Saturday 25 April 2009

Sun Dogs Rehearsal



Forced Entertainment


Forced Entertainment: Void Story
Spill Festival of Performance
Text, Images & Direction Tim Etchells, Performers, Robin Arthur, Richard Lowdon, Cathy Naden, and Terry O’Connor, Design Richard Lowdon, Sound & Music John Avery, Lighting Nigel Edwards, Production Ray Rennie and Elb Hall
A belingering pair of protagonists take a rollercoaster ride through the decimated remains of contempory culture in this bleak and comical modern fable. Void Story is performed on stage as a radio play with the actors doing the voices and making sound affects. Behind them a series of projected images show the storyboard of an impossible movie version of ‘Tim Etchells’ unsettling text.
Quite liked this, reminded me of when I was younger at home telling stories to my younger siblings. Doing all the sound effects. It’s like sitting behind the scenes of a radio show only there is also a screen with a collage of imagery.

Hazer & Projections for Sun Dogs




This was testing out the projections on the smoke from the hazer to see if it would work. It does to an extent you have to get in the right position but when you walk around them it looks a bit like the northern lights and sometimes just beams of lights. Sorry about the video being side ways, but the extent of my knowledge doesn't doesn't stretch to flipping it up the right way yet.

Sunday 19 April 2009

Legend of Raven Stealing The Sun


Our performance of Sun Dogs is loosely based on the Native American legend of The Raven Stealing The Sun.

Raven (Native American mythology), culture hero and trickster, prominent in the Native American and Inuit mythology of Alaska and the American and Canadian northwest coast. Raven was born by magical means, the offspring of a woman who swallowed a feather, or in other accounts, a stone.

The Raven is the transformer, trickster and creator. Known in legends as the one who released the sun, moon, and stars; discovered man in a clamshell; brought the salmon and the water; and taught man how to fish and hunt.

Raven in Native culture is known as the sky messenger of the animal kingdom. The Raven is famous for being a somewhat mischievous glutton. He was always out to please himself and have a good time, but his adventures always ended up bettering mankind.

The story of "Raven Stealing the Sun" is legendary. An old man lived in a house on the bank of a river with his only child - a daughter. At this time, it was pitch black everywhere and no one could see anything. So whether she was beautiful or not, there wasn't a way anyone could tell. Thus begins the tale of the Raven and the Sun. It's said that the old man kept the Sun locked in a box inside a box, which had yet another box containing an infinite number of boxes until finally there was one so small that all it could contain was all the light in the universe.

The Raven was not satisfied with the state of darkness since it led to his blundering and bumping into everything. This slowed him down in his pursuit of the good things in life, which was what he loved more than getting into mischief. One day he crashed into the old man's house and he heard the man and his daughter talking about the light. He decided he wanted the light for himself so he waited for the daughter to leave the house. He transformed himself into a pine needle to slip into a bucket of water the daughter had brought from the river. When the daughter drank the water and swallowed the pine needle, the Raven transformed himself into a tiny human being inside her. When he emerged, he was a very odd looking child, but it was too dark to notice his long nose and the few feathers still clinging to him.

As the Raven/Child gained the affection of the old man, he devised a plan to get the Sun. He asked for the largest box in the house and upon being refused, he cried and screamed so loudly that the Grandfather gave him the box. After all it was only one and there were so many more. It took many days, but after a few well-executed tantrums the Raven/Child removed all the boxes. When only a few were left, a strange radiance began to suffuse the room. The Raven/Child begged to hold the light for only a few moments, and even though the Grandfather had come to love the Raven/Child with only a glimpse of him, he gave him the light. As the light was passed to him, the Raven/Child transformed into a huge Raven. He snapped up the light and flew up the smoke hole of the house into the darkness of the world.

The Raven now rejoiced with his new possession and was having such a good time that he did not see the Eagle come upon him. In a panic, he swerved and dropped almost half the light he was carrying. It fell to the rocky ground and broke into pieces. They bounced back into the sky and remain there to this day as the Moon and the Stars.

Meanwhile, the Raven was pursued to the edge of the world and, exhausted, he finally let go of his last piece of light. It fell to the East and that is how the Raven gave us the Sun

Feliks Topolski 'Topolski Century'




Topolski Century, 150-152 Hungerford Arches, Concert Hall Approach, London SE1 8XU
Topolski Century is Feliks Topolski’s eyewitness record of the twentieth century. It contains the iconic historic figures and the significant political and social events he chronicled in a life spanning nine decades.
WOW, I loved this exhibition, the loosely, energetic way that he paints and the use of the height and ceiling to display the paintings. I especially liked the ‘Newgate Prison Door’ that he obtained after the Prison was demolished and someone had salvaged it in the early part of the 20th century. He’s incorporated into one of the pieces, steeped in so much history. You could just imagine all the loved ones coming to see their imprisoned spouses, waiting outside and the corruption of the guards within, looking out. The 2nd picture reminds me of Egon Schiele.

