November 15th 2008
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LUCILIA CAESAR AUDITIONS/WORKSHOP - Jan/Feb 2008
January/February 2008

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As part of CPR's International Summer School in 2007 Ingrid von Wantoch Rekowski led the Voices in Arcadia workshop with Simon Thorne.

We are pleased to announce the latest news from Ingrid's company Lucilia Caesar:

Lucilia Caesar's team, directed by Ingrid von Wantoch Rekowski, widens its artistic research around the Wagnerian world, as seen in a nightmare. The aim being the creation of a production during season 2008-2009. Within this context, multidisciplinary auditions will be organized in January 2008 at Brussels, Berlin, Paris and London with a view to workshop/laboratory due to be held in February 2008 in Brussels.

The aim is to meet uncommon performers with diverse training (actors, dancers, singers) within a framework of broad inventiveness in order to develop the most promising main lines of a dramatic re-reading of the Ring. The work, the ideology, the aesthetics and the character of Wagner will be freely exploited as a material, even with transgression. Conventional opera will be avoided.

Interested candidates can send a CV, a recent photograph and a recording (video, DVD or CD) with one excerpt or more of their work. Any more significant documentation will be welcome (contact: Lucilia Caesar - Théâtre National, Boulevard Emile Jacqmain 111-115, 1000 Brussels –Belgium).

Deadline to send the application: November 30-2007. The applications will be answered, date and places of auditions (Brussels, Paris, Berlin, London) and of the workshop (Brussels) will be announced on December 10-2007.

For more information on the nature on the work of Lucilia Caesar please click on the link to their website below -

weblink(s):www.luciliacaesar.be,

April 8th 2008
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BALI UNMASKED - May 2008
AN INTENSIVE, PRACTICAL, INTRODUCTION TO BALINESE TOPENG MASKED DANCE-DRAMA.

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May 21-24 2008

An intensive and fun immersion into the techniques of Topeng masked drama, a unique and ancient theatre form which incorporates storytelling, mask work, dance and physical characterisation. The course will be led by Ida Bagus Alit, a lifelong performer of Topeng, who has skills, insights and innate knowledge of this extraordinary form of performance that few in the world possess.

The course is suitable for actors, dancers, storytellers, circus performers and students of performance with an interest in mask work and cross-cultural art forms. Participants will be immersed in a practical hands-on exploration of Topeng as well as contextual learning sessions with British based practitioners Margaret Coldiron and Tiffany Strawson. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of Topeng’s role in traditional and contemporary Balinese culture as well as its influence on current performance practice.

There will be a special Topeng performance event with Ida Bagus Alit on the evening of Saturday 24th May.

Sherman Cymru in association with Lunar productions and CPR

Sherman Cymru, Cardiff

Workshops: Wednesday 21st - Friday 23rd, 10-4pm, £150 full price / £95 concessionary rate

Topeng Performance: Saturday 24th May, 7.30pm, Venue 1 (on stage event) £3 (free for workshop participants

email:www.lunarproductions.org

March 15th 2008
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VERBATIM THEATRE: A workshop by Tara McAllister-Viel (UK) - March 2008
Sat 15th and Sun 16th March, 9.30am - 6.00 pm

Verbatim theatre has attracted much attention recently because of the work done by the Tricycle Theatre and the success of plays like Robin Soan's Talking to Terrorists and David Hare's The Permanent Way. Such plays are created from the exact words of people who have been interviewed about a particular event or topic and at their best they have an authenticity and authority that it is more difficult for fictional writing to achieve.

Aimed at performers, dancers, directors, teachers, social workers - anyone who works with theatre in a social context - this workshop will explore techniques associated with Verbatim theatre in a practical way. Participants will be invited to research and record their own interview material in order to create monologues to be explored and developed through vocal and physical devising exercises.

Currently teaching voice at Central, Tara McAllister-Viel is a distinguished voice coach, actor and director who has worked in the USA and abroad for the last 18 years. Her Chicago-based company devised projects based on the Studs Terkel style interview/oral history tradition and she has led several verbatim theatre projects in Korea. Since moving to the U.K. five years ago, she has been exploring adapting U.K. verbatim theatre approaches to training actors' voices and devising with voice.

Workshop Fee: £70 waged (£35 unwaged)


Venue: Chapter Arts Centre, Market Road, Canton, Cardiff, CF5 1QE

For more information or to book, please call CPR at (0) 1970 622 133 or email cprwww@aber.ac.uk

March 2nd 2008
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HOW TO BE FUNNY: A Workshop by David Woods, Ridiculusmus (UK/ Australia) - March 2008
Sun 2nd March, 11.00 am - 6.00 pm

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An intense and intensive exploration of finding funniness in life and making it into dramatic art. Using a unique system of structured improvisation, re-performance and development and helped along with incredibly complicated diagrams, the workshop will guide you towards the slippery slope of instinctive laughter provoking funniness.

The session will include a whistle-stop guide to the extant theory on humour, a mockery of formula books, a fair bit of tongue in cheek abuse and some tickling.

Participants are encouraged to bring material from life, 6 hours worth of concentration, pens and paper, costumes, props and the willingness to sacrifice themselves on the altar of audience mirth.

David Woods trained at The Poor School and at Ecole Phillippe Gaulier and is one half of the performance group Ridiculusmus (http://www.ridiculusmus.com/) whose acclaimed shows include The Importance of Being Earnest, Ideas Men; Yes, Yes, Yes; The Exhibitionists, The Third Policeman, Three men in a boat and Say Nothing. Ridiculusmus have won the Time Out Live award for theatre, a Herald Angel, Total Theatre Award and The Peter Brook Empty Space Award. Ridiculusmus' 15th anniversary is being celebrated in a special season at the Barbican in February and March 2008.

Workshop Fee: £20

Venue: Chapter Arts Centre, Market Road, Canton, Cardiff, CF5 1QE

For more information or to book, please call CPR at (0) 1970 622 133 or email cprwww@aber.ac.uk

February 23rd 2008
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REACH FOR THE SNOOZE BUTTON: A Workshop by John Fox and Sue Gill, Dead Good Guides (UK) - February 2008
Sat 23rd (9.30a.m - 8.30p.m) and Sun 24th Feb (10a.m - 5p.m)

"If time is running out, what is the point of theatre?"

An intensive weekend workshop for performers, designers and directors led by John Fox and Sue Gill of Dead Good Guides, the company that has picked up where Welfare State International (WSI) left off.

Working between ritual and theatre, the workshop will look at notions of TIME and liminal space, devising and inventing across the disciplines of performance and installation.

The work will be practical, fast and direct using simple making techniques, voice, elemental materials, humour and personal stories. There will be an opportunity to work solo, in pairs and in groups.

Bring along a piece of broken crockery. Several if you can.

Ready or not there will be something provocative to show by the end.

