 2D shadow puppets - fire and fireworks, all set to an original score. The story of Rama and Sita was told by a narrator, who also acted as MC in welcoming the audience of around 4000.
Nick Clarke's background as an actor/director gave him the authority to propose an ambitious theatrical performance, and his understanding of how the Diwali fireshows had worked previously enabled him to create a performance that was appropriate - culturally, as well as in terms of scale - for its context. We worked with traditional Indian dancers - Annapurna Dance, and with actress / storyteller Rani Moorthy, and pyro designer Peter Finegan punctuated the story throughout with effects.
Indian dance suited the shadow puppetry form beautifully, allowing delicate representations of finger movement, for example, which still worked at scale; and the movement of the performers around the light source created dynamic , surprising shifts of scale. This playing with scale was reinforced by the use of firedrawings to create much larger representations of the story - the Golden City etched in fire; and Ravana himself appeared 10m x 15m.
We would like to : • Find promoters who are interested in booking Rama and Sita for Melas or other festivals, to work with us on a bid for Strategic Touring money which enables the show to develop into a polished jewel. • Talk to promoters who might be interested in commissioning us to develop this form of large scale shadow play mixed with music and FX to tell another story - a Winter Tale that works for Christmas Lights Switch On, or a spooky story for Halloween – that works for larger audiences.
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: £5k - £8k
WET PICNIC - THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
Matt Feerick Artistic Director 23 Normans, Normans Road, Winchester
E: [email protected] W: www.wetpicnic.com
Wet Picnic create high quality work with a focus on strong content and visual style. Outdoors and indoors in schools and in offices we take our playful endeavours everywhere you can imagine and produce theatre that resonates with our audiences. Imaginative and accessible we create shared experiences that transports our audience and gives the feeling of involvement (often literally!). Over the last 4 years we have established a name for high quality work, which pushes boundaries and challenges the form of touring work.
Wet Picnic are a resident company at The Point, Eastleigh as well as being part of the ZEPA network.
The Birthday Party - Wet Picnic are creating a new outdoor show which will develop the work that the company currently offer and the working practice of the artists who create it. Focussing on the themes of loneliness and memory, 'The Birthday Party' uses Wet Picnic's trademark style of clowning and buffoonery to make onlookers laugh and cry in equal measure. The aim of the project is to develop the depth of the work we create in the outdoor sector by focussing on a subject which has a profundity and the ability to touch everyone. We are currently supported by the ZEPA network and are looking for partners to complete the commissioning group for this piece of work. We are also looking for venues and events to tour this show to. The project has been researched at Le Fourneau Creation Space in France and will be created at the beginning of 2012 in two creation spaces in France. The idea central to the creation of this piece is that it will not have a dependance on text. Because we tour outside of the UK and the outdoor international networks are becoming more linked we have a great desire to create a piece of work which can tour to different countries without the need for translation. This idea sits with the subject matter also, the idea of exploring loneliness in the street with people of any nationality is one, which we hope, will show that we are not alone when we feel alone. The piece will be a 40 minute circle show which mixes, movement theatre, dance, clown, bouffoon, sound and light to talk about a dark subject.
Type of show: Small Scale | Estimated costs: £3,000 per commissioner
ARTISTS NOT PRESENTING AT THE IDEAS SUMMIT 2011
30 BIRD PRODUCTIONS - CHODEZENIE-SIBERIA
Mehrdad Seyf Artistic Director
E: [email protected] W: www.30birdproductions.org
30 Bird Productions produces inter-disciplinary performance and live art projects for non-theatrical spaces. Working with practitioners from architecture, science, the visual arts, dance, music, theatre and film 30 Bird creates unique experiences for audiences. It’s work has an international flavour collaborating with practitioners from the UK, Iran, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland, India, Japan and Turkey and reflects the cultural reference points of Artistic Director Mehrdad Seyf (Iran). Projects in development include the outdoor/site specific pieces Chodzenie-Siberia, MUD a participatory project for young people, FeMENism and 14 Tables (supported by BAC and The Basement).
Chodzenie-Siberia is a mid-scale multi-disciplinary interactive installation lasting 60 minutes inspired by the journey of Polish captives of war (WW11) from Siberia to Iran. Centred on and around a military truck audiences embark on a trail of discovery through the details of individual memories and monumental historic events. Chodzenie Siberia is a contemporary interpretation of events uniting two seemingly unexpected allies, Poland and Iran, and of the stories carried by so many today. Chodzenie-Siberia is a collaboration between practitioners from performance, film, dance, architecture, visual arts, music and sound design. Brought to life through the participation of local volunteers acting as ‘Chorus’, ‘Messengers’’, ‘Bearers of Gifts’ and ‘Guides’ the installation provides both an epic spectacle and individual interactions for audiences.
Guided through the installation audiences discover: the visual spectacle of the installation, footage of survivors recounting their story’s projected onto the external surfaces of a shed erected 4m in the sky; a replica 1940’s good train travelling beneath the truck carrying the soundtrack of the film, a second film screened within a storage box for audiences of 2 at a time, individually wrapped packages of fruit and sweets containing recipes sealed with fragments of survivors story’s,fruit/sound sculptures, the interactive sculpture “Siberia”, one-on–one engagement with the chorus of volunteers, and dance.
Whilst audiences are in the truck, other members of the Public/Audience watch the spectacle from a distance: The flow of audiences through the installation augments the visual effect, drawing more and more people towards the project.
We are keen to further develop the performative elements of the project: • Dance – an additional dancer is required to increase the visibility of the movement from different viewpoints and to strengthen its interruptive nature. • Live Sound/Music – Additional material will be developed by composer Helen Ottaway to augment the structural narrative of the piece. Sound will act as a trigger to shift the audience’s focus to a particular aspect of the installation. • Historical Context- Following Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 and the Allies invasion of Iran the Captive Poles were released and encouraged to make their way to Iran where the new Polish Army was being formed. The condition for entry, set by the Soviets, was ‘joining’ the Polish army. As a result 400,000 Poles, of all ages, were signed up as new recruits, clothed in adult army uniforms and embarked on the journey to Iran. The Poles were welcomed unconditionally and sweets and fruits were thrown at the emancipated ‘army’ as it travelled in open convoy through Iran. In an inversion of today’s immigration patterns it was the Muslims who received the Christians, the Middle East who took care of Europeans.
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: £5000 per performance
ALEXANDRIA PATIENCE - TRAVELLING STORIES
Alexandria Patience 1, Shore Street, Portskerra, Sutherland KW14 7YN
Alexandria Patience, artist/performer/collaborator/storyteller focuses on mixed & cross arts events. Audio artist: audio walks & audio soundscapes. Outdoor performances and arts creation projects within rural communities. Community/Public Arts: creation of performances, artworks, events, workshops, training. Storytelling: traditional stories, especially on coastal life but also with a contemporary focus. Performs in the community, festivals and all levels of education - also available with live original music. High level of training and many years of experience with high regard for community inclusion. Builds work that invites the community into it and creates bonds between people, promotes arts and interest in artforms and the well being of the community – local, national and international.
Travelling Stories will be a ceilidh of stories. Alexandria Patience will tailor the stories she tells in each 'ceilidh' from the wealth of Scottish traditional stories from her 'store' and they will be told with accompanying traditional and original live music. This will be an intimate personal level performance event which will 'camp' within the community to draw them out to participate. Arriving a few days prior to the 'ceilidh' Alex will create a campsite in an acceptable central public area and live and work there so that her work with groups and individuals in the community can be visible as will the setting up for the wee ‘Big event’.
Community work will be tailored to fit the needs of each site - one-to-one or in large or small groups. The advance work is to draw them into valuing and sharing stories - personal and from the area. These story- workshops may include visits to schools, to seniors in the community and anyone up for being visited and becoming part of the ceilidh. When away from the 'campsite' a blackboard will announce the workshop location. The final performance will happen in the 'campsite', with a fire wherever possible, live music, cups of tea and folks asked to bring your own seat and a bit of food to share. The creative team are Alexandria Patience (performer) and Donald McNeill (composer/musician) with ‘outside eye’ feedback from Tom Muir and Bob Pegg.(Storytellers).
This work is about celebrating the culture of storytelling and encouraging folk of all ages to participate in understanding that art can be a supportive part of everyday life and to engage the community to become part of the event rather than as a ‘performance’. It’s about creating a wee out-of-the-ordinary sensation to capture the imagination. Envisioned for rural communities to draw them together in a shared experience, in the ways that joining to work the peats or bring in the harvest used to do. It’s about all ages mixing and coming together in places which don’t have a theatre or a cinema. BUT I would consider ways to transfer this 'teuchter' to the 'city'...
Estimated costs: £900 - £1,200 for the community workshops and final event
BICYCLE BALLET - TANDEM BALLET
Karen Poley Creative Producer GFF, 29 Springfield Rd, Brighton BN1 6DF
E: [email protected] W: www.bicycleballet.co.uk
Karen is an independent producer of outdoor work, with a particular interest in creating dynamic relationships between artists and communities, site specific, outdoor dance performance, and art in the public realm. She is the driving force behind Bicycle Ballet, which currently produces three touring, outdoor dance performances and a large-scale installation project.
For over 20 years, choreographer Virginia Farman has created exciting dance for unusual settings; from the wild nightclubs of Milan and Rimini to the more pedestrian Southbank. Her work is characterised by humour, originality and pace, as she brings an anarchic edge to questions of how the human body can interact with public space.
Tandem Ballet is a medium-large-scale, outdoor dance performance by blind and partially sighted participants on, off and around tandems. Subject to funding, there will be an R&D phase in spring 2012 in Wandsworth, working closely with Pocklington Resource Centre for the Blind and Partially Sighted, their members, and other local partners, including students from Roehampton University’s Community Dance post-graduate courses. The aim is to explore the potential for the show, working initially with trained dancers as front riders.
The R&D will explore a range of ideas around the participants’ experiences of tandems/bicycles and cycling, for example, freedom, independence, fear and trust. The research process will be devised using contemporary dance and post modern dance techniques as a starting point, from which to evolve a unique form, of movement vocabulary and theatrical imagery, for participants and tandems.
The R&D will also explore the potential for developing an innovative and intriguing soundscape developed with a focus group in Pocklington Resource Centre. Current thoughts include interviews and directional sound woven together in a main soundtrack; small iPod sound systems on two or more bikes to move sound around the space; woven together with a lyrical, live audio description for the entire audience. Amongst the outcomes, we are looking to create a model of best practise for working with this group, and to emerge with ideas for further developing the movement and soundscape.
Elements of the R&D will also be incorporated into a routine as part of the Bicycle Ballet Mass Show.
Type of show: Medium-Large Scale | Estimated costs: £50-60,000 (A very rough estimate)
BIDING TIME (WITH TANGLED FEET) - RANT BOX
Pippa Bailey Creative Producer 3 Albert Road, Tonbridge TN9 2SR
E: [email protected] W: www.bidingtime.org
Pippa is a freelance producer/director working across a range of disciplines. Pippa is an associate director for The World Famous - company of innovative pyrotechnicians and on the board of directors of advocacy group - Musical Théâtre Matters. Pippa was a creative advisor during Arts Council England’s theatre assessment in 2008, and annually produces the Total Theatre Awards at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Pippa has been developing the BiDiNG TiME project for several years and RantBox is a stand alone part of this project. tangled feet are one of the UK’s leading physical theatre ensembles; dedicated to devising original, accessible and innovative work. Since 2003, our productions have been pushing the boundaries of theatrical practice, exploring and exploiting the live encounter between audience and performer, and rethinking where and how performance happens.
Rantbox is a cheeky interactive outdoor performance exploring and exposing public opinion about climate change - and anything else you want to get off your chest!
Rantbox captures public opinion and playfully, respectfully offers it back to the public. Three roving performers interview passers-by about their attitudes to climate change and the state of the world. Using documentary theatre the performers then 'rant' on behalf of their interviewees - the edited interviews playing simultaneously in the actor's headsets to offer compelling performances. The local rants are interspersed with famous speeches and crazy dancing inspired by people’s gestures. Rantbox is a compelling performance, different every time, which brings local voices alongside the voices of world leaders to a soapbox on the high street. It's better out than in! Rantbox can happen in any public area and works well encountered in a thoroughfare.
RantBox is conceived and produced by Pippa Bailey in collaboration with Tangled Feet; directed by Kat Joyce, production by Luke Gledsdale with performers John Hinton, Jenni Jackson and Fiona Watson.
Type of show: Small Scale | Estimated costs: £1000 for 3 x 20 minutes shows in a day
BLAZE WITH MORE MUSIC AND DAN FOX - BOOM BIKE BIG BAND
Dan Fox, Director The Loft,53 The Gill, Ulverston, Cumbria, LA12 7BL
E: [email protected] W: www.danfox.net
Sound Intervention works across the fields of street arts, streetbands, sound installations, instrument manufacture, location sound recording and sound installations. Recent work: The Boom Bike Big Band, a mobile 21st century streetband incorporating, brass, rap, beatbox and electric guitar. Concept by Dan Fox, produced in collaboration with Blaze and More Music. Adrift: an off-grid outdoor speactacle. Live music, fire, pyro, a transforming set, no mains power. Sound Explorers: Creating online maps with embedded media. Location recording meets Silent Disco with a Smart Board.
