Edinburgh Highlights no. 1

Dance Marathon by Bluemouth Inc was a Unifying, Competitive, Community Trance! This powerful participatory event was a definite highlight of my Edinburgh Fringe experience. The night was young and I queud up with the young, the old, the dancers and the non-dancers, not knowing what to expect. We were each given a numbered bib and registration form. I feel like I am entering a dance competition. Wait, I am. We gather together and walk from the conventional theatre to the streets, a herd of numbered movers. Into a darker building with nightclub lights and big painted footprints on the floor. I can hear a few people breath ‘oh no’ and laugh as they realise our bib numbers match the footsteps and we will be separated from our loved ones! And further more giggles/ concerns when the footprints are closely facing another pair. Inevitable partnering. Actually I quite like that, especially if you’ve come alone and you want to dance – what an easy way to meet people. Perhaps more clubs should try it.


After hearing instructions about what we must do and what we musn’t do (don’t stop moving!) the music starts. We are big participatory crowd in a trance-like condition, buzzing, moving in unpredictable and competitive capacities. We are a community of people, dancers, some of us came prepared with jazz shoes and the like, most just wore flats and some had to change. Finding our footsteps, partnered up with strangers and circling a task master (she was scary) like in a circus ring. It was pretty exhausting and I didn’t have much time to talk to my partner, apart from establishing his name was Chris. In the breaks there was a rush to get to the loos, have a drink, and spray some deodorant. I really liked being offered deodorant by a man with roller skates next to a table of assorted essentials such as hair clips. It felt like a beauty pageant or ballet exam but far more eccentric and fun. Actually it was necessary as I was beginning to sweat and we were still in the first hour.


As the night progressed, more people got eliminated and the concept of this meant that you were literally ‘on your toes’ as the competition heated up. I noticed that everyone was trying really hard to stay in the competition, no-one left or sat at the side – everyone was in it to win it and the floor reverberated with regular feet tapping at all points (never stop moving! Or you’re Out!). It was intriguing how much the crowd followed each other, so eager to be ‘in’ the crowd and therefore avoiding being eliminated. Dance moves seemed to sweep across the room contagiously without knowing who had started them but desperately copying and keeping up! I made it to the last half hour which sounds good but actually most people were still in it at this point. Then came the threat of a mass elimination and you should have seen the ferocity at which we grabbed our partners and moved. We had to circle and avoid getting trapped behind a ‘finishing line’ which would randomly appear by the man in roller skates. Gotcha. Chris and I and 30 plus other couples were out. Out of breath and disappointed, we admitted defeat and sided off – leaving 10 final couples to battle it out in the middle of the floor. At this point a ‘hula’ dance was learnt, more couples eliminated leading to a finale blindfolded go-cart race, making that final couple really earn their position. They did it! Two women, one in her twenties, one about mid-fifties up their on the podium, all smiles. Hooray!

The crowd left pretty quickly afterwards, too tired to hang about chatting and certainly to go on to anywhere else! Having had what felt like a real sharing experience, it was surreal to be walking back alone to my hostel in the dark, having had an experience that felt wildly like a night out – I was tempted to take my shoes off and carry them in my arms – letting my feet ease out on the wet cobbled pavement but I resisted this. I found myself re-affirming what had just happened, I have been dancing for 3 and half hours with a stranger, in a room full of other strangers/ dancers. I have.

Photos taken by me at Dance Marathon in Edinburgh 2011, Dance Marathon leaflet/ publicity material by Bluemouth Inc.

Mentoring with Curious

I asked ‘Curious’ artists Leslie Hill and Helen Paris if they would be able to mentor me as part of this project.

I met Helen and Leslie last year when I participated in an Artists Retreat organised by Colchester Arts Centre. Curious were running the retreat as a chance for eastern region artists to network, discuss, support, collaborate, seek new opportunities and enjoy being in a luxurious hotel!

I found the weekend to be extremely valuable to my practice and was keen to work with Helen and Leslie again. For this project, I was seeking mentoring from a practicing artist that I could have an ongoing dialogue with and who could give my work an outside eye. It was important that at least one of the mentors had some notion of my work beforehand, and the other (Wendy Houstoun) was new to it.