Welfare State International (WSI) was a collective of radical artists and thinkers who explored ideas of celebratory art and spectacle for 38 years. Their seminal text book "Engineers of the Imagination" inspired generations of artists and makers. Described by the Guardian as "Britain's foremost performance and installation collective", WSI pioneered site-specific visual theatre, rites of passage, community celebration, lantern parades and new carnival excess under the Artistic Direction of co-founders John Fox and Sue Gill. WSI was archived on April Fools Day 2006.

Workshop Fee: £70 waged (£35 unwaged)

Venue: CPR, The Foundry Studio, Penglais Campus, Aberystwyth University

For more information or to book, please call CPR at (0) 1970 622 133 or email cprwww@aber.ac.uk

February 9th 2008
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COOKING CHAOS : A workshop by Phelim McDermott, Improbable (UK) - February 2008
Sat 9th and Sun 10th Feb, 10am to 6pm

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Cooking Chaos is a two-day forum for theatre practitioners interested in new ways of exploring creativity. The Cooking Chaos forum will use process work techniques, combined with some of Improbable's ways of making theatre, to raise awareness of issues within the theatre community such as insider/outsider, time, responsibilities, creativity, isolation.

Playing with group myths, dreams and crazy wisdom as starting points for creativity, the workshop may be useful for exploring issues and themes for a theatrical piece, as well as using these methods in a more open-ended way to learn how to check in with the emotional and creative weather of any group. In a playful environment the workshop will "cook chaos" to discover new ways of creating work and community together.

Co-Artistic Director of Improbable, Phelim McDermott has created many award-winning productions including A Midsummer Night's Dream for the English Shakespeare Company and Shockheaded Peter with Julian Crouch, as well as his many Improbable productions, and is currently directing Philip Glass' Satyagraha in collaboration with the English National Opera. As part of his NESTA fellowship research into new ways of rehearsing and creating theatre using Improvisation and Process Oriented Conflict Facilitation Techniques, he recently facilitated the second Open Space Technology event called 'Devoted and Disgruntled: What are we going to do about theatre?' for the theatre community.

It is this willingness to leap into the unknown and create by the seat of their pants that has always characterised the work of Improbable...

Improbable shows are not just different from each other, they are different every single night...

...Improbable though it may seem, anything can happen and it probably will. Lyn Gardner


Workshop Fee: £70 waged (£35 unwaged)

Venue: CPR, The Foundry Studio, Penglais Campus, Aberystwyth

For more information or to book, please call CPR at (0) 1970 622 133 or email cprwww@aber.ac.uk

February 5th 2008
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CPR FOUNDRY ARTIST IN RESIDENCE WINTER 2007


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To inaugurate our new home and ‘laboratory' - The Foundry - CPR, Vivien Mousdell will be joining CPR for an eight-week residency. Vivien has been invited to respond and engage with the new building and the activities and events of The Foundry's first programme as well as to respond and engage with the wealth of material in the CPR Resource Centre and Archive, that will culminate in a traveling ‘exhibition'.

In association with Safle (Formerly/yn gynt Public Arts Wales/Clef Gyhoeddus Cymru)

More information (click on the filenames to download):
Vivien_Mousdell.rtf

February 5th 2008
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CPR – THE GOOD NEWS AND THE BAD NEWS...- Feb 2008


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CPR – THE GOOD NEWS AND THE BAD NEWS...

THE GOOD NEWS:

CPR is pleased and proud to announce the programme for its 10th International Giving Voice Festival, on the theme of Breath, Inspiration and the Voice.

This year’s festival brings to Wales renowned practitioners from all over the world, to share skills and methods and celebrate the art of the voice - in the company of the many practitioners who will gather for this event. Giving Voice is a key ingredient of CPR’s programmes of workshops, performances and events that provide a special resource for both the profession and audiences in Wales.

Further information on the Giving Voice programme is detailed in the projects section of this website and a full brochure is available for download as a PDF file if you scroll to the bottom of this article.

THE BAD NEWS:

It is, therefore, quite shattering at the very moment of launching this year’s Giving Voice to receive notification of the Arts Council of Wales’ decision to withdraw revenue funding from CPR with effect from July ’08.

Instead, the Arts Council of Wales (ACW) is offering CPR the opportunity to compete for project funding on an occasional basis without acknowledging that the lack of ACW revenue support could compromise CPR’s relationship and partnership funding with Aberystwyth University. It also inevitably limits the work that CPR can do, and jeopardises the infrastructure that allows CPR to develop and promote an exciting programme with the lead time that international work requires; in the field of labour relations, a proposal as unrealistic as this could be construed as ‘constructive dismissal’.

It is difficult to understand the logic of ACW’s decision in the context of its recently published plan to establish an English-language National Theatre for Wales on a federal basis, for which it desires innovation, an international perspective and a rigorous training policy. In terms of knowledge, experience and contacts developed over thirty years of work, CPR is extremely well-placed to foster international connections and provide research, development and training that utilises the skills of the best theatre practitioners available from across the world.

However, arguments of merit, artistic or otherwise, would appear to be disallowed as grounds for appeal within the formal terms of the ACW’s appeals procedure, wherein whether there is a case for appeal is, in the first instance, judged solely by ACW Chief Executive (currently Peter Tyndall), who was of course involved in the original decision-making process.

Despite this, in preparing for the appeal, at this extremely difficult and precarious moment for CPR, we would greatly welcome hearing from those wishing to write in support, encouragement and advocacy of the value and integrity of our work - past, present and future.

Letters of support may be addressed to Judie Christie and/ or Richard Gough by email to cprwww@aber.ac.uk or by post to: CPR, The Foundry, Penglais Campus, Aberystwyth, Wales, UK, SY23 3AJ

Giving Voice will proceed, and resound magnificently as will - we hope with your support - many other future CPR projects.

An illustrated chronology of CPR’s work can be downloaded as a PDF file at the bottom of this news article. Further information and comment is below.

1. CPR – ‘the Aberystwyth-based powerhouse of international theatre’ (The Guardian) - is one of the organisations in Wales from whom the Arts Council of Wales (ACW) intends to withdraw revenue funding status, stating that ‘unfortunately… faced with some very difficult decisions within the current financial climate … the main reason [for this decision] is that ACW is focusing funding on front-line activity’.

In a surprisingly brief and unfinished letter of notification, ACW goes on to say that ‘the current approach to programming by CPR is probably best funded on a project by project basis’. There is no indication that ACW does not value the work of CPR – on the contrary, a 2007 report on the company produced by ACW valued ‘CPR’s instinct for programming that expands horizons’ and concluded that:

‘CPR is a vital and prestigious player in the arts in Wales. It is at an important transitional stage with new possibilities opening out with occupancy of The Foundry. It’s history, experience, and present interests are important to mobilise into the challenges of new resources for drama theatre and performance, centring now in Wales on the development of a non-building based national theatre.’
(ACW Director of Arts, 2007)

2. Naturally, we are greatly dismayed about the decision particularly since ACW has used only the language of economy and affordability, of revenue-saving within the current budget. We are also extremely perplexed about its timing: a decision made prior to ACW’s launch of a seven-week consultative period inviting response to its own draft five-year art-form strategies published in the middle of December.