Boom Bike Big Band- A brand new 21st Century street band built around the Blaze Boom Bike, a mobile 1Kw sound system. Join these pedalling pied-pipers for a genre-busting mashup of original tunes, Balkan beats, hip-hop, ska, dubstep, rock and electro-swing brought with energy, joy and infectious moves. Featuring a completely mobile ensemble on bikes equipped with wireless mics, wireless guitar, tuba, sax, clarinet, accordeon, beatboxer and rapper. Developing new forms of musical street sport. Engaging audiences of all ages in a fun and inclusive way. The Blaze Boom Bike entered a whole new phase this year, debuting its very own Big Band. Six young people from Lancaster and Morecambe were chosen by More Music to join this groundbreaking new mobile performance ensemble.
The band members, aged between 15 to 22 years old, include guitarist, Connor Gallagher, clarinet player, Erin Whalley, saxophonist, Fabian Schomerus, rapper/vocalist, Wilbert Sinzara, and music leaders Ashley Murphy and Matt Robinson. The young musicians join Dan Fox, Boom Bike creator, to form the all new Boom Bike Big Band! All rehearsals took place in Morecambe. Working with Dan's concept and compositions the band members all contributed their own voice during the rehearsal period. Working with coreographer Ruth Tyson Jones the band developed a confident and fun style that works really well on the street. Formed in the early part of the summer the band went on to tour at various events throughout the North West.
This first short tour, leading up to appearances at Mintfest defined the band and is hopefully the springboard for a full season in 2012.
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: £1,000-£1,500
BOOTWORKS THEATRE - THE RED BOXES
Becki Haines Producer c/o BAC, Lavender Hill, Battersea, London, SW11 5TN
E: [email protected] W: www.bootworkstheatre.co.uk
Bootworks Theatre is a collective of artists committed to creating innovative and accessible theatre and performance for unusual locations. Best known for their iconic Black Box theatre installation for an audience of one, Bootworks have experienced great touring success, both at home and abroad and are supported by Arts Council England, the British Council and are a resident company of The ShowRoom, Chichester. Bootworks work to date has also been supported by Farnham Maltings, and the company was part of the Without Walls programme in 2009 and mentored through the year by Sian Thomas.
The Red Boxes- Four specially built mini-box installations mounted onto tricycles wherein short performances are presented inside. They have integrated lighting and sound, and once on site they set up and play back to back in one-hour shifts to audiences between two and eight. Other audiences gather and watch from a distance, though to get the full experience they should take a seat in-front of the booths.
The first set of shows touring for The Red Boxes is La Boite Noire; a pulp thriller of minuscule proportions. Experience a murder mystery across four performances; a story with multiple narratives for small audiences. Watch in any order to let the mystery unfold!
Presently each performance is five minutes long and the entire show is 24 minutes long running back to back to rotating audiences. Made in collaboration with Wide Eyes Theatre Company (www.wide-eyes- theatre.com) and graduates from the University of Chichester. The Red Boxes (formally ‘babyboxes’) began as an R&D commission by ‘Making Tracks’ (a rural touring scheme for West Sussex) and West Sussex County Council and involved Bootworks entering a new collaboration with a writer (Jane Buckler and a team of young writers). Over two months Bootworks collaborated with the writers to generate texts and performances for the installation. Some of the work from this development will be part of a future range of shows available; writing generated by young writers is published in a small book, which documents the entire project and our work.
Bootworks are seeking the support to re-work and tour the current show, develop further ideas for future programming and improve the installations themselves.
Type of show: Small Scale | Estimated costs: For touring in 2012 the Red Boxes are charged at £1000 per day, with any travel and accommodation costs in addition to this. This however is subject to negotiation for bookings of three days or more.
BRIGHT SHADOW - STYLE A WHILE
Katy Hirst Co-director The Gulbenkian, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT17NB
E: [email protected] W: www.brightshadow.org.uk
Bright Shadow is a performance company from Kent. Our mission is to strengthen, celebrate and value the stories, lives and character of individuals and communities. We do this through producing engaging and participatory, site sensitive performances that are inspired by the community. Our performances are designed to entertain, surprise and delight ‘accidental’ audiences, by putting accessible performances in public spaces. We are currently working, on ‘Style a While’ an outdoor touring show for 2012, supported by Arts Council England and commissioned by Winchester Hat Fair, ‘Judy’s Place’ a performance installation for arts centre cafe’s and a performance and dementia project.
Style a While centers around two hair dresser characters and their mobile hair salon. The salon’s raison d’etre is to seek out stories of kindness that they have collected from their clients and to share and celebrate across the UK (and beyond if they are lucky enough).
This small-scale performance is an open, mobile hair salon that the performers move through festivals and high streets, stopping to ‘set up shop’ wherever appropriate. The hairdressers will gather a crowd and entertain audiences with devised, playful performances of true stories gathered from previous clients, using methods such as puppetry (using salon equipment), audience participation and physical theatre. This piece of performance will climax with a final story and move into the show’s second section in which audience members become salon customers by sitting in the chair and have a personal interaction with the performers. Whilst having their hair styled, ‘customers’ will be told stories from the salon archive in exchange for a new one. Audience stories will be displayed within the set in a visually attractive way.
The piece aims to: • Give audiences an authentic, meaningful and generous encounter and relationship with the performers • Gather, retell and celebrate real-life stories.- Promotes kindness and community. - Be accessible to all • Combine performing to large crowds and moments of intimate, personal interactions. - Display artistic excellence • Be performed by engaging, likeable, robust and interesting characters - Tour to outdoor festivals
The piece has previously been performed as a work in progress (at Emerge Festival, Winchester Hat Fair and Parklife Festival 2011) and is now going into development to create the finished show. Funded by Arts Council England and commissioned by Winchester Hat Fair, the two performers from Bright Shadow are going to work with Matt Feerick, Artistic Director of Wet Picnic as an Associate Director to fully realise the piece. Kate Hazel will act as creative producer for the project and a professional set designer will be commissioned to design and build a functional set.
Type of show: Small Scale | Estimated costs: £550
BUI BOLG - THE CHANCY BROTHERS
Lucy Medlycott Manager Whitemill Industrial Estate Wexford, Ireland
E: [email protected] W: www.buibolg.com
Bui Bolg are innovators in the field of spectacle and street theatre offering a combination of originality, imagination, impeccable professionalism and a unique sense of humour with just a touch of mischief to add to the magic! Our portfolio includes – street theatre, spectacle, pageants, parades, festivals, events, inflatables, artworks, installations, arts education, giant puppets, animatronics, props and design.
The Chancy Brothers is a typical tale of the Irish Diaspora told through wit and humour, giant puppetry and live music, as well as a tinge of sadness packed up in a suitcase. To date we have presented it as a work in progress through Gi20 in Spitalfields and in Stockton on Tees. This has given us some much needed experience and confidence to bring it further. From this we were invited to bring an element of it to Beijing for the ‘International Culture and Tourism Festival’, to our absolute amazement. This has been a wonderful opportunity for our company.
We feel very strongly that this show has real potential for touring and resonates very much with audiences around the globe in these current times. This is not only an Irish tale it can be applied to all cultures everywhere who have chosen emigration as their future.
Bui Bolg are a production company based in Wexford in the South East of Ireland. Our speciality is in giant puppetry and street arts. We have 6 full time artists working here - designing new puppets and animatronics with electronically animated parts.
This show can be played in a circle to audiences of approximately 300 people.
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: €1500.00
CHESTER THE GIANT CITY CIC – THE GIANTS
Kristine Szulik Project Director 121 Brook Lane, Chester, CH2 2EN
E: [email protected] W: http://thegiants.org.uk
I am the Project Director of an organisation that works with people of all ages and abilities (offenders, homeless, people with mental health issues, mums and toddlers). We work in areas of multiple deprivations. We take a little of Chester’s heritage and culture that dates back to Celtic times, that of making 14ft giants, create a small arts business enterprise and create a spectacular Carnival of GiANTS. Are Carnivals are all about linking people with major events at regional and national level e.g. The Queen’s Jubilee, Cultural Olympiad, Sport Olympiad.
The Giants We have an inspirational opportunity to create Dancing with Giants for The Queen’s Jubilee.
We would like to create sixty Queen Elizabeth II Giants and create a Carnival of Dancing Giants. To: provide a fun, creative and inclusive method of tackling the insularity of single neighbourhoods; address issues around creative arts development and enterprise culture and; try to overcome stigma and build places characterised by advantage.
The GiANTS take elements of Cheshire’s heritage and culture (giant building & street-theatre) and use them as a means to regenerate communities by getting people of all ages to work together and share their skills. Over an unspecified amount of time (each person, group and community being different) people come together, supported either by The GiANTS or our Partners to: design, build and dress their GiANT; develop a small carnival team of performers and musician and; put together an event management team.
This GiANT entourage can then take part in major events organised by The GiANTS e.g. GiANT Carnival, and smaller local events organised by themselves e.g. village fete. Some Major events include: 2012 The Queen’s Jubilee – GiANT Carnival – Chester Jubilee Celebrations across Cheshire & Warrington Cultural Olympiad NW events (Chester & Preston) 2013 The Queen’s Coronation – GiANT Carnival – Chester Celebrations across Cheshire & Warrington 2014 Commonwealth Games Celebrations in Glasgow
Our delivery partners are proactive in their local communities. They offer help and advice to The GiANTS to ensure that the hard to reach are engaged in our projects. They support us in specific areas of our work ,making contact with elderly people in their own homes and community groups, supported housing and residential homes. They encourage individuals to join or lead our workshops; provide transport and care support. Our achievement - Celebratory events: bringing 60 GiANTS and 6,000 people together.
Type of show: Large Scale | Estimated costs: £34,000
CIRQ'ULATION LOCALE
Hermen Six Tour Manager Beukenlaan 22, 8310 Brugge, Belgium
E: [email protected] W: www.ciloc.com
Cirq'ulation Locale is a Belgium based cross-over circus company. We have been touring all over Europe since 2002. Cirq'ulation Locale is currently touring with two outdoor shows and one indoor show. The shows are always a mix of acrobats, juggling and humor.
Cirq'ulation Locale is working on a large scale outdoor act involving two trampoline's and a big structure that can be put on fire. Because of the large scale we are planning to work with 10 artists or more (including UK based jugglers/acrobats: Thomas Rose an Ashton Launcherley).
We involve a mix of artforms from dance (in cooperation with Marc Bogaers a famous Choreographer), trampoline, acrobatics, juggling, humor and spectacular fire and light effects. Jan Vermeersch and Marc Bogaers are directing the show. We are also working with the following artists: Ashton Laucherley (UK), Thomas Rose (UK), Guillaume Montels (Fr), Jan Patzke (Ge), Charly Marey (Fr). The permière of the show is planned in spring 2012 so we can be ready to play at the summer festivals in 2012.
Type of show: Large Scale | Estimated costs: 10 000 euro
CONTRAPTICUS - THE CIRCUS OF STORIES
Rob Hill Production Designer 2 Golf Links Road, Llandrindod Wells, Powys, LD1 5NY
I have worked in theatre, outdoor and community shows now for over twenty years. Starting as a production manager with Welfare State International, Walk The Plank, External Combustion and others I have moved more into Set and technical making over the past few years and have found a fascination with Kinetic Sculpture, Automata and the stories they tell
The Circus of Stories- A strange and ghostly travelling show turns up in town – part flea circus, part freak show – magical and bizarre. Housed in a small, plush (if a little seedy) circus style tent, visitors would journey through the ‘Exhibits’ which would all have a story to tell. A collection of beautifully made high and low tech gizmos, each one would be titled so as to fire the imagination into filling out the story behind it. Some funny, some scary and some just downright odd - there should be something for everyone in there. There will be interactive exhibits and a soundscape to the whole experience. Using mirrors and video trickery, visitors should feel slightly disorientated and that they have lifted the veil and peeked into a strange and magical world.
I am making small ‘exhibits’ in my workshop at the moment, reworking and reusing found materials with a view to a small taster exhibitions in Wales, Shropshire and The West Midlands. I’m aslo interested in running CONTRAPTICUS as a participatory/workshop project for schools etc, where imagination, making skills, creative storytelling and presentation could be developed.
Type of show: Small to Medium Scale | Estimated costs: I woud welcome advice on this but, I think probably somewhere around £2,000 for one day and £3,000 for a weekend...?
COPPERDOLLAR - SPIDORA
Kt Simpson Artistic Director 14 Bristol Rd, Brighton BN2 1AP
E: [email protected] W: www.facebook.com/pages/Copperdollar
Copperdollar is an Immersive Theatre Company set up in 2008, which strongly believes in placing the audience at the core of their work and collapsing the wall between performer and audience. Since 2008 Copperdollar has won an award in the Brighton Fringe Festival 2009 with their show “Wake the Dead”, been commissioned by Glastonbury Festival in 2010/2011, and collaborated with Brighton Carnival and Samesky to artistically lead “Through the Veil” for White Night 2010.
Since Dec 2010 Copperdollar has been developing “Spidora” specifically for street theatre events and festival. In June 2011 they received funding from Arts Council England and were support by the Gi20 to re- work the original idea and showcase the work in progress at Spitalfields and Stockton International Riverside festival.