With their experience of mentoring as well as practicing artists producing performance, installation and film, I felt that Curious could offer an informed contribution to this project and looked forward to arranging some mentoring sessions and dialoguing with them over the course of the year. I’m glad that they said ‘Yes’!

Recently I have been working a lot on collaborative work which has been really exciting but I do sometimes allow my solo practice to get bit slapdash and squeezed between other things. The outside eye in particular is something that I feel my solo work lacks. Most of my performances are fairly short and I grapple with the idea of extending them or choosing one to further develop. They are also often site-specific, created for a specific location and in some cases, a specific event. I was keen to talk to Helen and Leslie (who have worked site-specifically) about how to develop a performance beyond its initial purpose. Which piece could I broaden and move to a new site, which piece could work in a theatre venue?

Prior to meeting up, I emailed Helen and Leslie to explain that I was going to show them a ‘Marathon of Mini Performances’ (short ones and snippets from longer ones) in the hope that by showing a number of mini quickfire pieces, they and I will have a clearer idea of what my work is and where it might go?!

We met in Ipswich again, at the same hotel where the retreat had been held the following year. I presented Helen and Leslie with an artist’s statement and a small blurb about each of the pieces they were about to see:

‘Private Joke’
joking and despairing about falling (over, up, down, out, to, behind, again)

PROPS: one pile of clothes including a hat, one bunch of bananas, five separate bananas, one banana skin, a pair of glasses

'Twice Cooked'
Giving and receiving nourishment on the line between caring and over-sugaring. A broad knowledge of biscuit brands, mouth to mouth resuscitation, the quintessentially english tradition of talking to a plant and the more unusual practice of digesting a shoe.

PROPS: a small plant, shoe, dinner plate, napkin, salt and pepper, teapot with tea, apron, sharp knife, meat prod

‘The Eleven Home Stretch’
A spoken out loud list of all my previous addresses. I am recreating memory lane using kitchen tiles and short ambiguous anecdotes.

PROPS: 11 kitchen tiles, bucket of water

‘Conskirtina’
Virtuosic legwork and precise muscle control create a unique serenade for the cafe diner or anyone who wants to tune in. Holly Bodmer is a performance artist that can turn Beethoven on…with her thigh.

PROPS: Big Black Skirt, Children's Casio Keyboard, cd player and cd recording of a failed music exam, Book of Beethoven's Sonatas

In the corner of the room on a table I laid out all the props for each of the performances. Together they looked like a peculiar assortment. To me they are all familiar, well used objects that trigger memories (ones I have worked with before). But it was unusual to have them all next to each other at the same time. Every piece of work I’d done was merged together on the table, yet able to fit quite neatly side by side. Suddenly it didn’t feel like I had done very much at all, and I wondered if the word ‘marathon’ was a tad hopeful.

I was wrong, it felt like a marathon. I performed for three and half hours, briefly stopping between pieces to have a conversation with Helen and Leslie, or asking them to leave the room for 5 minutes while I hid a keyboard under my skirt. Performing in a succession of mini performances and as a race against time only emphasized the slapdash nature, but it was a fun way bringing a lot of ideas to light and sifting the strong bits from the weaker bits. It provided a useful starting point, crafted an energetic level of productivity which continued through our dialogue and enabled me to ‘get a lot of my chest’ so to speak.

I felt able to talk to Helen and Leslie in detail about each of the pieces and it was useful to hear their initial responses at the moment of seeing the work and then at the end in a half hour discussion about my overall practice, where each piece had more of a context to it. As a company made up of two people I was actually being provided with two opinions and two or specifically four outside eyes! Which I appreciate!

Curious gave me a lot of practical tips and professional developmental advice on my overall practice and 'outside eye' feedback on specific performances. I came away with a pageful of notes about what moments worked, what bits to extend, a lot about placing, specific images that were conjured up or memories revealed, bits to wire up, bits to go for it, bits to abandon, silences, overcrowding, eye contact, spit, repetition, music teachers, Englishness, madness, female stand-ups, speaking with an accent, cabaret, and doing a bigger show.