3. Since the language of ACW is about affordability it should be emphasised that a relatively small grant (currently £118,300) – certainly much less than sister organisations in Europe – has been significant, enabling the retention of a dedicated core team who year-on-year have trebled the ACW investment, and enabling the priming of important projects and programmes. CPR has declined several attractive invitations to develop its work elsewhere because of its commitment to Wales and the model of effective partnership between ACW, Aberystwyth University and public/ private investment; ACW withdrawal threatens this complex yet fragile ecology of funding and activity.

4. The Arts Council’s decision to switch the mechanism from revenue to project funding will at best allow their cherry-picking of projects without investment into the infrastructure that makes them possible, and at worst see CPR’s ideas, experience and know-how disappear along with the bathwater down the plughole of the diminishing project funding pots.

5. If we are to be bound, gagged – or shot down – by militaristic terminology such as ‘front-line activity’, we should like to record for posterity that, from its outward-facing ‘ex-centric’ position [on the wild western front], CPR’s ‘pioneering activity’ across less conspicuous ‘fronts’ over the years has been instrumental in raising the visibility of Wales worldwide. But who from ACW Command HQ would know as they do not venture west?

6. CPR supports the Arts Council’s aspiration to redress years of under-funding to the independent theatre sector, to revitalise it in order to face the challenges – and opportunities - ahead. Despite the richness and diversity of work and practice that has long been a strength of theatre in Wales, funding policy and decisions over the last decade, playing to safety through a concentration of resources privileging the mainstream, the ‘establishment’ and the highly-visible, have helped create a fragile and fragmented theatre ecology in Wales; CPR has no wish to propagate the climate of competition for limited resources that has existed for so long, and indeed welcomes the funding uplifts to fellow artists and companies that can allow for their future development and growth.

7. A revitalised theatre ecology emerges out of a confluence of different ideas and influences across disciplines and sectors. As a meeting place, for ideas, exchange and discovery, CPR has consistently pursued and promoted this idea of collaboration and confluence, of dialogue and engagement - across borders, between cultures and between disciplines.

CPR works to promote innovation, experimentation, and process, and offers access at all levels to innovative training programmes and approaches to making theatre alongside programmes of high quality presentations and performances from around the world that pursue ideals of accessibility without artistic compromise.

CPR’s desire is to help foster a vibrant and distinctive theatre ecology in Wales – an ecology distinguished by its vitality, creativity, imagination, vision, openness, enthusiasm, curiosity, and passion. This would appear to match the strategic and capacity-building aims of ACW and an outward-facing Wales, and so calls into question ACW’s decision.

In preparing for the appeal, at this extremely difficult and precarious moment for CPR, we would greatly welcome hearing from you. Please write in support, encouragement and advocacy of the value and integrity of our work - past, present and future.

Letters of support may be addressed to Judie Christie and/ or Richard Gough by email to cprwww@aber.ac.uk or by post to:

CPR, The Foundry, Penglais Campus, Aberystwyth, Wales, UK, SY23 3AJ
Tel: +44 (0) 1970 622133

Giving Voice will proceed, and resound magnificently as will - we hope with your support - many other future CPR projects.

More information (click on the filenames to download):
Chronology.pdf
Giving_Voice_Brochure_final.pdf

January 23rd 2008
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GIVING VOICE 10: BREATH INSPIRATION VOICE
27th March – 1st April 2008

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INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF THE VOICE IN PERFORMANCE

GIVING VOICE 10: BREATH INSPIRATION VOICE

27th March – 1st April 2008
Aberystwyth, Wales!

WORKSHOPS - PERFORMANCES - PRESENTATIONS - DISCUSSION
GWEITHDAI - PERFFORMIADAU - CYFLWYNIADAU - TRAFODAETHAU

Giving Voice attracts some of the world’s finest performers and voice teachers in an innovative celebration of the voice in performance.

Join us for an uplifting compendium of voice workshops, performances talks, seminars and lecture-demonstrations reflecting voices from Asia, the Americas, the Middle East, Wales and Europe and meet with fellow voice enthusiasts and artists from around the world.

“For me, ‘Giving Voice’ sounds always a note of renewal of hope and expansion and springing ideas. I burn my candle both ends and in the middle and am re-ignited…That extraordinary dissolving of barriers and triggering of joy that distinguishes Giving Voice from any other workshop gathering that I know. The personal input that you all make, the personal investment, pays off one hundred percent in the humanity of the experience...You have a genius by now for finding the right people and bringing them together in the same place so that spontaneous combustion of ideas and creativity explode.”

Kristin Linklater, Author of Freeing the Natural Voice

Comments on Giving Voice 2006

“It is a challenge to put into words the joyous wonder of a week at Wales “giving voice”

“Giving Voice was enlightening, educational, inspirational, and very powerful. The work, the conversations, the camaraderie – all of it was of a calibre rarely to be found anywhere else. I feel honoured to have been a small part of this extraordinary event.”

“Each time I attend I am impressed with the quality of the presentations, workshops, and performances. This festival is by far one of the best offered internationally. The work that you do is cutting edge and draws some of the best practitioners and scholars from all over the world. I do not find at other conferences and festivals the same level of discourse and experimentation, the wide range of work and body of knowledge. Thank you!”

GIVING VOICE 10: BREATH INSPIRATION VOICE
WORKSHOPS

THREE DAY WORKSHOP
FRIDAY 28 – SUNDAY 30 MARCH
Christian Wolz (Germany)
BREATH – SOUND - NOISE
WORKSHOP FOR VOCAL-IMPROVISATION

FIVE DAY WORKSHOP
FRIDAY 28 – TUESDAY 1 APRIL
Kristin Linklater (USA)
THE PURPOSE OF BREATHING

FIVE DAY WORKSHOP
FRIDAY 28 – TUESDAY 1 APRIL
Roger Smart (USA/UK)
FITZMAURICE VOICEWORK®: AN INTRODUCTION AND EXPLORATION

THREE DAY WORKSHOP
FRIDAY 28 – SUNDAY 30 MARCH
Lin Snelling (Canada)
PERFORMING THE BODY

TWO DAY WORKSHOP
FRIDAY 28 – SATURDAY 29 MARCH
Michele George (Canada)
OCTAVE OF INSPIRATION:
Breathe Life into Art, Give it a Home in Your Heart
OCTAVE OF INSPIRATION: from Creation to Completion

ONE, TWO AND THREE DAY WORKSHOPS
Theatre Zar (Poland

THREE DAY WORKSHOP
FRIDAY 28 – SUNDAY 30 MARCH
Led by: Jarosław Fret (with the assistance of Nini Julia Bang, Andrei Biziorek, Tomasz Wierzbowski)
GIVING BREATH. FORMS OF LITURGICAL MUSIC OF CHRISTIAN EAST AND WEST