Spidora takes its inspiration from traditional fairground attractions and ancient creation tales. It looks to present an old sideshow in a contemporary context by using performance, installation and digital technology to play with our perceptions of self, and our fears of the unknown.
Spidora is a small-scale sideshow designed as walk through experience where the audience find themselves entwined in close up theatre and digital trickery that is immediate and participatory.
The show is set in 5x5m tent, which has a striking frontage of paintings by visual artist Jim Sanders & Paul Harrison. The audience are greeted by an exuberant figure, “the Barker” who entices the audience to venture into a dark and magical experience. Once inside the audience will have to face there fears and follow a pathway through a labyrinth, passing through 7 different visual experiences that play with distortion darkness and digital guile, with a physical challenge of a web and the other character “a trickster”, to escape from. (The show is wheelchair accessible, with the advantage of a secret doorway for those unable to climb through the web, but with a great view of those who can)
The artist and art forms: Created and Directed: Kt Simpson, Performed: Kt Simpson and Bruce Knight Digital artwork: Benedict Sheehan http://www.benedictsheehan.com Visual artwork: Jim Sanders www.jimsanders.info Sound compelation/carpentry/technical suport: Marc Ellis Creative Producer: Kate Laird.
Spidora was devised with a family audience in mind but is also suited for a night time festival crowd. A constant flow of audience can result in 500 people being able to pass through in 3 hours. The performance can run for 90min slots twice a day. For 2/3 days in succession. We are self-sufficient and come with all of our own equipment. Including a 5x5metre tent, which can be set up on grass or hard standing.
Following development time in 2011 we now are looking for opportunities to present the work to promoters ready to tour in 2012.
Type of show: Small Scale | Estimated costs: £3944 for a 1 day event. (not including travel & accommodation if needed.) £4544 for a 2 day event. (not including travel & accommodation if needed.)
CURIOUS PLANET – OPERA THERAPY
Tania Holland Williams Director and performer 13 Westmount Avenue, Chatham ME4 6DA
E: [email protected] W: www.curiousplanet.org
Curious Planet works across disciplinary divides to challenge assumptions and permissions with regard to opera and theatre practice, often shifting boundaries for consumption. Two current street arts projects: Opera Therapy - Offering a specialist service in tragedy, revenge and unrequited love, the Fat Lady herself will listen to your stories, hear your woes and indulge in your gossip. But most importantly - she wants to give you her counsel….the counsel of an opera diva. An Improbable Correspondent - A live arts and online social media theatre piece based on the characterisations of Bulgarian philosopher Elias Canetti.
Opera Therapy- Feeling low? Got a secret to share? In a moral dilemma? Then come for a session with The Fat Lady. Offering a specialist service in tragedy, revenge and unrequited love, Welsh Flo AKA, the Fat Lady is an agony aunt with a difference…she wants to sooth your fears, elicit your gossip, celebrate your triumphs, share in your tragedies and expose your innermost wiles, and then she is ready to guide you through the path to prudence and enlightenment - by co-performing some of the great operatic arias of history.
Opera Therapy is a work that brings the public into a close and personal encounter with opera. Drawing on the intimate and sometimes grotesque narratives of great opera characters: Carmen, Tosca, Rosina, the work invites people to sit on her chaise longue and share their stories over a cup of tea (and over the PA system) and work out their unhappiness through a mix of Freudian slippages, Cognitive Misbehaviour and Eclectic shocks all to the backdrop of song.
Art forms: Improvisation, opera and tea Creative team: Tania Holland Williams (performer and co- producer), Hazel Stone (creative producer) and MaryJane Stevens (Dramaturg tbc), Paul Sheehan (performer tbc) Scale of work: Able to operate in small spaces and easy to tour, few technical specifications, 2 performers, 2 members in production team and 3 pieces of set.
Progress to date: Promotors pack ready, set pieces arranged, cast and crew identified, need to establish dramaturg and rehearsal period, and to finalise the PA equipment.
Type of show: Small Scale | Estimated costs: £1,395
DEBBIE ROBINS - COMFORTABLE WITH THE UNCOMFORTABLE
Debbie Robbins Artist 142/5 Broughton Road - Scotland
My name is Debbie Robbins, I am based in Edinburgh. I feel I have a large pool of skills to draw from dance, acrobalance, aerialist - solo and doubles now artistically I feel I want time to be in a creative process with support to merge my skills as both a performer and from personal life experiences into a dynamic, emotional and inspiring outdoor piece. I performed on Friday 7th October at the ‘Framed Gallery’ Edinburgh as part of RE-FUSE urban art exhibition with ‘Bright Young Things’. This will be a regular space for me to start to present my works.
Being comfortable with the uncomfortable “When you are uncomfortable, you are pushing boundaries. You are willing to fail. This is where amazing personal and professional shifts come from. If you don’t aspire to anything more, then go ahead and be comfortable. Uncomfortable leads to growth. It’s scary and may be painful, but pain is temporary. Your achievements are forever”
I began thinking how facing the outdoor elements can also reflect true for facing some painful inner emotions. However, braving the elements and learning to be comfortable with the uncomfortable is what this piece is all about.
Through the art forms of dance, aerial (solo and doubles) and acrobalance, and drawing from my work as a personal trainer and pilates instructor in Australia for 5 years and uk for 14 years, I have guided many people on their own physical and emotional journeys. I have over 3 years of regular professional counselling and 8 years of physical body therapies, including Pilates, osteopath and Rolfing.
I have a deep level of understanding of this area and that’s why I would like to explore it creatively. As an aerialist we are constantly have to take leaps of faith, trust and step outside comfort zones. This is an incredibly cathartic, stunning and beautiful process to watch and be a part of. One of the main values of this piece is to get a balance between inspiring and uplifting to facing the sometimes difficult, dark personal journey for true piece of mind as perceived by both performer and viewer.
I intend to work with ‘Aerial Edge’ which is Scotland’s circus school based at the Briggat in Glasgow as a creative team to produce an honest reflection into being comfortable with the uncomfortable.
DELIGHTERS - FLAMOUR
Jusztina Hermann Director 7/1 Montpelier Park, Edinburgh, EH10 4LU
E: [email protected] W: www.delighters.co.uk
DeLighters is an emerging company specialized in physical theatre and contemporary circus based in Edinburgh. Founder Jusztina Hermann is a theorist and performer working in the field since 2000. She performs solo shows as well as work with a group of international artists based in Scotland, using elements of dance, fire, puppetry, visuals, clown and circus skills indoors and outdoors.
Flamour A Fire Theatre performance about the fascination and possessiveness that coexist in human nature. Mixing the elements of physical theatre, contemporary dance, clowning and object manipulation with fire, the drama of a creature unfolds. After hatching the first thing she finds is a flame. She smells it, touches it and finally eats it, which makes her become human. She is in love with fire, she plays with it, surround herself with it. But as the fire keeps burning out she becomes increasingly possessive and desperate to keep the flames alive. The first version of the show was performed at Festa del Fuoco di Stromboli, an international fire festival, with great success this summer. Following the feedback of the professional network the choreography is being revised to complete the show, and to adapt to Scottish weather conditions.
Technical: • 6m x 4m performance area with no public access to backstage (wall/backdrop) • even hard floor, non flammable (stone / hard earth) • power (220V) with extension cable. • 1light (with soft warm colored gel) • Dusk / darkness. • Sound system (please note, the fire sculptures on the video are not part of the performance)
Devised and performed by Jusztina Hermann. Jusztina is specialized in physical theatre, street theatre and contemporary circus. In the past ten years she has been directing and performing with various groups around the world. She has a master degree in Theatre Theory and completed the Diploma in Physical Theatre Practice course in Glasgow in 2010. Jusztina has been teaching circus and performance workshops internationally since 2002. She founded DeLighters, a performance group based in Scotland.
Type of show: Small scale | Estimated costs: £320 Including Fire Technician, material cost and third party insurance. Travel costs are not included.
DODGY WHISKERS - MYSELF IN THE SALAD
Max Calaf Performer 106 Glyn Road, E5 0JE
E: [email protected] W: www.wix.com/dodgywhiskers/circuscompany
Dodgy Whiskers is a London based company formed by Daniel Rejano Romero and Maximilia Calaf Seve. They have trained in physical theater and circus schools trough out Europe. They decided to work together for several reasons:their similar approach to performance based in working with narrative and contextualizing those disciplines in the performance, their commitment and desire to sharing knowledge and the endless possibilities of mixing their skills together.
Myself in the Salad is the first project of Dodgy Whiskers, in which they exmine the word fear. More specifically Global fear, understood as the obsession with fear in society. Their inspiration comes from texts of the Uruguayan poet Eduardo Galeano to a series of essays and newspapers articles about this subject. The show combines physical theater and spoken word, live music and multimedia and circus disciplines such as juggling and trampoline.
After several R&D residencies and public presentations of the work in progress, the company believe that the show will be ready to be perfomed by January 2012 onwards. The show is for all types of audinces and suitable for indoor and outdoors.
The creative team Daniel Rejano Dani is a strong physical performer with many years experience working within a wide range of venues, both traditional and non-conventional. He trained at Carampa Circus School in Madrid and Estudis de Teatre Lecoq, a physical theatre school in Barcelona. Past performance work has involved physical theatre, street performance and circus
Max Calaf Max Calaf, a circus artist, has a previous background in juggling, aerial work and skating. He is specialized in trampoline, object manipulation and eccentric acrobatics. He studied at the Rogelio Rivel circus school (Barcelona) and develop his skills further at the Circus Space (London) starting to include movement and theatrical skills in his work. He continued his studies with a post graduate degree in physical theatre at Royal Holloway University of London. Max is now interested in bringing the techniques of physical theatre, contemporary dance and object manipulation together in his trampoline performances.
Fernando Rosende ( sound artist / composer) Fernando Rosende is a Composer and Sound Designer. He has studied a Degree in Music at City University in London, and specialises in electro-acoustic composition and composing music for the moving image. Fernando is also interested in Ethnomusicology, particularly in the music of Japan. He previously studied at the London College of Communication getting a Degree in Sound Art & Design. In his professional life, Fernando has done original compositions for theatre and contemporary circus performances as well as song writing and vocal arrangements. He is passionate about teaching, an activity that he continued doing during 10 years in Argentina. As a sound artist, Fernando has always been interested in the exchange between different art forms.
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: 2000
ESTELLE ROSENFELD & PHILIP PARR - SPREAD THE LOVE
Estelle Rosenfeld Meltdowns, studio 6, St Lawrence Industrial Estate, Manston Road, Ramsagte CT11 0QZ
E: [email protected] W: www.what-box.org
Philip Parr is a highly experienced director of theatre, opera, festivals and events. He specialises in large- scale site specific (often outdoor) participatory theatre as Artistic Director of Parabola. He has been director of the Bath Shakespeare Festival and is currently heavily involved in Shakespeare productions across Europe. He met Estelle Rosenfeld in 2010, when she needed an outside eye from a director for further development on her outdoor show, ‘Take the Pose’. Estelle is interested in playing with the boundaries between performing art and visual art and likes to create work at the crossroad of art-forms. Having discovered a natural empathy in their working methods, they worked together again to develop their collaborative new piece of outdoor art, Spread the Love.
Spread the Love is a walkabout piece, exploring sensory responses to the question: What is Love? It is the cheese on the toast, the cherry on the cake, the pink and fluffy and the warm fuzzy feeling inside! The love is spread by our ‘love machines’; performers are the two-halves of a single heart and they use all five senses to ask and propose answers to our question:
• Participants peep through a peephole in the performer’s hat and watch a short animation movie about what love is. • They listen to the cheesiest and most serious love songs from around the world, by listening through the love machine’s gloves • They can touch the fluff, the fur, the sweet, the warmth and the ice-cold through feely pockets concealed in the performer’s cloak. • They can taste the sweet and nostalgic love hearts that the machine distributes – and of course read the all important motto. • They can smell what love is as various scents are spayed on a card which they take away as a keepsake.
With each sensory experience, there are a variety of options which are either naturally aleatoric, or where the performer makes a choice at random. As a result, each participant has a unique interaction with one of the performers, and as the number of combinations is so vast no two audience members can possibly have the same experience. It is enjoyable and spectacular to watch from a distance as well – observers are intrigued by the interaction they can see, and the audience experience is often carried on by the participants as they share with each other what sound/smell/touch they had. It is suitable for all ages and is entirely accessible for all audiences.
Estimated costs: £600
FESTIVE ROAD - BREWING UP
Jessica Rost Co Director 6 Hollin Lane, Stacey Bushes Milton Keynes, MK12 6HT
E: [email protected] W: www.festiveroad.org.uk
Festive Road is an award winning Carnival Arts Company with over 10 years experience in participatory arts, taking prizes at Luton International Carnival, South End on Sea, Brighton and Ryde on Isle of Wight. The company is well known amongst carnivalists and is invited to perform at galas and carnival events regularly, including the Mayors Thames Festival night time parade. The company has project managed numerous arts events for arts organisations, town councils and others including coordinating; fringe festivals, Diwali celebrations and international artist exchanges and workshops.