Throat Tickles in Brighton 2

I saw three performances at Brighton's The Basement. These were a double bill It's about Time featuring Drew Taylor's 'Time after Time' and Los Torreznos' '35 minutes'. And later in the evening Matteo Fargion and Jonathan Burrows Cow Piece and Performance Lecture. 1 double bill, 2 double acts, 5 performers and many cows, all hanging out down some stairs.

I'm counting because I loved Los Torreznos' 35 minutes in which Jaime Vallaure and Rafael Lamata counted the 2500 seconds that make up 35 minutes, in 35 minutes. I was captivated by their faces, body, voice, clothing from the moment they amicably walked down the stairs towards us. They had a rhythm in everything they did that was neither over nor underplayed, but it sucked you in and for me anyway, it heightened my awareness of what they were doing.

Presence I think is too vague a word to use but they had something that is difficult to describe, and even more difficult to copy. Never have I been so interested in numbers: you've either got it or you havn't.

Some of the numbers resonated deep from the gut, other simmered on the teeth, the 1033 came out with a dart of spittle. They must have used every muscle and every vocal chord in order to deliver these number lines. By the end they were heavily sweating.

Of course, after ten minutes in of solid counting the audience can comprehend what is going on, we basically know the whole premise for the show. However they still gripped me, really to quite an extent. I was holding my breath at some points, on the edge of my seat at others and there were beautifully unpredictable modes of performing. Quiet periods of comfortable 170s contrasted with the sheer suspense of the early 400s and almost commedia dell'arte like comedowns every decade or so. These shifts continually altered the tone of the performance without affecting the pace - which stuck to consistent seconds one after the other for 35 minutes.

Numbers already follow a set structure which is immensely satisfying. Los Torreznos capture this perfectly (they punctuate the tens) but they also free it. The familiar patterns we recognise are reshaped by delivering them a variety of ways and with the gusto of someone delivering shakespeare lines, a passion for the game and total conviction in what they are doing. So full of expression, their faces looked mouldable like plasticine and yet, they resisted playing characters. It was simple, natural, raw, energetic, exhausting and enduring. A double act that I will certainly look out for again.

Throat Tickles in Brighton 1

Earlier in the year, I went to Brighton to experience a little bit of its annual festival! I was keen to visit The Basement which described as ‘the region’s leading purveyor of innovative and experimental performance’ (The basement) was pretty high on my grabbing horns project’s hit-list of go/see places.

But first stop was an art gallery near the sea front called Fabrica, where Janet Cardiff’s 40-part motet was being exhibited. Fabrica was once a Church however it is described as being ‘unconverted’ and has preserved it’s architectural features. The open exhibition space is visually spectacular as the church was a regency kind (built during the same period as the Brighton Pavilion). It now runs as an art gallery for artists to make new work.

The 40-part motet could be heard faintly as you approach the building. Entering the space, it occupies the church setting very naturally. The ensemble singing voices melodically resonate familiar choir music. It is striking that the singers sound very much like they are in the room, when they are clearly not. My eyes were tricking my ears.

What you see are 40 speakers and what you hear are 40 human voices. They stand in groups of five forming a circle and facing in, engulfing the audience whom come and go but mostly seem to hover in the middle. Like any choir, there are moments of fewer voices: just the females, the males and then a lonely solo. My head turned as I tried to track the speaker who was speaking. They stand at their full height, roughly the same as an adult person and take on a human quality. Symmetrically laid out, all in black, they have showmanship. I felt moved to clap and it’s not because there’s an inevitable spiritual element (due to the site) – rather that it feels live.



At the end when the singing stopped, some audience members got up and I was going to do the same so I could listen to it again from a different part of the building, when suddenly I was sure I heard a Speaker cough. Walking closer to the speaker, I heard it again, a definite tickle in the back of the throat.

It was then that I noticed the background noise was proportionately louder than the number of audience members in the room. There was an additional ambience, quite a number of whispers, coughs, laughter and even pages turning.

I went up to another speaker and heard a male voice saying ‘superb organist’, another one ‘unless there’s a calamity’, a female ‘only half a copy’ another ‘you don’t want your alarm to go off’ and another ‘scariest log-ride in the world’.

It was wonderful to be privy to the kind of chitchat that usually happens out of audience earshot. Then they all took a breath, the singing started again and I found it to be quite breathtaking.