TWO DAY WORKSHOP
FRIDAY 28 – SATURDAY 29 MARCH
Led by: Ditte Berkeley (with the assistance of Tomasz Bojarski, Ewa Pasikowska)
COMING INTO THE SOUND

ONE DAY WORKSHOP
SUNDAY 30 MARCH
Led by: Ditte Berkeley and Jaroslaw Fret (together with other members of the company)
FLESH OF SOUND

TWO DAY WORKSHOP
MONDAY 31 MARCH – TUESDAY 1 APRIL
Ashish Sankrityayan (India)
A PRACTICAL INTRODUCTION TO DHRUPAD SINGING

TWO DAY WORKSHOP
MONDAY 31 MARCH – TUESDAY 1 APRIL
Frankie Armstong (UK) and Janet Rodgers (USA)
BREATH, VOICE, CHARACTER AND SONG

ONE DAY WORKSHOP
SUNDAY 30 MARCH
Evie Mark and Akinisie Sivuarapik (Canada)
INUIT THROAT SINGING

TWO DAY WORKSHOP
MONDAY 31 MARCH – TUESDAY 1 APRIL
Mahsa and Marjan Vadat (Iran)
A BLESSING OF SONG IN A PERSIAN GARDEN


For full workshop descriptions please see the workshop section of this website or contact CPR to request a brochure.

Phone: +44 (0) 1970 622 133
Email: cprwww@aber.ac.uk


GIVING VOICE 10: BREATH INSPIRATION VOICE
PERFORMANCES

THURSDAY 27 MARCH, 7.00 PM
Theatre Zar (Poland)
CAESAREAN SECTION. ESSAYS ON SUICIDE

THURSDAY 27 MARCH, 8.30 PM
Fatima Miranda (Spain)
Presented by Instituto Cervantes Manchester and Giving Voice
VOICES OF THE VOICE II: A CAPELLA CONCERT FOR SOLO VOICE

FRIDAY 28 MARCH, 7.00 PM
Concert / Work Presentation by Theatre ZAR(Poland)
THEATRE OUT OF THE SPIRIT OF MUSIC

FRIDAY 28 MARCH, 8.30 PM
Evie Mark and Akinisie Sivuarapik (Canada)
INUIT THROAT SINGING

SATURDAY 29 MARCH, 8.30 PM
The Vahdat Ensemble (Iran)
A BLESSING OF SONG FROM A PERSIAN GARDEN

SUNDAY 30 MARCH, 8.30 PM
Ashish Sankrityayan(India)
DHRUPAD SINGING

MONDAY 31 MARCH, 7.00 PM
Christian Wolz (Germany)
ATROPA BELLA DONNA

MONDAY 31 MARCH, 8.30 PM
Simon Thorne (Wales)
THE HOWL IN ARCADIA

FRIDAY 28 MARCH - TUESDAY 1st APRIL, DAILY, THROUGHOUT THE DAY
Yvon Bonenfant (UK)
SOIE SOYEUSE

For further performance details please see the performance section of this website or contact CPR to request a brochure.

Phone: +44 (0) 1970 622 133
Email: cprwww@aber.ac.uk

December 15th 2007
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WAYS OF WORKING - (WITHOUT A DIRECTOR): A Workshop by Tg STAN (Belgium) - December 2007
Sat 15th December, 10.00 am - 6.00 pm

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"The essence of STAN is to be found in a definition of acting. They see acting as being present...a sort of dogged immediacy...STAN is practised in counter-readings. Rubbing a script up the wrong way. Looking for the development of an argument in a seemingly neutral fragment of material...

... that an actor can act independently in this respect. That while on stage he himself can choose how he will perform the script. Evening after evening. That theatre is not repetition, but action. That a script is an open score that allows a great many interpretations...That it is necessary to continue amazing and surprising each other and that one can take this a very long way. As long as you are free...

..One of the constants in the life of STAN is talking about acting. No one can define it, no one has any nameable method up their sleeve, but it is always about the same thing: how ought one to act?"

Luk van den Dries

Following Tg STAN's performance of "The Monkey Trial" the previous evening, this Belgian company offers a one day workshop exploring their philosophy and practice: Tg STAN's work is characterised by its emphasis on the independence of the actor from the authority of the director and writer.

Workshop Fee: £20

Venue: Chapter Arts Centre, Market Road, Canton, Cardiff, CF5 1QE

For more information or to book, please call CPR at (0) 1970 622 133 or email cprwww@aber.ac.uk

December 13th 2007
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THE MONKEY TRIAL: Performance by Tg STAN (Belgium) - December 2007
CPR Visiting Artists series presents the UK premiere of The Monkey Trial By Tg STAN (Belgium) (performed in English)

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Thurs 13th Dec, 7.30 pm - CPR, The Foundry Studio, Penglais Campus, Aberystwyth and Fri 14th Dec, 7.30 pm - Chapter Theatre, Market Road, Canton, Cardiff

I believe God did create the world. And I think we're finding out more and more and more as to how it actually happened.

George W. Bush, interview in U.S. News, 6 December 1999

"You can't make a monkey out of me", sings a voice on squeaky old vinyl. On a screen running the entire width of the stage we see smartly dressed men wearing cane hats as protection against the scorching sun, moving jerkily to and fro in a black and white film.

Dayton, Tennessee, 1925. The case can open.

American State of Tennessee v. defendant John Scopes, a young biology teacher, accused of breaking the law because he taught the theory of evolution to his classes. The case of the biology teacher became a clash of the titans between fundamentalism and modernism, religion and science, dogma and intellectual freedom.

Dubbed 'The Monkey Trial', it became one of the most high profile and sensational lawsuits of the century in America, full of rhetorical fireworks, and the first trial to be broadcast in radio. The transcription of the proceedings makes for a fascinating and thrilling read that is still astonishingly topical.


STAN's theatre makes you very much aware of your own layer of [bourgeois] fat. They hone your awareness of your own attitude till it's razor-sharp. That which only a minute ago tickled - since STAN's theatre verges on the hilarious - now suddenly stabs beneath your calloused skin.

Luk Van den Dries

The result is a sometimes hilarious exposition about biblical improbabilities in a battle fought by he-men who have right on their side. It is a rhetorical battle, as bombastic as it is futile, as the anticlimax of the eventual verdict shows, but it is also a disturbing portrait of the arbitrariness of ‘justice'. The direction and the wonderful performance by the three actors as well as the surprising topicality of the material make this play an absolute must.

Elke Van Campenhout, De Standaard

You can judge for yourself if John T. Scopes committed a crime, but what is certain is that The Monkey Trial is marvellous theatre.