Brewing Up is a Festive Road production, which explores, with humour, some of the truths and bizarre traditions which surround our nation’s great tea drinking obsession. It is a celebratory outdoor performance, in the round. The show has participatory elements and involves a number of emerging as well as established artists. On the one hand the show celebrates the ceremony of tea and its multi cultural connections through the costumes and carnival style characters. On the other hand the show takes a wry look at the absurdity of Englishness. The performance also explores, in a playful way, the injustice of the tea trade and the traditions which have built up around tea within various cultures. The over arching aim of the piece being: to bring everyone together through the act of drinking tea.
The show centres round a giant Musical Kettle which boils up, steams and produces various sounds, activated by performers using concealed touch pads which are controlled via a lap top. The sounds are woven into a live musical arrangement which is integrated into the performance. Alongside the innovative sounds effects, the show also combines other special effects including sound activated lighting for evening events, silk flame makers and smoke and bubble machines. The giant kettle is accompanied by an entourage of tea making machines, tea trollies and percussive paraphernalia mounted on bicycles which are played and cycled by the performers.
The performance is a set choreographed piece that nevertheless maintains Festive Road’s particular carnivalesque energy. At the end of the performance there is an opportunity for the audience to join in with the dancers, which guarantees to bring any space to life and the street party often continues after the performers have made their exit.
The Brewing Up project began in 2010 when it was awarded the London 2012 Inspire Mark. The production brings in several lead artists who work in collaboration with Festive Road and is co-directed by Jessica Rost and Sian Thomas. Sian has been involved with Brewing Up since 2011 and will continue working on the production as a dramaturg and in a mentoring capacity.
Jessica Rost is a co-founder and director of Festive Road and has up to 20 years of practice as a visual artist performing, exhibiting, collaborating and producing, through artistic networks internationally. Festive Road is an artist led organisation; Simon Tipping, Julie Moreton and Paul Smith are all co-directors and lead makers with up to 20 years experience as practising artists covering a range of art forms
Manuela Benini is a performer and choreographer collaborating with different dance, street theatre and carnival companies across Europe. Mat Fox teaches composition, piano, saxophone, drumming, steel band and directs various ensembles in South London.
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: £4,900
FIGHTING FIT PRODUCTIONS - HOODIES
Dr Declan Patrick Artistic Director 349 Stillwater Dr, Manchester M11 4TE
Fighting Fit Productions is a performance company that specialises in dance theatre. We have produced onriginal work in England, Spain, China, New Zealand and the Philippines. Our work is innovative, exciting and audience friendly.
Previous work has included 'Iolanthe Espresso' (1995) 'Uniforms' (1996), 'Expose' (2004), 'Dancers in Pyjamas' (2005) and 'Hips Don´t Lie....Much' (2008). Our current project is called 'Hoodies'. It is a family- friendly, site-responsive dance work that can be performed indoors or outdoors.
HOODIES is a dance work that utilises the idea of transformation. The piece starts with four dancers in different sites, all wearing grey hoodies, with the hood up. They slowly travel until they are all in the same place. They dance a series of duets, involving skipping and pushing movements, which slowly resolve into a faux hip-hop dance. Through the course of the dance dancers leave the group movement to reveal different sides to themselves. The dance changes into a latin fantasy, before the transformed group leave to go their seperate ways.
The work was choregraphed through a process of improvisation and found movement by choreographer Dr Declan Patrick. Dancers include Vicki Brown, Kate Engineer, Olivia Burgess and Sophia Best.
The work can take 15 minutes, or 25 minutes depending on how the material is arranged. The work has no set, and requires only a sound system.
Type of show: Small Scale | Estimated costs: 150 pounds
FINE ARTISTES – EVERYTHING MUST GO
Brian Popay Director 42 Somerset Road Frome BA11 1HE
E: [email protected] W: www.fineartistes.com
Fine Artistes was formed in 2007 by Brian Popay and his daughter Rose Popay. Brian was a founder member of the Natural Theatre Company of Bath and Rose is a working artist and performer living in Bristol. The company ethos is to utilise the Art School backgrounds of the performers and produce interactive accessible performance pieces that will delight, entertain and involve audiences.
Everything Must Go - For this proposal we are drawing on the creative skills and experience of Neil Hornick of The Phantom Captain. A pioneer in shop performance art, Neil staged his first ‘shopperation’ in a vacant hairdressers’ salon in Bath in 1973. Neil has extensive experience of working in and of making theatre for unusual places.
‘Everything Must Go’ could be mounted entirely by the company or as a collaboration with another group. We could also devise the piece in conjuction with students of design or performance. Assuming a tenure of not less than two days, we’d set up a series of ‘shopperations’ under the general heading ’Everything Must Go!’ No sooner would one kind of shop close down at the end of the day, then another, totally different kind of shop would open the next day. We might even change the shop’s identity more than once daily, by swiftly switching signs and ’stock’.
Each shop environment would have its own offbeat character (both still life and live-action) and inside interplay with ‘shoppers’, who would be coaxed in, if need be, by a barker. During the night time the shop would be “occupied” using a back projected film showing imagined goings on in the shop.
Type of show: Small/Medium Scale | Estimated costs: Excluding production, Transport and accommodation costs £4000 for a three day installation.
FREESTYLE ENGINEERING - LOTUS PYRO MACHINE / SPINNING SPACE SHIP
Mike Pattison Artistic Director 17 Melbreak House, London, SE22 8AL
Mike Pattison is a well respected artist, theatrical engineer and puppeteer, who has worked in the outdoor theatre sector for twenty years. He is a long term member of Emergency Exit Arts and has invented, designed and fabricated theatrical machines for The World Famous, Walk The Plank, Kinetika, Periplum, Bureau of Silly Ideas, Arts Desire and Graeae. He has worked on a large number of commissions for Thames Festival and Greenwich and Docklands International Festival. Mike has always been excited by the mechanical workings of the world and is motivated by a desire to make it visible to others through the theatrical medium. His aesthetic is to bring to the fore the workings of the machine and to adapt and give new life to mechanisms that the world has discarded.
Lotus Pyro Machine (Working Title) is a 2x2mtr lotus flower shaped animated machine that is remote controlled and electronically mechanised. It enters the theatrical arena/street/park, it stops and starts to rotate. Whilst rotating on its own axis it gracefully opens its six large petals in unison, revealing the pre rigged mechanised pyrotechnic show set within. The pyro consists of low level stage pyro (gerbs, wheels, mini waterfall units, flares etc) that are fired in collaboration to a rising and falling music score. As it finishes its sequence it begins to rotate again, slowly closing, it acknowledges the applause and makes its exit. The Lotus pyro machine is a puppet character that is a slightly lost soul trying to please people in this new world where it finds itself.
Spinning Space Ship- A pair of aliens are in a pedal powered flying saucer. The harder they pedal, the faster the outer section of the spaceship spins, illuminating lights and generating power like a spinning top. They are trying to reach escape velocity, it’s proving very difficult. This is a walkabout show in the shape of a classic dome topped flying saucer that is around 2 ½ mtrs in diameter. It travels along a route by pedal powering its undercarriage, it then stops, disengages motive power and engages spin driver. The aliens pedal frantically, it doesn’t take off. A domestic ensues: “You didn’t listen when I said turn left at centaur 7!”..”But the satnav said…”
Type of show: Both are small scale | Estimated costs: Both shows will cost £1,500
FRENETIC ENGINEERING - PRETTY VACANT/ THE FAME FACTOR
Annabelle Holland Artistic Director The Albany Centre, Shaftesbury Avenue, Montpelier, Bristol, BS6 5LT
E: [email protected] W: www.FreneticEngineering.co.uk
Small-scale street theatre, comperes and cabaret, using a mixture of circus, theatre and clowning. Current shows are: Calamity Jane- comedy knife throwing, lasso, line dancing, song. Femmes Fatal –clowns, comedy knife throwing, fire eating, eccentric dance, sandwich making. The Fame Factor – Development of Talent Show walkabout. Walkabouts: Eggs on Legs – Giant dancing eggs and chef run amok. Sugar Plump Ballerinas –They love ballet and crisps. The Talent Show – street/walkabout with audience participation.
Pretty Vacant - A grotesque, feminine, and hilarious two-woman show. Exposing the things women do to make themselves “beautiful”. A tongue in cheek look at the impact of the media bombarding us with images of how we should look and what we should do to make ourselves look beautiful. Bringing private female activities to the street and exploring our own boundaries, this will be awkward, sad and embarrassing but always human and often funny. • Two women - getting ready to go out on a Saturday night. • They believe they are becoming more beautiful but become increasingly messy, disgusting and competitive. Inventing painful, low-cost versions of beauty treatments using household items – eg toaster nail dryer, vacuum cleaner lipo-suction, bacon slicer to lose weight. • The finale is a glorious mess. They believe they are stunning but have ruined themselves. Flirtatious, competitive, ugly and drunk they try to charm the men in the audience with hilarious results. • Disciplines include: Physical theatre, buffon clown, live music/singing/eccentric dance and circus skills.
ACE Funding application being written- Looking for support/co-producer/commission
Type of show: Small Scale| Estimated costs: £900 + travel and accommodation where necessary
The Fame Factor -The ultimate experience for a town to become immersed in a theatrical event while local heroes are made. Think ‘X Factor’ and ‘Britain’s Got Talent’, but local, outdoors and funny. A whole experience, from build up to an event, gaining momentum, promotion for the event, building a following and excitement as the show unfolds.
Phase 1 Anticipation- Publicity Posters etc
Phase 2 Arrival- Presenters and film crew arrive/ Scandal is created
Phase 3 The Show- Auditions/ shows/ voting/ awards ceremonies
Estimated costs: Depends on which parts of the package are taken up by a booker and how many days we work. We would look at charging £250 per performer per day plus travel and accommodation where necessary. The number of performers will vary from 5 – 9 depending on the investment of the booker. Plus one stage manager.
HEELS OVER HEAD DANCE THEATRE - THE BREL PROJECT
Agathe Girard Artistic Director 12 Cambridge Avenue Edinburgh EH6 5AP
E: [email protected] W: http://www.heelsoverhead.co.uk
Heels Over Head Dance Theatre (HHDT) aims at creating engaging and entertaining work, drawing inspiration from both dance and theatre practice. Current projects include The Brel Project and Saved by the bell! (work in progress). The Brel Project is a dance theatre solo piece using mime, movement and voice. The piece is an homage to Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel
Saved by the bell! is a Contemporary French farce, where storytelling is solely achieved through movement. The story is inspired from “classic” French farce genre and the movement draws from various dance techniques.
The Brel project (TBP) was devised by myself and Steinvor Palsson. Drawing from both theatre and dance practice, the piece is inspired from Jacques Brel’s own body language as well as his music. It is in 3 parts, based around 3 very different Brel’s songs.
The first one is Les Bonbons, using mime and facial expressions. The movement is directly influenced by the lyrics as well as the way Brel himself performed this song. It is at times sweet and at times “goofy”, with the character being both endearing and ridiculous.
The second part is based around Je suis un soir d’ete. With this part, the mood of the piece changes to be more “dreamy”. The movement is abstract and relates to the rhythm of the song rather than the lyrics. It is performed eyes closed, allowing the audience to both fully scrutinise the movement and “lose themselves” in the music.
At last, the third part is the more theatrical part where Amsterdam is recited and acted out. Starting off grotesque and manly, it grows dark, sad and fragile (the performer turns herself from one of the sailors into one of the Amsterdam’s whores mentioned in the song).
To date, the piece has been performed at a few platforms and has always been very well received. Since its first conception in April 2011, Steinvor and I have continued to review it and make a few changes. Morag Deyes (Artistic Director of Dance Base) is very supportive of the piece and I am hoping to have two weeks residency at Dance Base in May 2012 to continue to expand the piece. I have also been invited by Micheline Van Hautem (http://www.michelinemusic.com/) to perform Les Bonbons alongside her during one of her concerts in Amsterdam in November.
Type of show: Small Scale
IMPOSSIBLE - ACOUSTIC ENERGY
Chris Squire Co Director The Watershed, 22 Bridge St, Slaithwaite, Huddersfield HD7 5JN
E: [email protected] W: www.impossible.org.uk
You’ll find us somewhere between participatory event, performance, new media and installation. You’ll see us beyond traditional arts establishments - in factories, shopping centres and railway stations as well as streets, parks and pavements. Combining innovation with involvement we have been creating and presenting outdoor performance for over 20 years; sometimes as Impossible but also in association with other companies and artists working in this field (most notably as a long-term associate of IOU Theatre). Overall, we aim to make work that is able to both intrigue and more deeply involve people from all backgrounds.
Acoustic Energy- A sound based interactive installation using kinetic energy of the wind and natural environment. Featuring æolian harps and soaring silk banners and well as an investigation of a wind ‘aerial’ able to amplify the sounds of the sky.
These will feature alongside other participatory sound transmission and reception devices for audiences to play with, sending sounds across the space, listening to distant sources, evesdropping, ear-popping…
Currently in development, working with technicians and musicians, artists and artisans to test and implement the best of our research.