Mark Wallinger Curates:The Russian Linesman Frontiers, Borders and Thresholds


The Hayward, Southbank centre:Mark Wallinger Curates:The Russian Linesman Frontiers, Borders and Thresholds
2007 Turner prize-winner Mark Wallinger, one of Britain's most original and unpredictable artists, curates this unique exhibition exploring notions of the liminal: thresholds between physical, political or metaphysical realms.
Artists include Vija Celmins, Thomas Demand, Albrecht Durer, Bruce Nauman, Giuseppe Penone and Fred Sandback.
What can I say looks like Dr Who has landed literally.I liked the short film about the Ballet Dancer who was about to retire at the age of 42, She had never made it as the principle dancer and had always wanted to dance as Giselle so in the film she realises her dream, it was quite sad. I also liked the film of old movies and the comparison to the same areas today.

Annette Messager 'The Messengers'




The Hayward, Southbank centre: Annette Messager The Messengers
Surveys four decades of work by one of Europe’s most compelling artists. In her work Annette Messager questions the tacit rules of art and life’ challenging the roles assigned to women’ subverting identity’ using unorthodox materials the stuff we find around us in our homes’taking as her sources popular and folk art, the rituals of daily living, mythology and fairytales. As she says,’I seek to possess and appropriate for myself life and its events.’
The majority of the this exhibition gave me the feeling of someone clearing out their clutter and displaying it. Someone who has kept every single piece of work that they have done irrelevant of whether it was good or not. Made me think of all the stuff that I have binned that I should of kept or documented thinking it was crap. I liked this piece Red silk with the wind machine puffing it up then letting it collapse, it was constantly changing reminded me of a city scape.

Sunday 12 April 2009


The Dream Play Response




The last group performance of the VLP's was a performance based on Strindberg’s ‘Dream Play’ not having read it before I found this performance very confusing.
This was a piece of conventional theatre, simple set, seating for the audience that felt kind of too far away a definite dividing line, no interaction between the two. It felt safe and relaxing, maybe a bit too safe. Visually it was pleasing, well constructed set, the lighting was a bit dark focused on the red door. I kept expecting one of them to open the door but it never happened. Maybe it needed a secondary light on the actors they seemed to be in the gloom.
I thought the projections could have been larger or more on eye level couldn’t quite make them out adding to my confusion. I meant to go and watch the second showing so that I could better analyze it but got caught up in work so unfortunately missed it. I assume this is one scene of the play. I don’t think that it stood up by itself as an individual unit too the inept.
This has made me revaluate when devising a performance getting too close and caught up in it, it seems clear what you’re trying to get across, and you unintentionally assume the audience knows more. It’s hard to step back and revaluate with fresh eyes.

Sun Dogs Stars

Sun Dog Filming


Sun Dogs Filming

Last Wed we started filming for the projections in the TV room at Wimbledon College of Art.

WCA Theatre Block Rehearsal


This is the rehearsals at Wimbledon College of Art The Theatre Block. Up until now we have been rehearsing in smaller spaces,getting into the actual theatre is alot different. You get a better perspective of the scale. We have been talking about allowing the audience to mingle inside the space during the performance. I'm not entirely sure about this I think it will interfere with the hazer, amp & projections and also distract from the performance. My instinct is for the audience to be above on the mesimine, if we do have the audience mingling then we will have to limit the amount therefore only a few can view the production each time. Alot of work for only a few. Maybe both some upstairs and the limited amount inside,we will have to wait and see to try it out when we eventually get the elusive hazer.

Monday 6 April 2009

Phase Lapse Response


Last week we attended the second show of our MA group projects called Time Lapse a devised piece inspired by the traditional Korean poem called ‘Gong Mu Do Ha Ga’

Very minimal set, clean and simple. Complete opposite end of the scale from ours the previous week. The white cloth was used to represent the river flowing. Candles lined up like a walkway representing an unavoidable path being followed and being slowly blown out representing each element holding this person to this life slowly disappearing.


The costume was well made and spoke volumes about the piece. The use of black and white portraying life and death, later I thought just death. Black for mourning the loss of something or someone. Then when she takes off the outer layer of black organza the white dress underneath is revealed, also a symbol of death in certain countries. So the costume was all about melancholy, death and suicide. She takes her own life at the end.

I didn’t like the choice of fabric the black crystal organza reflects light so looks too shiny and made it look like cheap nylon. A big no in theatre. When she moved from the spot glow it looked better, silk organza would have looked much nicer, but I appreciate that the cost was a factor.

I thought that the acting was very professional and controlled. She used her body to portray the ebb of water to and fro lapping on the shore. Very controlled performance.

The projections I couldn’t make out any images not sure if they were images or just for the colour to add atmosphere.

The sound I can’t really comment on, as this was lost on me as I couldn’t make out most of it being deaf, it sounded like a jumble of muffled voices talking. Maybe that was the intention. But I liked the use of both Martina speaking, and the overhead soundscape, nice mixture. Only bit I wasn’t sure about was the last bit of music seemed too instrumental and didn’t quite fit.
The performance was a very clear and confident piece, great work girls.