Wim Smets, Knack

Two keywords characterise Tg STAN: ‘actor-oriented' and ‘undogmatic'. The undogmatic aspect is reflected in the name - S(top) T(hinking) A(bout) N(ames) - as well as in the repertoire. For STAN the actor is the keystone. Although the company works without a director and refuses to harmonise - or perhaps because of this headstrong attitude - the best STAN performances have a powerful unity. The actors' pleasure in their work makes the sparks fly, while communicating forceful social or even political statements without ever moralising.

Wherever the company turns up there is an infectious enthusiasm for the way they make theatre. But it is much harder to say what they are a model for. STAN has not made a positive decision to develop its own style. It has no aesthetic programme. Artistic labels and genre definitions (intercultural, visual and suchlike) fail entirely in the face of their principle of diversity...STAN's true individuality lies... at a much deeper level... They see acting as being present. Night after night their principle is that it has to happen now... all decided at the moment itself. This gives a tremendous openness and directness to the quality of the acting.

Luk Van den Dries


For more information or to book a ticket to attend the performance in Aberystwyth, please call CPR at (0) 1970 622 133 or email cprwww@aber.ac.uk

To book a ticket for the Cardiff performance contact the Chapter Box-Office (0)29 2030 4400

Tickets are £10 (£8 Concessions) for both performances

November 29th 2007
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ON RUNNING: A Performances by CPR Associate Artists Louise Ritchie and Gareth Llyr - November 2007
Thurs 29th & Fri 30th Nov, 7.00 pm

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Two journeys. Two spaces. Two televisions.

One man. One woman.

Press play.

Tickets: £5 (£3.50 Concessions)


CPR Associate Artists

CPR's Associate Artist scheme supports young or emergent artists in a number of ways, providing: artistic and administrative advice and mentoring; office, internet and computer facilities; studio and rehearsal resources; performance and work in progress showcasing; marketing and profile; training on CPR workshops and participation in CPR events; creation and performance opportunities in CPR productions; and the research facilities of the CPR Resource Centre.

CPR current Associates are Louise Ritchie and Gareth Llŷr (Aberystwyth) and Anushiye Yarnell (Cardiff).

CPR, The Foundry Studio, Penglais Campus, Aberystwyth

weblink(s):www.on-running.co.uk,

November 26th 2007
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ANIMAL LOVE PROJECT: A series of performances by CPR Associate Artist Anushiye Yarnell and artists Joelle Gruenberg, Yuko Kominani and Paul Hurley - November 2007
Monday 26th and Tuesday 27th November

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"Imagine an animal - perhaps one familiar, perhaps one you have never encountered before."

A new group work featuring four artists whose work has a strong relation to the question of animal and the anthropomorphic subject of love. The performance will consist of combinations of the four artists' works presented over two evenings.

Mon 26th Nov - Double Bill, 7.00 pm, Tickets £5.00

Linnunrata (Birds' Way): Yuko Kominani (Japan/Luxembourg)

A solo movement dance inspired from the Finnish word for milky way, which literally translates as "way of the birds" in Japanese.

Bear "the Wanderer": Anushiye Yarnell (Wales)."

A solo dance performance that recounts a journey that began with the end of a love affair and an oracle from the "I Ching" to travel to Peru. Anushiye Yarnell is one of Cardiff's most idiosyncratic and visionary dancers who creates performances that blend the everyday with extraordinary flights of invention.


Tues 27th Nov - Double Bill, 7.00 pm, Tickets £5.00

Becoming-Locust: Paul Hurley (Wales)

Endurance body art with high-heels, fresh vegetables and maybe some specialist sports equipment. Hurley will be making a "becoming-locust" action that aims to be as physically intense and beautiful as the experience of love that it tries to understand.

Is my Body a Hotel? : Joelle Gruenberg (Peru)

A solo performance art work investigating love memories and how such experiences accumulate in the body.

The Animal Love Project is supported by Arts Council of Wales, Wales Arts International and Tupac Association, Peru.



CPR Associate Artists

CPR's Associate Artist scheme supports young or emergent artists in a number of ways, providing: artistic and administrative advice and mentoring; office, internet and computer facilities; studio and rehearsal resources; performance and work in progress showcasing; marketing and profile; training on CPR workshops and participation in CPR events; creation and performance opportunities in CPR productions; and the research facilities of the CPR Resource Centre.

CPR current Associates are Louise Ritchie and Gareth Llŷr (Aberystwyth) and Anushiye Yarnell (Cardiff).

CPR, The Foundry Studio, Penglais Campus, Aberystwyth

November 17th 2007
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ARTIST'S ENCOUNTERS AT THE FOUNDRY - November - December 2007

SPEAKING TO THE NATION?
THE ARTIST'S VISION

"A true vision for the future begins with
respect for the past and the commonality of human
experience." Peter Sellars

Wales

As a work in progress...

As a project of imagining and re-invention...

As a place of inclusion and integration...

Where notions of nationhood are determined through dynamic negotiation
and transaction...

Where the participants determine the outcome and a sense of ownership is
gained...

"Today it is difficult to imagine how any
national theatre can pretend to represent the spirit of the
nation" Dragan Klaic

No, Not The-National-Theatre debate, but taking that as a context and
spur, performers, directors, writers and artists of all disciplines are
invited to gather and share ideas, visions, passions, manifestos, hopes
and dreams for theatre: the here and now, the next and the what if?

In any debate about theatre and its future, the dominant voices are
often not those of the artists who are busy making and performing the
work. Speaking to the Nation? The Artist's Vision does not want to focus
on structures, funding or strategies for audience development but the
excitement and passion of the work that needs to be at the heart of any
venture. An antidote to 'devoted, disillusioned and disgruntled'
talkshops, Speaking to the Nation? The Artist's Vision seeks
inspiration, provocation, engagement and maybe even entertainment. To
mitigate too-many-words, the day will also include a series of
specially-created Short Cuts, in which individual artists from different
disciplines and generations respond to the question of what consumes
them now.

Please come and be generously present to share obsessions and celebrate
duality, mutuality, commonality and difference.

Sat 8th Dec, 10.00 am - 6.00pm, Admission is Free

For more information or to register your place, please call CPR at (0)
1970 622 133 or email cprwww@aber.ac.uk



WHAT'S WELSH FOR PERFORMANCE? / BETH YW 'PERFORMANCE' YN
GYMRAEG?

AN ORAL HISTORY OF PERFORMANCE ART IN WALES / HANES LLAFAR CELFYDDYD
PERFFORMIO YNG NGHYMRU

RICHARD GOUGH

A two-year series of public conversations by Heike Roms with key artists
who have shaped the development of performance art in Wales since 1968.
Richard Gough will be in conversation about alternative approaches to
teaching, archiving and publishing performance and on the role of
internationalism for performance art in Wales. Richard Gough is
Professor at Aberystwyth University, Artistic Director of the Centre for
Performance Research and General Editor of Performance Research.