Estimated costs: £600
JON HICKS - ELEPHANTS
Jon Hicks Performer/Creative Director 49 Peterchurch House, Commercail Way, London SE15 1NF
E: [email protected] W: www.thejonhicks.com
Jon has been enthralling audiences since 2000 with his repertoire of artistic oddities and shows of creativity. Starting in street arts with a speed painting act, he has developed his work to include a diverse range of disciplines and interests; origami, getting inside a cardboard box, clowning, comedy, and with the aid of training at Circus Space, the engagement of a coterie of toy elephants… He appears in street festivals, cabaret, and all manner of events around the world.
Elephants is a performance based on one man’s quest for spiritual enlightenment, through feats of amazement with toy elephants. Mr Hicks’ meditational and delusional obsession has created a highly trained coterie of toy elephants, that, under his guidance perform amazing stunts, illusions and acts of beauty. A silent comedy performed to music. The piece takes influences from traditional animal circus shows, classic prop based comedy, Tommy Cooper, Buster Keaton, chain reaction machines such as Rube Goldberg, magic acts, outsider art, faux spirituality and meditation, the Muppet show, traditional circus and fairground sideshows…
“Elephants” was initially developed while studying Clown with Fraser Hooper at Circus Space, London in 2008. Then directed by Matt Rudkin (previously of outdoor show The Indredible Bull Cicus , now performing with his theatre company Inconvenient Spoof) Previously performed as a cabaret and theatre piece, “Elephants” has been presented as an outdoors show at two events: The outdoor show currently runs at 30 minutes. Presented with a box 2.1 metres tall, which unfolds into a set 5 metres wide, and then works as a backdrop and backstage area. The set has a, home made, sideshow, look and feel. Jon Hicks performs with an assistant who builds a crowd and then operates back stage.
The aim, working towards the 2012 season, is to explore the relationship between the two performers, creating a larger role for the assistant and to develop more of a double act. Whilst also looking at the possibilities of more play and clowning with the set and the use of larger props more appropriate to the outdoors arena. This show has been self funded, but I will be applying for to the Arts Council for a grant towards research and development.
“Magic and magical” Angis MacKechnie – producer - Watch This Space, National Theatre
Type of show: Small- Medium Scale | Estimated costs: £850 a day
KINETIKA – DESIGN STUDIO - SILK ROUTE UK
Ali Pretty Artistic Director The Brady Centre,192-196 Hanbury Street London E1 5HU
E: [email protected] W: www.kinetikaonline.co.uk
Kinetika is an international design company based in East London with a focus on outdoor arts, events and celebrations. We are currently gearing up for 2012, and launching The Kinetika Design Studio, to deliver silk commissions in the spirit of carnival. We have developed a range of activities and products that will be ideal for enhancing the many events that will be showcasing the UK to the world next year. From your own bespoke community project, Silk Route - UK, to the delivery of silk commissions for opening ceremonies, festival flags and spectacular carnival costumes, we have something for everyone!
Silk Route UK -Animating the Streets and Welcoming the World! Silk Route UK is inspired by The Silk Routes that were important paths for cultural, commercial, and technological exchange between traders, merchants and urban dwellers from Ancient China to Europe. Today the UK is a vibrant meeting point of diverse cultures from all over the world, we will celebrate this richness by creating a silk route inspired by all the many textile, ceramic and graphic designs of the communities that currently live and work in the UK.
Kinetika propose to engage and work with communities in the UK of different generations, cultures and communities to create a stunning silk route that line and animate the streets as the Olympic torch passes through the UK. The project culminates in a welcoming performance by the participating communities and young people in a spirit of friendship for the torch and it's entourage Activities: We will lead workshops with your community groups to share stories about how they welcome people into their community and into their culture. Their participation will be enlisted and a resource pack and brief for the designs of the banners will be circulated to each group.
They will design and make themselves, a series of silk banners and flags to animate and line the route. Making This will be followed by a central mas camp - making residency where participants from the groups will be able to drop into a flexible timetable to make their banners, silk carpet pieces and their own small flag to wave along the route. Costume hire From the participating groups or from local secondary schools, there will be an option for up to 90 performers wearing silk carnival costumes to welcome the torch in a brief choreographed performance.
Type of show: Medium – Large Scale | Estimated costs: 10-15K depending on number of participants.
KIVIKIDANCE - MOVE ME
Bert Roman Artistic Director 61 Eastwoodroad B12 9NA
E: [email protected] W: www.kivikidance.org
Kivikidance, a company founded by Bert Roman to develop and research new project Move Me. Bert is a Belgian dancer and choreographer trained in contemporary dance. This summer we’ve been funded by the Arts Council and supported by Birmingham Hippodrome and BE Festival to trial Move Me in three varied locations across the city. The name ‘Kiviki Dance’ comes from the French ‘Qui vie, Qui danse’ – ‘He who lives, dances’.
Move Me is a journey to the heart of dance. Low-pressure and high-fun, the project brings people of all ages and abilities together and puts them centre stage for an unforgettable dance performance. It is all- inclusive, blurring the boundaries between spectacle and participation, enabling audiences to become performers.
Taught by two professional dancers on an elevated platform, audiences will learn a dance which has been specially choreographed to enable them to rediscover the joy of dancing with others. Events will be hosted by comic housewife Mrs Barbara Nice, who will join participants in learning and performing the dances. Barbara Nice is the comedy creation of Women & Theatre’s Artistic Director Janice Connolly, whose TV credits include C4’s Phoenix Nights.
The choreography will be taught in bite-size parts, repeated a number of times. Teaching will be supported by community assistants who will learn the dances in advance. In amongst the crowd, they will be responsive and supportive, offering guidance as people learn the moves. Once the audience has picked up the steps, the whole dance will be performed within a street party atmosphere.
Move Me can happen indoor as outdoor and the aim is to achieve mass, spontaneous dance participation in people of all backgrounds.
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: £1200 without PA.
LI LU
Li Lu Creative team leader, performer 24 Anson Road, Manchester M14 5BQ
E: [email protected] W: www.lilucello.com
Virtuoso cellist Li Lu was recently profiled in a sky Arts documentary ”Art of Survival” an artistic challenge involving travelling across Europe using her music to survive. Inspired by this experience, she is creating a combined arts project a Touring Live Music Sculpture featuring the “In Love with Bach”. Li Lu has assembled a professional team who will work collaboratively with her to realize a highly crafted visual and audio performance piece. By performing at outdoor public unexpected spaces, she wishes to expose a wider audience to classical music.
This unique visual presentation of Bach cello suites aims to break down barriers between the audience/performer using contemporary art and technology to mirror the Baroque. This project includes 4 major elements: live performance, a glass-look touring sculpture, spectacular costumes and new media/multimedia technique. Live performance will integrate with the visual arts using the concept of a live cellist within a sculptural glass-look vessel seemingly delivering a ‘silent’ live recital presented within a six hours-long durational piece. Spectacular costumes will communicate the different personalities of the 6 cello suites and add to the visual drama of the performance.
The audience can choose to enjoy a purely visual performance or experience the full audio-visual piece, listening to the music using new media technologies that create an interactive element between the performer and audience. Li Lu has assembled a professional team who will work collaboratively with her to realise a highly crafted visual and audio performance piece for the upcoming year of 2012. Our creative team includes: Lauren Sagar and Sharon Campbell, glass installation artists with experience of creating site specific work on an architectural scale and project management; Caroline Collinge, a London based visual artist and designer, currently undertaking PhD research on the medium of the Baroque at University of the Arts, London; Haden Boardman, a sound engineer specialized in acoustic space and passionate about introducing classical music to a wider audience; Garth Williams, a film maker practiced in the use of interactive media/multimedia technology within live performance. As a rationale to work collaboratively on this project, our artists aim to spend three months researching and developing the design ideas and making sample models. Currently, we are looking for potential partners, venues and sponsors. In early 2012, we hope to produce the sculpture and costumes, as well as to plan the tour. We hope to make our debut performance in July 2012 and then tour nationally during 2012-2013.
Type of show: Large Scale | Estimated costs: Currently we are in the R&D stage and the estimate would be 4000 to 5000 pounds per a show, which includes artist fees, installation and promotion costs,etc
MAX CALAF SEVE - SOMEWHERE… NOWHERE!
Max Calaf Performer 106 Glyn Road, E5 0JE, London
E: [email protected] W: www.maxcalaf.com
Max Calaf Seve is a contemporary circus company based in London. Created in 2009 the company provides indoor and outdoor performances in the UK and across Europe. The specialization is trampoline acrobatics, object manipulation and physical theatre. The core member of the company is Max Calaf with seven years training in different circus schools. In collaboration with other artists the company produces innovative and characteristic work, using the trampoline as a performing tool for a new contemporary circus scene, a unique offering for the UK market. The company produces works to engage all types and ages of audiences.
Max Calaf, a circus artist, has a previous background in juggling, aerial work and skating. He is specialized in trampoline, object manipulation and eccentric acrobatics. He studied at the Rogelio Rivel circus school (Barcelona) and develop his skills further at the Circus Space (London) starting to include movement and theatrical skills in his work. He continued his studies with a post graduate in physical theatre at Royal Holloway University of London. Max is now interested in bringing the techniques from physical theatre, contemporary dance and object manipulation together in his trampoline performances.
Currently the company offers two different acts to be programmed at the same venue but at different times. The trampoline is a self-contained structure that creates a stage to which all the props are attached. The physical presence of the trampoline creates a centre of attention. It becomes an elevated stage. The aerial nature of a trampoline performance can reach a large number of audience.
Both acts are 15 minutes long, and each one can be performed twice in a day, with a break of 45 minutes in between. In order to rest and set up for the next act.
Somewhere...Nowhere! is a comedy/clown act, where object manipulation takes a big part of the piece.
Why do I have wing if I can't Fly? tells a story of a character going through different states of mind, mixing dance/physical theatre and trampoline acrobatics.
For outdoors performances the performer offers walkabout and playful audience interaction. This can be used as a build up to the performances and in between the acts. It is used also as an introduction to the character, that helps audiences to engage with the character and the pieces.
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: 1000 pounds
MEGREZ7
Lucy McGreal Artistic Director 38 St Nicholas Street, St Andrews, Fife KY16 8BQ
E: [email protected] W: www.facebook.com/groups/214124948633252/
Megrez7 are a professional theatre company based in Scotland, through physical theatre we capture the vivid journeys of the labyrinth that is life. We will invite, share, guide, explore and support through the mediums of acrobatics, clowning, manipulation and voice with our collaborators and our audiences. The notion of releasing ‘The Inner Voice’ is one the company is increasingly working with in the creation of character following on from a successful two day Lab at CONFLUX SURGE festival July 2011. Megrez7 are working again with the participants to develop the work into full performance.
Megrez7 develop their work through a process of sharing, guiding, exploring and supporting personal and group journeys. We encourage the development of individual skill and collaboration of forms. This piece has a particular focus on ensemble and physical theatre, and using acrobatics. We will also be using live music and song.
We will work with the group on their discovery of their inner voice, stripping down to the very beginning and re-connecting with a situation that they once locked away in a box and threw away the key. We will begin to see characters they've created slowly emerge and discover what’s in that box and how they will help one another to release the inner-voice. We plan to create this so it can be taken to small outdoor buildings and locations with significance, a place you would associate that of locking away secrets and that present the group and audience the challenge of opening that lock in a safe environment that we have created together.
To date Megrez7 has run several workshops, one of which was the Inner Voice Lab at the Conflux SURGE Festival in July 2011; this was a two day workshop on creating truthful character and partnered acrobatics and acrobalance.
Using the participants from this Lab in October 2011 we revisited the stories that were discovered in a week long rehearsal process in preparation for presenting the idea at the Conflux PITCH event that calls for proposals of works-in-progress with a physical/visual emphasis. We invited along a musician to help develop on and create an exciting, new piece of physical theatre. The final piece is suitable for small-mid scale venues, both indoors and outdoors. A tour would require 6 people, including one stage manager; a set and two vans.
Directors: Lucy McGreal and Lottie Maslin-Prothero Music: Mat Clements Designers: Adeline Bourret and Lucy McGreal Performers: Mazz Marsden, Caroline Mathison, Chris Alexander, Mharysia Bieda, Alena Polkova and Natalie Smith.
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: £1100- £1800 (Depending on travel)
PHIZZICAL - THE RAJPUT PRINCESS
Samir Bhamra Artistic Director PO Box 8871, Leicester LE5 9DY
E: [email protected] W: www.phizzical.com
Phizzical is a performing arts company whose mission is to entertain people by producing adventurous and thought provoking theatre-dance. The company’s fresh and live performances are influenced by bringing international art forms and cultures together to present the possibilities of our time. It is led by artistic director Sâmir Bhamra who has over 10 years experience producing, directing and touring with spectacular live performances. Bhamra trained at Rich Mix, the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company and supported the Creative Programmer of the East Midlands Cultural Olympiad programme with the development of outdoor projects in 2010.
The Rajput Princess is a re-imagining of the female characters in William Shakespeare’s plays. The production opens in the red hot arid landscape of Rajasthan during Shakespeare’s period progressing to the contemporary times in the UK mapping the strength of their personalities and how they have shaped the role of women today.
The Rajput Princess is a response to opportunities created by the major projects in the Cultural Olympiad. Leicester is hosting the Suits and Sarees exhibition in the Stories of the World strand. By collaborating with Bhanu Athaiya, the first Indian to win an Academy award, Phizzical will maximise different interests to reach and engage with disadvantaged and socially disengaged audiences.