Project Director/ Cyfarwyddwr y Prosiect: Dr Heike Roms,

Aberystwyth University/ Prifysgol Aberystwyth

http://www.performance-wales.org/

Thurs 22nd Nov, 6.00pm, Admission is Free

To reserve your place, please contact:
http://www.performance-wales.org/mail@performance-wales.org




RAT THEATRE

A one-day symposium on the working practices and productions of seminal
physical theatre company RAT Theatre with the support of the Society for
Theatre Research. Concentrating on the earliest years of the company's
work (1972-3), the programme will include screenings, presentations,
demonstrations, interviews and discussions. Presentations will address
not only the work of RAT but also British alternative theatre of the
early 1970s and the significance of the National Union of Students'
Drama Festival.

Sat 17th Nov, 10.00 am - 4.30pm, Admission is Free

For more information please contact: Louise Ritchie, Email:
llr@aber.ac.uk

Telephone: 07886-085947

November 17th 2007
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CPR PRIZE DRAW WINNER ANNOUNCED!

We are pleased to announce that the winner of our prize draw is Matt Ball from The Camden People's Theatre. Matt will be receiving a £100 gift voucher to spend in the CPR Bookshop. Our two runners up are Michelle Cahill and Oskari Korenius, they have each won a years free subscription to the Performance Research Journal.

Many thanks to everyone who updated or added their contact details to our mailing list this Summer. Please continue to keep us up to date so that we can continue to keep in touch with information that matches your interests.

November 17th 2007
,
'THE VOICE OF THOSE WITHOUT A VOICE' - REPORTAGE THEATRE: Workshop by Annet Henneman, Teatro di Nascosto (Italy) - November 2007
Sat 17 and Sun 18 Nov, 9.30 am - 5:30 pm

Aimed at performers, dancers, directors, teachers, social workers - anyone who is interested in theatre work in a social context - this workshop will explore how to use theatre as a working tool in and for society. In particular it will examine techniques and experiences relating to theatre as a resource in war, inside prisons, and with immigrants and refugees.

The workshop will be led by Annet Hennman, co-founder of Teatro di Nascasto (Hidden Theatre) in Volterra, Italy. For the last ten years the company has specialised in Reportage theatre, telling the stories of people who would otherwise not be heard. They have lived and worked with oppressed people in Kurdistan, the homeless in Rome and Calcutta and asylum seekers in Rome and Calcutta. Their most recent project, Refugees, took place in the European parliament in Brussels and involved 100 MPs and MEPs working on common European guidelines for refugees. This process will continue in Volterra in November.

Workshop Fee: £70 waged (£35 unwaged)

Venue: Chapter Arts Centre, Market Road, Canton, Cardiff, CF5 1QE

For more information or to book, please call CPR at (0) 1970 622 133 or email cprwww@aber.ac.uk

November 2nd 2007
,
WAYS OF WORKING: READY-MADE THEATRE - A Workshop by Quarantine (UK) - November 2007
Fri 2nd Nov, 10.00 am - 5.00 pm

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Quarantine have fast developed an international reputation as one of Britain's most distinctive creators of new theatre, creating a unique body of work that blends incredible invention with an intimate contact with reality

The whole thing might be the bastard offspring of the Wooster Group crossed with the Osbournes - radical reality theatre. Robert Dawson-Scott, The Times on Quarantine's Butterfly

Over the past 9 years, Quarantine have developed a unique reputation for their approach to creating theatre from ready-made sources - working with both trained and untrained performers ("experts in everyday life") to create work where there is the smallest of gaps between performer and material.

This one-day practical workshop will introduce Quarantine's methods of creating a dramaturgy of real, lived and relived experience, looking at performance strategies, techniques for making text and scenography. The workshop will make specific reference to SUSAN & DARREN, Quarantine's show at The Foundry (31 October - 2 November).


The workshop is open to all, though numbers are limited. Please note - as Quarantine's approach involves developing material from the performer's own history, each participant in the workshop will be expected to share their choice of personal experiences as a source of material.

For more information or to reserve your place, please call or email CPR

Workshop Fee: £20

Venue: CPR, The Foundry Studio, Penglais Campus, Aberystwyth

For more information or to book, please call CPR at (0) 1970 622 133 or email cprwww@aber.ac.uk

October 31st 2007
,
SUSAN & DARREN: A Performance By Quarantine and Company Fierce - October & November 2007
Originally co-produced with queerupnorth and Contact

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Wed 31st Oct, Thurs 1st and Fri 2nd Nov, 8.00pm

‘...one of the most original, intimate, warmly human and movingly open-hearted shows I've seen in a very long time...The banal and the beautiful, the tragic and the joyful, exist side by side, just as they do in life, in a marvellous show which is as full of surprises as it is of life-affirming love. Manchester Evening News

"There is no company in the UK working quite in the area of Quarantine, a truly wonderful company that uses the lives and experiences of real people as the starting point for all their shows and who put their subjects centre stage and let them speak for themselves... Everywhere Quarantine delves, it uncovers the extraordinary in the seemingly ordinary and banal." Lyn Gardner, The Guardian

Susan & Darren features 28-year old dancer/choreographer Darren Pritchard and his 52 year old mum, Susan Pritchard, who works as a cleaner. Darren lives at home in Manchester with Susan, in the house that he grew up in.

Quarantine and Company Fierce have re-created one of Susan and Darren's famous parties, where Susan will prepare a buffet, and there will be dancing. The audience are invited to sample the buffet and dance to Susan and Darren's favourite records and listen, as Susan and Darren tell stories from their extraordinary lives. Friends and neighbours might pop in. They're close, Darren and Susan. At night Darren sits on Susan's bed and they talk about everything. Everything. You could say they feed each other. Come and join the party.

"It's the best night out I can remember. I'm moved, almost to tears, by the honesty, directness and clarity in the performance, and have great fun at the party! This is poignancy unadorned. Extraordinary ordinary lives celebrating just being." Miriam King, Total Theatre

Quarantine have fast developed an international reputation as one of Britain's most distinctive creators of new theatre, creating a unique body of work that blends incredible invention with an intimate contact with reality. They won Arts Council England's art05 award for outstanding achievement. Company Fierce has established itself as an original and inventive Manchester-based urban dance company, and won Arts Council England's art06 award for its work with young people.

Darren Pritchard will lead a dance workshop before each performance of Susan & Darren that will alter the course of that night's show. All ages & levels of dance experience are welcome. It's free to ticket-holders for the performance, but booking is essential.

£9 (£7 Concessions)

For more information or to book a ticket, please call CPR at (0) 1970 622 133 or email cprwww@aber.ac.uk

October 14th 2007
,
GEORGIAN SINGING WORKSHOP LED BY RENOWNED ETHNOMUSICOLOGIST JOSEPH JORDANIA
Sunday October 14th 2007, 10.30am - 4.30pm

In 1994 Edisher Garakanidze and Joseph Jordania came to the UK to teach 'the Cardiff Georgian Choir', a group of singers invited by the Centre for Performance Research to sing for a Georgian feast at the Performance, Food and Cookery project.

We are pleased to welcome Joseph Jordania back from Australia to lead a one day workshop in the inspirational folk harmonies of Georgia.

This workshop is suitable for both experienced singers and beginners.

Price: £20.00

To book contact CPR

email: cprwww@aber.ac.uk
phone: + 44 (0) 1970 622 133
Workshop location: The Foundry Studio, Penglais Campus, Aberystwyth, SY23 3AJ

September 30th 2007
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BREATH, INSPIRATION AND THE VOICE
GIVING VOICE: AN ANNOUNCEMENT AND A CALL!

Softly I shall speak to the air.
The ears of man have become deaf with the sound of explosions. The eyes of man have become blind with tears. …The air into which I pour my heart shall permeate the hearts of Man.

Pundit Acharya (1975)
Breath, Sleep, the Heart and Life

International Festival of the Voice in Performance
(The announcement)
Giving Voice 10: Breath Inspiration Voice
28th March – 2nd April 2008
Aberystwyth, Wales

Breath is fundamental to life but also to giving voice. As we take a new breath, as we inspire, we absorb the potential to express new thoughts, to give voice to feeling: to persuade, argue, seduce, analyse, lament, educate, sympathise… We can orate or berate, or wait - with bated breath - for the moment to exhale, the expressive breath. To express through the word or song, to sing with joy and warmth or from despair and terror: the song can be a narrative carried on the ever changing, yet rhythmic tides of the breath; the breath can fuel an outcry against the injustice of the world, the flames of fury fed by the heated lungs; a song of sorrow may be heard as the sobbing, broken intake of jagged air or as the extended wail of the bereft. In, out, and always an exchange, reciprocity, a flow, an exemplar of change.

For the actor and for the singer the breath is a life long focus of attention. There is always something new to learn. The process of life: environment, anxiety, change, aging, illness – all these can affect breathing as well as professional demands of character, vocal range, size of auditorium, and so on. In some cultures the breath is talked of in terms of ‘management’ and ‘control’ but in others breath is ‘spirit’, ‘energy’, or even God.

What can we learn from ancient practices and new understandings that emanate from neuroscience and biology? What can performers gain from considering philosophies that address the deeper relationship of breath to life? Might a cognisance of the latest scientific revelations gained through technological advance empower skill, technique and creativity?

Giving Voice invites exponents of voice from a wide variety of cultures and areas of expertise to explore the relationship, tangents and nuances, between breath and voice, and that vital component, inspiration, in all its meanings and resonances. Focusing on the voice in performance, practitioners and scholars come together in practical explorations in an inspirational programme of workshops, lecture demonstrations and performances.

(The Call)
The published programme for Giving Voice 2008 will be available later this autumn, please do register your interest by email with us, so we can keep you informed of updates. If the theme of Breath, Inspiration, and The Voice is of particular interest to you, we would still welcome, even at this stage, any ideas for workshops, talks, or performances on this theme. Please contact Judie Christie or Joan Mills at cprwww@aber.ac.uk.

July 20th 2007
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INTERNSHIP OPPORTUNITY...OPENING UP WORLDS OF PERFORMANCE

An opportunity has arisen to fill a vacant space on the volunteer internship scheme beginning in September 2007. As an integral part of the CPR team interns gain an insight into the workings of an international theatre organization as well as working alongside established practicing artists during projects. On offer is a good solid grounding in arts administration, production and research and practical experience on a variety of projects, from festivals to workshops, performances to publishing.

If you are interested in finding out more please contact Helen Gethin at heg@aber.ac.uk.

July 7th 2007
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THE SUMMER SHIFT 2007: 7 - 18 JULY

CPR INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SCHOOL OF THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE

GUEST ARTISTS 2007: GERALDINE PILGRIM, MIKE PEARSON, SIMON THORNE WITH INGRID VON WANTOCH REKOWSKI, MARISA CARNESKY, RIC JERROM AND BRIAN POPAY

The Summer Shift is an intensive working retreat in beautiful surroundings for those wanting to explore new ways of working and experiment with different processes and approaches to making theatre and performance.

“CPR offers you a unique view on performance… you are confronted with your own work in an inspirational and playful way.”
Summer School Participant, 2002

With a range of high quality workshops and performance laboratories led by some of the world’s leading practitioners, The Summer Shift offers the opportunity to take time out and away from the usual pressures of everyday life to explore your creative practice amongst like-minded participants from around the world.

The Summer Shift is comprised of workshops, talks, discussions and evening events Participants can either enrol on individual workshops or choose their own ten-day pathway through a series of workshops exploring innovative processes of composition working with landscape, soundscape and visual scores, music-theatre, magic and burlesque, interactive theatre and physical training.

This year’s CPR Summer Shift is a very British affair, indeed. The UK’s theatre and performance ecology has long been distinguished as much for its diversity as for its innovation and experiment, as well as – perhaps - a certain peculiarly British idiosyncracy and sense of the absurd. Each of our guest artists this year have long been significant and formative players in the experimental theatre ecology here in the UK and have developed and sustained distinctive work over many years. The Summer Shift 2007 brings them together to share their compositional strategies, and aesthetic methods and practices through a process of investigation and experiment with Summer Shift participants. The work offers immersion in a range of disciplines and approaches and will take place both in and out of the studio, using sites and environments ranging from the great British seaside to the British Country House and Estate, from Victorian follies to disused quarries.

“I found the workshop enlightening, intense and empowering. CPR is a wonderful resource and the staff well-informed, friendly and accommodating.”
Summer Shift participant, 2006

On our doorstep we have some of the most extraordinary and beautiful landscapes in the UK – Cardigan Bay stretches from Aberystwyth both to the mountains of Snowdonia and to the Pembrokeshire coastal path. Indoors you may spend time in the CPR’s multi-cultural Resource Centre delving into performance archives of videos, books, CDs and DVDs or work in the studio, developing your own project in tandem, building on the workshop training.

July 7th 2007
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SUMMER SHIFT 2007: PROGRAMME AND REGISTRATION

PROGRAMME

You can sign up for the entire Summer SHIFT programme, 7 – 18 July – and choose your own pathway through 10 days of workshops. For example, you might wish to work 3 days with Mike Pearson, then 5 days with Geraldine Pilgrim, followed by 3 days with Marisa Carnesky, or you might wish to work with Geraldine Pilgrim for 7 days and conclude with 3 days with Simon Thorne and Ingrid von Wantoch Rekowski.

It may be that you are unable to attend for the full programme and wish to come for only one or two workshops, but if you have the time the accumulative experience of a full Summer Shift goes a long way and is excellent value for money.

REGISTRATION FEES

The full SUMMER SHIFT registration fee is £300 (£200 bursary rate)
For participants unable to attend the full Summer Shift, individual workshop registration fees are as indicated below.