This outdoor production opens in Leicester in a disused land located at the gateway to the Cultural Quarter. Phizzical has secured the rights from the landlords Blueprint to transform the space with a specially constructed temporary pop-up theatre. Blueprint will convert the space into a Mughal and British influenced garden and the mobile popup theatre will incorporate seating for up to 400 people. Phizzical would tour with the mobile popup theatre to outdoor festivals and spaces.
Creative team includes: • Academy award winner Bhanu Athaiya (for the Richard Attenborough film Gandhi) • Sonia Sabri (choreographer)
The research and development phase of this project was supported by the Creative Innovations fund from Igniting Ambition, the Cultural Olympiad programme in the East Midlands. Current stakeholders include Curve Theatre, Phoenix Square, Leicester City Council, Embrace Arts at the Richard Attenborough Centre and New Walk Museum.
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: £2000 - £3000 per performance.
POSITION DOUBTFUL - RIFT
Claire Crook Artistic Director 166 Nottingham st, Sheffield, S3 9HL
E: [email protected] W: www.madammango.co.uk
Position Doubtful is a new circus theatre company from Sheffield. We aim to create high quality, innovative circus theatre productions to tour the UK and abroad.
Rift is a narrative driven ensemble circus theatre show created in collaboration with The Babbling Vagabonds. The aim of the project is to explore and push the boundaries of circus theatre and the possibilites of using circus within a narrative. The show begins with a disaster that lands a number of people on a remote island, where they meet the inhabitants, who have lived in chosen isolation for some time. It is the tale of these survivors and the interesting situation they find themselves in.
The show has a cast of 6 performers from the Sheffield area, their skills are a mix of circus- aerial, acrobatics, manipulation and equilibristics, theatre, acting, physical theatre, mime, comedy, puppetry and music. It is directed by Phil Coggins and designed by Mark Hornsey both of The Babbling Vagabonds.
We did a week of research and development earlier this year and I am currently writing a funding application to develop the work further. The aim being to dedicate some time to developing the integration of circus into the narrative and skill building, then to realise the show for a run of performances in Sheffield in the autumn of 2012, in order to tour it nationally in 2013.
Type of show: Medium Scale
PROSPERO DANCE COMPANY - MANNEQUIN
Talin Büyükkürkciyan Choreographer Müeyyetzade Mah. Hoca Ali Sok. No.19/4 Galata İstanbul
E: [email protected] W: www.talinbuyukkurkciyan.blogspot.com
This piece explores the female body from her eyes and the eyes of others. This piece has taken it's first starting point from the solo creation workshop led by Cosmin Manulescu on three different choreographers in August 2011 at İstanbul and it's a continuing research process.
Mannequin- I’ve started working on this solo piece which is named Mannequin at the moment in August at a solo creation workshop guided by Cosmin Manulescu’s. The connection with the manikin and myself emerged not just by chance but by intuition. My research is about body perception and presentation. I wanted to question whether without having the intention of presenting our body can we still be percieved like we are presenting it? The work is about the body and also the difference in body in daily usage and on stage. I’m also working with surprises.
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: 1800 Euro
RACHEL DEAN - LOVE IN IDLENESS
Rachel Dean Dance Artist / Director 11 Vicars Road, Leeds, LS8 5AS
E: [email protected] W: http://racheljanedean.wordpress.com
Love in Idleness is a walkabout dance theatre piece that takes place in a garden. The audience are led around the garden by a cast of six performers, including live musicians. Loosely based around the story and themes of A Midsummer Night’s Dream; transformation, magic, mischief and love, it is ideal for adults and families. “By the end the audience had so much become a part of the piece that we happily joined in dancing. It totally worked.” Rachel Dean is a contemporary dance artist based in Leeds. She has a particular interest in site-specific work, improvisation and collaboration with other art forms. Her choreography has included Nativity, a solo contemporary Christmas show and Entwined, a dance theatre piece performed by a dressmaker and a dancer.
Love in Idleness premiered to a sold out audience on Midsummer Night 2008 in the gardens of Hatfield House. It is a walkabout dance theatre piece which takes place in a garden. An audience of up to 50 people are led around the garden by a cast of six performers, including live musicians.
Love in Idleness is directed by dance artist Rachel Dean and was made through a collaborative process with the artists and art forms involved – dance, theatre and music. The piece is performed by actor Jonathon Young, dance artists Daliah Toure and Rachel Dean and musicians Seth Bennett (double bass), Oliver Dover (Clarinet) and Iwona Magda (violin).
The piece sensitively responds to specific features of a garden, such as a kitchen garden, knot garden, sundial and a large tree. Therefore performance venues are sought with all, most or some of these features.
Three venues are currently confirmed for Summer 2012. Performances in June and July 2012 will be part of Big Dance and other performances will be tied in with existing arts festivals and events programmes wherever possible. Education workshops for young people, families and adults are available to take place at the performance venue or in local schools.
The piece was first made with a commission from Dance in Herts and support from Yorkshire Dance. An application to ACE Grants for the Arts is being made for further development and tour.
Type of show: Small Scale| Estimated costs: £750
RAGROOF THEATRE - BRIDGES
Tess Howell Company Manager 24 Kensington Street, Brighton, Sussex, BN1 4AJ
E: [email protected] W: www.ragrooftheatre.co.uk
Ragroof Theatre specialise in site-specific and outdoor performances that engage, inspire and collaborate with communities.We are a collective of individual artists with a dazzling array of skills in dance, physical theatre, visual art, written word and curation. “Bridges” is our new show, inspired by the Tango and migration. It is a promenade performance, site-specific to car parks. This production celebrates the inter- pollination of cultures. It explores how music and dance can overcome barriers of language, creating mutual respect, understanding and wonderful new art forms. We are collaborating with a Spanish/ French theatre company 'Vendaval' and the show can be performed in English, French or Spanish.
Bridges is a site-specific, promenade performance set in a covered car-park, warehouse or similar urban environment; the show was originally inspired by the emergence of tango within the immigrant population of the ‘conventillos’ (apartment blocks) of Buenos Aires, 'Bridges' uses a multiplicity of languages– spoken, sung, played, and danced – to explore the experience of migration. The audience are invited to step inside many different pairs of shoes as they witness a performance that evolves from, then disappears into, thin air.
Ragroof Theatre and Vendaval share many working practices, from in-depth interviews as intrinsic research to the use of physical theatre, dance, and music as core performance skills. The work process is rooted in the personal connection made between the people we meet; it is a journey of learning, laced with laughter, sadness and confrontation. Audiences are invited to actively engage with the work and be part of a visceral environment that captures sounds and voices from the worlds we explore. As theatre-makers we are fascinated by the way that stories and memories become brighter, more vivid in the retelling.
‘Bridges’ is offered as a site specific piece that can involve residency projects involving ongoing participation work with local community groups who can be integrated into the show through it’s soundtrack.
‘Bridges’ was recently presented as a work-in-progress at 'Scenes De Rue' Mulhouse, France and 'Stockton International Riverside Festival', Stockton-On-Tees, to great acclaim and had a capacity audience for all shows (recommended capacity of 80-130 per show). We are now taking bookings for 'Bridges' for 2012 and 2013.
‘Bridges’ will be performed in 2013 at Skegness SO Festival and we are currently negotiating with a number of other U.K. and International Festivals.
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: £10,000 for the fully site specific week long residency model culminating in 2 performance days of 3 shows per day.
RECKLESS INVENTION - STYLE WARS
Tom Bell Artistic Director 304 The Green, Eccleston Chorley, Lancs. PR7 5TP
E: [email protected] W: www.recklessinvention.co.uk
Started in 2005, Reckless Invention is a street theatre company that specialises in animating public spaces. In 2007, Reckless Invention worked with IOU productions and Artizani to produce a one man street show called Turbo Jonez. Since then the Arts Council funded Reckless Invention twice and the company now has 2 static street shows and 7 walkabout acts. In 2011 a new show toured the UK festivals. Turbo Jonez and the Temple of Boom was commissioned by Chorley Council and Lakes Alive in Jan 2011 for touring to start in April 2011. It performed 120 times in 2011. They have expressed interest in collaborating again on our current project called Style Wars.
Style Wars Reckless Invention want to produce a 50 minute mid scale outdoor show with 4 performers and an inflatable set and 4k pa. The set will be full size inflatable New York Subway trains collided together on a raised stage. The performers will be leading figures in UK’s breakdancing, flatland bmx, parkour and street theatre scene. It will feel like a silent movie set in New York in 1983 underground. Lots of classic clowning and cop chases punctuated by considered poetic movement pieces using street sport forms. It will tour in a Luton Van and take 2 hours to rig. It will need 13amp power.
The show will feature music from a documentary shown in 1983 called Style Wars. Directed by Tony Silver and Henry Chalfant, it was awarded the Grand Prize for Documentaries at the 1983 Sundance Film Festival. STYLE WARS is regarded as the indispensable document of New York Street culture of the early '80s.
Using the documentary as reference, the show will be a theatre piece, as opposed to an urban games event. This is the USP. The narrative centres on the story told by Style Wars. The characters in our street show will use parkour, breakdancing, bmx and clowning to tell the story of graffiti and urban culture being born. It mines the poetry and history of these forms aswell as the virtuosity.
James Macpherson from Artizani is Directing. Sam Foakes is the 2008 Flatland World Champion Flatland BMXer. Tim ‘Livewire’ Shieff (UK) was crowned as the 2009 Parkour champion. One member from the Heavy Smokers (Scotland) breakdance crew will perform. Tom Bell from Reckless Invention will perform. Designs in Air will build the inflatable. The stage is existing technology as is the pa.
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: £2500
RESTLESS NIGHTS - WHIPPING UP A STORM
Ruby Baker Creative Producer 7b Barratt’s Grove, London N16 8AP
E: [email protected] W: www.restlessnights.info
Restless Nights is a collective of performers and artists, dedicated in bringing theatrical encounters to both adults and children alike. We specialise in creating unique interactive and immersive experiences for festivals and unusual events. Working with the weird, wonderful, mad and magical we are passionate about bringing theatricality and eccentricity into the everyday, leaving a touch of sparkle wherever we go…
Whipping up a Storm is an interactive performance designed for young children and families, based inside and around a kitsch little ice cream van. Gino Ginelli, Rum and Raisin are travelling round the UK to discover and ‘document’ the flavours of each city they visit.
The show looks at the science of taste. Rum and Raisin whip the audience into shape with a series of sugar rushes, tongue twisters and bubble gum blowing competition, whilst Gino deciphers the flavour of a lucky participant, who climbs aboard the sweetness emporium to partake in a series of sugary experiments.
There is a team of four, which includes 3 performers (2 female, 1 male) and a Production Manager. The team have been working on the early developments of this show during the Summer 2011.
Estimated costs: £1200
ROVAMBIRA ARTS NETWORK ZIMBABWE
Marlon Macebo Coordinator 50 Somerset Drive Eastlea Harare Zimbabwe
E: [email protected] W: www.youngvoices.org.zw
Rovambira Arts Network Zimbabwe was formed in the year 1998 and operates under the Deed of Trust which was registered in the year 2003. The Network targets youths form the age of 10years to the age of 35years form different backgrounds. The aim of the network is to promote upcoming artists who work from rural areas, Pre-urban areas and the Urban areas to achieve there goals in the arts industry. I do work as the Coordinator of the Network and most of my duty is to Coordinator the programmes of the network. I do the work-plan and partly the budget of the network which will be outlining the activities that we will be doing through out the year and when we expect to end them. I organize festivals such as street festivals for unplugged instruments and poems for human rights in open space as an educating tool to the community. other duties that i do hold is to facilitate seminars and trainings on Artistic development towards grassroots artists and foster for change in there creative thinking.
The Street unplugged Poetic Creation
The idea is to bring artists who play unplugged instruments together in an open space street event with those who recite poems who. the street festival well have artists that playing there instruments or instrument and the poems will come and have to start reciting there poem without having rehearsed.
We will be measuring the creativeness of the artists and have different instruments which are also cultural instruments and modern instruments. mostly it will be to select a poem that mends bridges among different cultures and races.
As in Zimbabwe we had aimed that as Zimbabweans emerges from a decade long socio-political and economic crisis, stakeholders are trying hard to sanitise every sector of the society affected by the crisis. Ordinary households continue to struggle as access to safe drinking water, sanitation, energy and health amongst a myriad of others, remain a luxury for the country’s majority poor. However, the people of Zimbabwe continue to demonstrate that victim-hood is not in their DNA engaging resiliently with these ills.
SAUCE AND SPIT
Alice Allart Artist / Co-funder 59c Elgin Road, Seven Kings, Ilford, Essex, IG3 8LN
E: [email protected] W: www.bikesandrabbits.com
Sauce and Spit is a young contemporary circus company, created in 2011. The company is composed of 2 professionnal circus artists: Jon Udry (juggling, manipulation, music) and Alice Allart (trick cycling, slack rope, aerial bike). Jon Udry has been training to perfect his skills in juggling and manipulation for the last decade. He has been performing all around the world in prestigious venues in solo shows or with companies such as Gandini Juggling. Alice Allart graduated from the Circus Space with a degree in circus arts in 2010 and has since then collaborated with several circus companies around Europe.
The show we have been working on will illustrate the life of a circus couple and how our professionnal life as circus artists makes its way into our personnal lives. By mixing theatre and movement to our circus skills, we will show, in a poetic and funny way the issues that circus couples have to deal with. We will also use our skills in magic and musicality to help develop the show in an original style.
At the moment, we have 2 acts extracted from the show that we have performed in different venues around London and we are in a devising process to create two new acts. We have asked different external eyes to help us in the creation: Sean Gandini and Kati Yla-Hokkala, Paddy Waters and Luke Wilson. We want to explore the possibilities of our disciplines in a new and original ways (for instance, using the trick bike in the air as an aerial prop) and using everyday objects as circus material (tea cups/bags/spoons manipulation, etc). The use of objects known to the audience will create very surrealist images and we would like to play on the absurdity of the situations. This show will contain different atmospheres, some scenes being fresh and light and some others more quirky and dark. Everyone will be able to identify themselves to the characters in the show.
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: £1200 for a performance of the show (about 1 hour long) (£2000 for 2 performances, etc)
SCARABEUS AERIAL THEATRE - FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD
Daniela Essart Artistic Director The Studio, Hargrave Park School, 51 Bredgar Road, London N19 5BS
E: [email protected] W: www.scarabeus.co.uk
Scarabeus is a dynamic, well-established aerial theatre company, which has pioneered the creation of outdoor site responsive performance. We have an international reputation for creating beautiful, poetic and spectacular shows. A Scarabeus performance is an exhilarating experience because of its challenging, intensely visceral response to space, place and text.Through its 23 years history the company has played to audiences of all ages, nationalities and beliefs whilst performing in arts festivals, on buildings, unusual sites and natural environments. Previous performances have been commissioned by most major festivals in UK, local authorities and heritage organisations. Our work has spanned 4 continents.
Food Glorious food… (Working Title) -What would happen if an Italian mamma is let loose to share the kitchen and her love for food with a Vietnamese, a Caribbean and an English chef? Mayhem!
Scarabeus will explore the visual and theatrical potential of setting such an eclectic mixture of chefs together, partly on the floor and partly in the air, with the aim to produce an exquisite banquet, which is created during the performance and shared with the audience in a scrumptious grand finale. Ideally staged in parks and green areas. The piece is rigged directly from a cluster of trees, with a real stove at its centre, and presents itself as an installation where the various components bit by bit come to life with exhilarating, funny and poetic effects.
Authentic secret recipes, amazing concoctions, childhood memories are the lively ingredients mixed together in the bubbling cauldron of the performance. Percussion instruments created with cooking utensils are suspended from trees. The performers undertake daring aerial feats such as launching on tyroleans spanning from tree to tree, dangling above the audience heads on ropes and bungees, whilst cooking and accomplishing the dishes. The infectious soundtrack will add to the groovy atmosphere of the show, which will make the audience want to eat and dance to their heart’s content! (Alternatively the performance could be staged on a self-standing rig).
A collaboration between Scarabeus, celebrity chef Levi Roots (inventor of the Reggae Reggae sauce), beatboxer Jason Singh and a group of performers and musicians from different backgrounds, who all have in common their love for food, and perceive it as a catalyst for bringing together different cultures.
We are looking for commissioning partners to support the development and presentation of the production for 2012. We offer a feel good show which will be a crowd pleaser, created by an excellent team of artists!
Type of show: Medium Scale
Estimated costs: ( Estimate) £ 7000 + VAT x 4 shows: 2 shows @ day x 2 consecutive days.
SMALL ENCOUNTERS
Antonia Beck Co-director Flat 16, Augustus Court, 1 Augustus Road, Birmingham, B15 3LL
E: [email protected] W: www.smallencounters.moonfruit.com
Small Encounters is a Birmingham based arts collective, who met whilst taking part in an exploratory performance lab entitled ‘Playing in Public Spaces. The performance lab was hosted by mac (Midlands Arts Centre). As a collective, we have a shared desire to create immersive, innovative and intimate encounters, in a range of public and outdoor spaces. As individual artists, we have extensive experience in cross-art form events, with backgrounds in outdoor arts, theatre making, performance and live art, visual art, storytelling, site-specific work and arts and crafts.
Small Encounters is currently working on the development of a brand new travelling show - a 21st Century carnival of immersive artistic experiences focusing on the theme of intimacy and small encounters.
Six weathered red domes set the scene for this show, each one a different size and housing a different experience. A range of one to one and small group encounters will take place inside each of the domes, and audience members are invited to step into the diverse and evolving worlds of secular confession, fortune telling, memory boxes, wishing trees, story exchanges and dream catchers. These will be a mixture of both performer and audience led encounters, offering audiences the opportunity to determine and shape their own experience.
There will be a reception area positioned outside the domes where audience members can find out more about the choice of encounters taking place, sign up for a specific timed encounter, or be directed where to queue. Small Encounters is particularly interested in the significant relationship between performer and audience member, and has created this small encounters carnival to celebrate, explore and challenge that relationship in a variety of different ways. The carnival will showcase a range of art forms and artists from different cultures and contexts.
The creative team behind this event are the Small Encounters artistic directors who will perform and present their own work. We will also offer opportunities for other local and national artists creating work around the theme of intimacy and small encounters to perform and present their work as part of our carnival. We will premiere this carnival in May 2012 in partnership with mac. After the premiere, the carnival will then be available for touring to outdoor festivals, street theatre festivals and other outdoor events.
Type of show: Small Scale | Estimated costs: The cost for booking three tents for a one day event is: £1100 The cost for booking six tents for a one day event is: £2000 Prices are negotiable depending on the length of booking.
SOPHIE STUFF - SLEAZY JET, THE NO COST BUDGET
Sophie Postlethwaite Performer / Project Coordinator 4 Natland Rd, Kendal, Cumbria LA9 7LT
E: [email protected] W: www.sophiestuff.com
Sophie is a performer and maker of stuff. Mostly she has toured solo strolling acts to outdoor arts events. In 2012, however, Sophie Stuff will expand to a cast of three to launch ‘Sleazy Jet. The No Budget Airline’, a street theatre extravaganza. Sophie has been creating shows and performing since 2005, initially as co- founder of Jamboree (an arts and entertainment cooperative) then working with companies including Swank, Creature Feature, Faceless, The Invisible Circus & Pif Paf. Sophie Stuff is built on natural comedy, working with familiar contexts, inviting people to join in games they know how to play.
Sleazy Jet, The No Budget has a flamboyant and irreverent cast of three: a captain, an airhostess and a host.
It will be more than a parody of airhostesses and airline rituals, but will use this as a foundation- for these are archetypes and narratives that almost everyone can connect with.
This is a medium scale show, open to as large an audience as the space allows and aimed at a wide demographic. An airplane shaped ‘blue print’ will mark the stage area and twenty of the audience members will be invited to come aboard, with a wider audience gathering around the performance space perimeter. Those seated will take the role of passengers, creating a show within a show, where iconic personalities found aboard any flight will emerge.
The flight’s destination is Benidorm, the Karaoke Capital, providing a context for much song and dance on board. The content of the show will include singing, live music, physical comedy (dance choreography) and improvisation. Glitz, glamour and karaoke will be the order of the day as the passengers experience a flight like no other.
The show will be devised/rehearsed from January to March with Mikey Martins as Dramaturge, guiding the project. Lindsay Stockley (Invisible Circus, Oily Cart); whom I have successfully collaborated with in the past, will be director. I will coordinate the project and also perform alongside David Ford (specializing in manipulation/fire and comedy) and Alex Evans (experienced in theatre, comedy and music). I have performed briefly with both these gentlemen in the past: with Dave in an early incarnation of Sleazy Jet as a strolling act and with Alex as part of the MintFest Summer School 2011 where we found a great connection in playing music and improvising.
Fasten your seatbelts, we’re going places!
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: £800 - £1000
TAKE NEW TAKE
Eunju Yoo Director The Annex at Richmond House, Park road Stroud Gloucestershire, GL5 2JG
E: [email protected] W: http://underthebridge.tistory.com
TakeNewTake (previously, Under the Bridge) is one of the main art productions run by Eunju Yoo. It used to be based in Seoul, South Korea from 2009 to 2010 and lately, moved its base to England. It searches new ways to create new relationships between performers and audiences and experiments with spaces, genres and medium.
A theatre piece which combines a street performance and a black box stage. It sets up an imaginary utopian village called ‘obok’ which is full of clichés of an ideal place to live. It is built in an enclosed space, hidden but in fact, very near to the normal society. Audience members would gather at a public space i.e. a square, station, town centre etc. for a tour to the village. The size of the audience could be 25 to 45 per show and they are turned into tourists. A skillfully trained tour guide and a couple of overly friendly villagers would lead them to the village. On the way to the village, the audience would encounter a few unexpected characters who would reveal ‘behind the scenes’ stories and would scratches on the flawless package of the village.
The script is in the first draft and has been in rewriting to achieve a well-meshed plot and developed characters. The trial version of this piece was premiered in Seoul Marginal Theatre Festival in 2010. There were nine actors for ten characters, video installation and a lighting designer and a composer was involved. It was a small production with a limited budget, so the stage was minimally set up with four small chairs for the actors to sit down and lines marking the village territory, mini figures of animals and trees and powdery mountain in the middle.
In the next version of this piece, the number of the characters will be increased. Some dance sequence and various video installations will be knitted in.
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: 25,000 to 30,000
TALKING BIRDS - THE WHALE/ Q CORPORATION
Derek Nisbet Joint Artistic Director ICE, Parkside, Coventry CV1 2QR
E: [email protected] W: www.talkingbirds.co.uk
Talking Birds is a Coventry-based theatre company specialising in astonishing acts of transformation.
The Whale 2012 - two new shows have been added to Talking Birds' perennially popular aluminium giant (most recently wowing the crowds at Mintfest) - Jonah's Message will be joined in rep by Joan's Fishy Tales (an environmentally-themed story for the under 6s) and Johnny's 24 Hour Party Whale (especially for hardened festival goers). Created by the same team due to popular demand!
In addition the Q Corporation will be on hand to promote the great art of Queuing - and celebrate queues wherever they break out. The Q Corp can be booked to service all your event's Qing needs while nefariously lobbying for the activity to be included in the 2016 Olympiad, (an event the British would surely clean up in, Medal-wise). After a triumphant first outing at Open Weekend 2011, Qs of all scales and statures will be raised to Championship-grade in 2012. The Q Corp is on hand enhance festivals, sporting events and bus stops everywhere.
Book both shows to run in tandem at a discount!
Type of show: Small-Medium Scale | Estimated costs: 800 + travel (50ppm) + VAT / day. Discounts for smaller festivals and longer bookings especially if accomm/subsistence provided.
TEATRODECERCA- CTRL-I
Laura Barba, Co-founder, Actress, Director C/ Cruz 27, 4ºD. 28012 Madrid, Spain
E: [email protected] W: www.teatrodecerca.com
Created in Barcelona, TeatrodeCERCA owes its name (“Theatre of closeness) to its beginnings, when the company used to performe their plays in private houses. This simple format allowed viewers to enjoy, in their own livingroom, every dramatic detail and nuance of the characters with great accuracy and realism. Performances for non-theatrical stages: "The rottenness" Tarragona 2003. "Ash" Tarragona 2004. "Look at me" Barcelona 2011. Shopwindow - "Ctrl - ME", International Festival Guest. Catalonia. 2011 - “For Sale” on pre-production.
Ctrl-I is an unconventional theatrical intervention. An interactive performance-installation based on emotional manipulation. We see two people in a store window that express emotions that have been choosen for them by audiences through a computer. It is a participatory piece in which the viewer becomes a player and controller. Using a device of emotional control placed in front of the window, the audience can select the emotion that they want to the two mannequins to feel. The device is connected to the to exposed people with electrodes. At the end of the piece the two characters subject to the emotional game, wake up and get rid of the wires and the manipulation by the "other", the audience, and leave the crystal prison. It is a piece that interacts with people through an apparently inocent game that questions our humanity.
LIVE "ANALOGUE VISUALJOCKEY" The piece is complemented by a VJ. Images are broadcasted live on a television located within the window. The picture is mixed analogicaly and appears distorted, the image is also manipulated.
THE INTERACTION WITH THE AUDIENCE The progress of the action is caused by the inputs received by the outside world, from the other side of the window, through the device of emotional control. When someone clicks one of the icons on the screen is instantaneously received by the manipulated characters and they express that emotion. We give the audience the power to influence the action with total freedom.
The EMOTIONAL CONTROL DEVICE We have designed a computer program with an interface with the digital image of the two mannequins with icons for each emotion.
Type of show: Small Scale | Estimated costs: The cost of the show is 1300€ (+VAT) for two performances of thirty minutes each, in the same day.
THE DELEGATES
Sarah McCluskey Member of The Delegates 39 Old Fosse Rd, Bath BA2 2SP
The Delegates is a five act narrative performance, each act lasting 20 mins, leaving from and returning to one location. The five Delegates are from the International Institute of Insectology and have to raise awareness of a dangerous insect mutation without causing any public alarm. They may at first glance look like imposing officials but each has a particular quirk, which soon becomes evident to all who meet them. The acts include official openings of random street furniture, insect mutation awareness raising, use of props, and a truly terrifying climax, all accompanied by insect buzzing.
The Delegates are five performers who attended the Mintfest International Summer School for Street Arts MISSA in Aug 2011 and co devised the piece under the direction of Brian Popay of Fine Artistes. We have performed at Mintfest in Kendal Sept 2011, and as part of Derby Feste Sept 2011. The group consists of five very distinct individuals, an actor, visual artist, mask maker, festival producer and burlesque compere. They are different sexes, ages and body types, factors that are used to great effect. We walk in a particular formation, at a particular speed and have fixed standing positions when engaging with the audience. This gives a feeling of order and sense, totally let down when we begin to explain the gravity of the insect mutations heading the way of the unsuspecting townsfolk. Two of the five acts involve direct engagement, encouraging the all-important suspension of belief as the audience listens to the ludicrous information the insect experts are giving them. Visually the Delegates dress in a palette of grey tones, and look like very plausible professionals. Knowledge of the local area is very important to the piece. We like to use a set route planned in advance, making the most of where we are. We would love to further develop and strengthen the piece. It works very well in an urban location but we would like to look at taking the piece to outdoor festivals too. This development could include filming the piece and projecting it onto large outdoor screens in advance of the performance. We feel also that the Delegates could eventually be experts in a number of different fields, art experts, festival health inspectors, or even an Olympic Delegation!
Estimated costs: £1150 per day per performance (1 set of 5 acts x 20/30 minutes) + travel
THE SONIC MANIPULATOR - THE SONIC MANIPULATOR 2.0
Claude Woodward 41 Bursland, Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire UK SG6 4UZ
E: [email protected] W: www.sonicmanipulator.com
I call myself The Sonic Manipulator and have developed a unique ‘Street Act’ which involves me standing on a box in a spacesuit and helmet, surrounded by a menagerie of my own electronic musical inventions. I do a ‘one man alien band’ space rap performance, which seems to go down very well with everyone, especially kids. The rig has its own amplification and runs off batteries so I can perform in unpowered locations. It looks especially cool after dark with high tech fibre-optic and other lighting effects.
Festivals: Latitude, Reading Secret Garden Party, Green Man, Cambridge Rock Festival, Summer Sundae
The Sonic Manipulator 2.0 I have been evolving my spaceman act since 1999 originally for busking but since coming to the UK in 2009 I have done a lot of festivals & clubs etc. My show is essentially live, using a loop station & drum machine and all my musical inventions - http://www.sonicmanipulator.com/Inventions.htm
I now purpose The Sonic Manipulator 2.0.!!!! This will involve replacing the drum machine with a laptop and redesigning the rig to include 8 (3 ft) light up ‘gear sticks’ for loop manipulation – 16 possible loops per song. A modified USB keyboard and the ‘Claude Controller’ – a new invention of mine consisting of 26 (light up) wheels for complex timbre articulation – allowing the synth to cry & scream! I plan to build this on a fold up, fold down structure that can be transported via an all terrain electric wheelchair I have in my shed. I will also upgrade the audio path for a punchier stereo sound and should still be able to run on batteries as well as mains power. This is currently a 1 Martian show but if budgets allow, I’d like to add 2 ‘aleinettes’ to dance, do backing vocals & drum on light up Perspex drum pads.
Type of show: Small Scale | Estimated costs: £200 - £300 (One off performance within an hour)
THEREMIN HERO
Greig Stewart Co-producer, Technical Lead, Music Performance, Music Production Flat 2/1, 3 Crown Circus, Glasgow G12 9HB
E: [email protected] W: www.thereminhero.com | www.stakattoblue.wordpress.com
Stakatto Blue and Theremin Hero team up for a new project combining Hulahooping, Music, Live Visuals and Software. Theremin Hero is a stage performer and software developer who utilises technology in remarkable, innovative ways; creating engaging, visually impressive musical performances that rely on the performer’s own skill to drive the technology. Gaining over 1,000,000 hits on Youtube, he is well-known for combining Guitar Hero with a theremin. He regularly performs all over the UK with laser harp and theremin, and composes original music. Stakatto Blue is a cabaret hula hoop performer and is part of Travelling Light Circus and the UK Fireworks Collective. Kat has project managed numerous events and makes original contemporary circus work.
We intend to create a piece of circus, music and light spectacle using new software that we are currently developing. This allows the manipulation of a hulahoop to affect the music performance in real time, letting the audience experience the immersive concept of gestural performative music-making. This idea has not to our knowledge been realised yet due to the difficulty of adapting a hulahoop - it requires cross disciplinary knowledge and a firm commitment to achieve it in a way which will be captivating for an audience. Through Stakatto’s practical understanding of performance and Greig’s in-depth knowledge of music creation through unusual technology, we anticipate producing a new and fascinating piece of performance.
We are confident that once this has been created we will have not have just a one-off performance piece but a sustainable medium for immersive circus/music performance. For our first appearances in 2012 we will be aiming to create a 10-15 minute piece showing the hulahoop as an instrument, using well-known songs so that the audience can easily perceive the technology in action, and keeping it comic in tone. However once we have explored this area more fully we would look to make a longer show, incorporating some of our established skills such as circus manipulation, theremin and laser harp.
Type of show: Small Scale | Estimated costs: £800
TUMBLE CIRCUS - CARNY NOIR
Tina Segner & Ken Fanning Artists / Directors 87 Killowen Street, Belfast BT6 8NG
E: [email protected] W: www.tumblecircus.com
Tumble Circus is a unique experience of innovative and contemporary Irish circus, specializing in high skill circus – theatre – comedy (both indoors and outdoors). Our shows are an absurd jaunt into the soul of man, alive with the endless possibility of the human body, the joy of performing and the humanity of success and failure. We have toured extensively throughout Ireland, Europe and Australia with our outdoor show UpAbove (40min aerial – circus – comedy show). In 2011 we were nominated for Best Circus Show at Adelaide Fringe Festival with ‘This is what we do for a living’ (55min circus – theatre – comedy show)
Carny Noir (Working Title)- Modern life is rubbish. We need advise, guidance and heroes. Bono, the rock god and saviour of Africa and Bjork, the Queen of Iceland and new age white witch of pop are under qualified but overly eager to share their absurd views on how to cure the planet. We want to explore the darker themes that we see in our home, Belfast. We believe that exposing them is better than burying them. We want to create street theatre that challenges what people believe is expectable in our society. Through circus (doubles trapeze, rope/tissue, partner acrobatics, hulahoop, slapstick, movement), absurd clown and street theatre, we hope to disturb, take over, inspire change and mostly remind people that they are not alone.
The last 3 years have seen us take a new challenging direction; we have been inspired by European companies, especially French street companies. In April 2011 we had two weeks of research and development in Melbourne with Derek Ives, at Circus Oz space. In May 2011 we spent 2 weeks in Le Fourneau (Centre National des Arts de la Rue en Bretagne), France, working with Derek Ives, at the end of the 2 weeks we had a showing of the work to the public. The work marked a new departure for us as it was informed and inspired by our involvement with the ZEPA network. Our company has had a political awaking to the function of street theatre, and from this awaking we have taken inspiration from the works of the situationists and absurdist. However we strive to keep our work accessible and fun. The work will be performed around a 7.5m trapeze rig.
Type of show: Medium Scale | Estimated costs: €1600/day plus travel and accommodation
WAYNE SABLES PROJECT – YOU KNOW ME
Oliver Eastwood Admin and Markeing Officer The Civic, Hanson Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2HZ
E: [email protected] W: www.waynesablesproject.co.uk
Wayne Sables Project (WSP) is an international dance theatre and film company with its roots firmly grounded in community and art within the Yorkshire region. WSP creates both artistic film and dance theatre projects across Yorkshire, establishing and creating a platform for dance theatre and film to thrive in South Yorkshire. Current projects include a new production of ‘You Know Me’ being performed at The Civic, Barnsley and Doncaster Civic. The production explores the hidden memories of a woman trapped in a room as she tries in vain to break free from the room and its memories.
'You Know Me' is being performed twice in November 2011 at The Civic, Barnsley and Doncaster Civic, funded through G4A by Arts Council England Yorkshire, and co-commissioned by Doncaster Hot House and The Civic, Barnsley. 'You Know Me' is the story of a single female is trapped in a room deep within her past. As she explores her hidden memories, she realises she is unable to escape the familiar prison presented as her parents’ living room. In a self-perpetuated cycle, the woman tries to unearth the reason for her inability to move on in her life. The more she tries the deeper she goes.....
‘You Know Me’ is a dance theatre piece, encompassing both contemporary and physical theatre into the production. Within ‘You Know Me’, WSP presents a secret piece ‘Is it Me’ a 15 minute duet, which is technically exquisite, exploring the technique of contemporary dance. WSP currently is in the process, of completing the piece which will be premiered on the 3rd November 2011. ‘You Know’ is a small scale piece consisting of 3 performers, directed and choreographed by Wayne Sables in collaboration with the dancers Jennifer Essex, Laura Flanagan and Becca Williams.
Type of show: Small Scale | Estimated costs: Approx £1000
WHITE RABBIT - ARE YOU SITTING COMFORTABLY?
Gareth Brierley Artistic Director 36a Evelyn Street, London, SE8 5DG
E: [email protected] W: www.thewhiterabbit.org.uk
White Rabbit is Bernadette Russell and Gareth Brierley. We have always loved to tell tales – using stage, page, installation, events, films or sound recordings, and our commitment to producing high quality, soul absorbing, gut wrenching, eye popping, side splitting stories will never diminish. Our current work includes Are You Sitting Comfortably a story telling night for grown ups. The Lost Property Office a performance installation for festivals. Also we have Acts of Random Kindness which is new project where Bernadette has for one year, every day, vowed to commit a act of kindness to a stranger. This is going very well with some wonderful results. A show about the project will be produced in 2012.
Are you sitting comfortably - We would love to develop our show Are You Sitting Comfortably for the UK street arts scene. We have been doing the show for three years in venues to great success. Most recently we have done two shows outside at the thames festival and the National Theatre in watch this space.
From the beginning our aim was to champion new writing and original storytelling. We ask local writers to submit stories that our professional performers read. We now are averaging over 80 submissions a month for each event and every writer we accept has to be able to attend the event to hear their story being read. The format is simple, each evening has a theme, (for example: Magic) and the audience sits at cabaret style tables and is invited to listen to 7-9 original short stories based loosely on that theme. It’s important to watch the readers, but it is as important to sit down, have a drink, eat a cake and be able to close your eyes and immerse yourself in the evening.
We create a magical atmosphere, part fifties tearoom, part deranged children’s party, and we have a theme-appropriate play list, and a beautiful slide show, and a set relating to the theme of the month. We serve a variety of free treats: for example cup cakes, chocolate biscuits and cucumber sandwiches, we play games and competitions, and we serve cocktails in teapots. After the success in London and Brighton we are now aiming to take Are You Sitting Comfortably to more events across the UK. We want to be able to provide a opportunity for new writers in your area to have a forum for their work to be heard.
“the novelty of being read to, in the middle of the night with a midnight feast of children’s party food, is irresistible…an enchanted night.” Total Theatre
Type of show: Small/Medium Scale
WITCHFINDER PRODUCTIONS - RATCATCHER
Ali Maloney Director 73/2 Nicolson Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9BZ, Scotland
E: [email protected] W: harlequinade.weebly.com
WITCHFINDER Productions is a collaboration between performance poet Harlequinade (“a virtuoso display, a jolt of electricity to the head” - The Skinny) and established artists - a lighting designer, composer and visual artists - to create work that bridges surrealism with mythology; celebrity culture with carnival freak shows; the weird and mundane; the gorgeous and grotesque. RATCATCHER is a multi-media “black panto” that blends bouffon satirical play with visual/physical theatre. Hilarious and disturbing, RATCATCHER takes place in a decrepit cavern underneath an aristocratic ball where diseased underlings, the true “ugly sisters”, contemplate what it takes to be famous.
Ratcatcher is a 40 minute show that uses physical theatre, poetry, grotesquery, live electronic music, real time projections and a cartoonish lighting design to create a total immersion world that is playful and profound, utilising the deeply entrenched aesthetics of fairy tales to wield a savage commentary on poverty and disposable celebrity culture. It is a small scale production ideally suited to a black box theatre space. Although the creative team numbers five, the multidisciplinary technical team may be condensed if required.
Originally shown as a 30 minute piece at Arches Live 2011, we are collectively refining and extending RATCATCHER on the back of feedback and our own experience of performing the piece.
RATCATCHER potentially occupies a potent place in the Scottish theatrical scene, combining, as it does, lyricism with physicality and humour with playful disgust. Flipping effortlessly between dance, grand guignol, TV infomercials, downtrodden philosophies, delicate and tender lullabies and savage bite; RATCATCHER is a “genuine punk rock pantomime; ugly, politically astute and satirical” - The Vile Arts. It is the intention of WITCHFINDER Productions to tour and showcase RATCATCHER with an eye to establishing their reputation for creating ambitious and exciting work that is visual, striking and original.
Type of show: Small Scale | Estimated costs: £460 for a one off performance; £200 for each subsequent performance. Plus travel, accommodation and meals. Please note that production costs may include that of projector hire by the company.