OBJECTS AND ATMOSPHERES
Geraldine Pilgrim
2 day workshop (7-8 July) £75 (£55 Bursary Price)
5 day workshop (10 -14 July) £200 (£160 Bursary Price)
7 days (7 – 14 July) £245 (£175 Bursary Price)

RAT THEATRE
Mike Pearson
3 day workshop (7-9 July) £105 (£75 Bursary Price)

INTERACTIVE THEATRE
Ric Jerrom and Brian Popay
4 day workshop (10-14 July) £140 (£100 Bursary Price)

CARNIVALESQUE EXPERIMENTS
Marisa Carnesky
3 day workshop (16 –18 July) £105 (£75 Bursary Price)

VOICES IN ARCADIA
Simon Thorne & Ingrid von Wantoch Rekowski
3 day workshop (16 –18 July) £105 (£75 Bursary Price)

To book please contact CPR (phone: +44 (0)1970 622133 or email: cprwww@aber.ac.uk) or complete the booking form below and return it by post or email.

More information (click on the filenames to download):
SS2007_Booking_Form.doc

July 7th 2007
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SUMMER SHIFT 2007: MIKE PEARSON


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MIKE PEARSON
7-9 JULY
RAT THEATRE:

1973 – tank tops, flares, Player’s No. 6, Mackeson, Bowie…

A great year too for RAT Theatre: Hunchback, Blindfold – tours of Yugoslavia, Italy and France; performances at the World Theatre Festival in Nancy and The Mickery in Amsterdam. Outrageous, excessive, naïve, swaggering, committed to the moment.
In celebration of the work of one of the most physical theatre groups in the UK and in memory of recently deceased company members, Mike Pearson leads a three-day intensive workshop on RAT Theatre’s bio-mechanic exercises and processes of devising. The work will be physically arduous and emotionally demanding but also deeply rewarding; the intention is to create a short group performance for public showing.

Do these ‘old skool’ techniques still have currency?

Can their re-engagement evoke something of the spirit of the times, rekindling hopes for great happenings? Or are they from a period of theatre so distant now that it might as well be on another planet?

Come prepared to find out!

Mike Pearson is Professor of Performance Studies at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. He was a founder member of RAT Theatre and later in the 1970s he was Artistic Director of Cardiff Laboratory Theatre, and latterly Director of Brith Gof Theatre Company. Pearson has been working with Mike Brookes since 1997 in the Pearson/Brookes Collective. He is co-author of ‘Theatre/Archaeology’ (Routledge 2004) and, most recently, author of ‘In Comes I’ (Exeter University Press 2006).

July 7th 2007
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SUMMER SHIFT 2007: RIC JERROM & BRIAN POPAY (NATURAL THEATRE)


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RIC JERROM AND BRIAN POPAY(NATURAL THEATRE)
10-14 JULY
(2.pm 10th July – 1.pm 14th July)
ALL THE WORLD’S A PLAYGROUND: INTERACTIVE THEATRE
AS PLAYFULNESS IN PUBLIC SPACE

Ric Jerrom is one of the leading performers and directors with the UK’s greatest interactive comedy theatre ensemble, Natural Theatre Company (www.naturaltheatre.co.uk/). Brian Popay is a founder member and now Senior Performer with the Company. NTC has been pushing at the boundaries of what is possible in public space for over 30 years, in the UK and all around the world; it is not fanciful to see them as original instigators of the modern, massively burgeoning, "Street Arts" movement. Central to their "Street Work" is the idea that public space is everybody's theatre: it follows that, in a strong sense, all this work is 'Site-Specific.

The workshop will be based on the unconventional performance style(s) of the Natural Theatre Company. After a short illustrated lecture participants will investigate turning ideas into Art, Art into actions, entertainment and engagement. As a group you will pursue the achievement of impact through diverse means. In particular, looking at the geography of performance in public spaces and how ‘place’ can call a piece of theatre into being. There will be an emphasis too, on such aspects of Interactive Theatre as gender; number; visual content; and character. Think “Happenings” and bring a sense of fun! We shall animate public space where “every rehearsal is a performance, every performance, a rehearsal” performing in a wide-range of non-traditional theatre locations – indoors and out.

Ric Jerrom is an actor, artist and writer; he is an associate of the Natural Theatre Company, for whom he has created, directed and performed Interactive, or “Street” Theatre worldwide, and conducted visionary workshops at the behests of the British Council, the Gulbenkian Foundation, the Soros Foundation, and sundry Universities – and, of course, with CPR! He is Artistic Director of “The Quest” – which marries visual and performative arts in delightful and communitarian ways.

Brian Popay trained as a fine artist. In addition to his work with NTC he has performed with other companies such as Forkbeard Fantasy. He directed Avanti Display's Mr Lucky’s Birthday Party and the Skyscape performance at the Millennium Dome. This year he founded the Fine Artistes performance/art company.

July 7th 2007
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SUMMER SHIFT 2007: GERALDINE PILGRIM


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GERALDINE PILGRIM
7-8 JULY
OBJECTS AND ATMOSPHERES – AN INTRODUCTION:

A two-day introductory workshop that explores creating atmospheres, working with objects and examining the use of space in site-specific performance.

10-14 JULY
OBJECTS AND ATMOSPHERES –DEVISING/SITE-SPECIFIC:

A five-day workshop that examines creating and devising site-specific performance.
Participants will work individually and collaboratively in both exterior and interior sites; exploring devising work through creating atmospheres and environments using objects and ways of developing narratives that are inspired by site.

The workshop is for emerging and experienced practitioners who are interested in exploring, developing and creating site-specific environments as well as creating narrative often non-verbally through working with objects and atmospheres. It is also a development for participants of the two day introductory workshop.

Geraldine Pilgrim is a designer, director and installation artist. She trained as a fine artist; co- founded and became Artistic Director of Hesitate and Demonstrate the influential visual theatre company which toured Britain and mainland Europe and has since been making installations, theatre based performance and large scale site-specific events. She is an Artsadmin Associate Artist and Artistic Director of Corridor, a performance company that she set up in 2000 to create site-specific events, often working with young people, older people and community groups. Recent projects include Deep End, in Marshall Street Baths, Soho; Sea View for NRLA, Glasgow and Spa at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital, Euston. She is currently developing Dreams of a Winter Night, an installation commissioned by English Heritage as part of Picture House at Belsay Hall, Northumberland in 2007.

July 7th 2007
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SUMMER SHIFT 2007: MARISA CARNESKY


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MARISA CARNESKY
16-18 JULY
CARNIVALESQUE EXPERIMENTS: BURLESQUE, MAGIC, CIRCUS AND PERFORMANCE IN PROTEST

Mixing practical and theatrical work, using rare and exciting performance footage and articles, specific props, objects, elements of costume, images and music, Marisa Carnesky will work with participants to enable them to build pieces of devised performance.

Since 2004 when Carnesky premiered her groundbreaking and critically acclaimed multimedia theatrical dark ride 'Carnesky’s Ghost Train' that toured the UK from Bangladeshi Brick Lane, to Glastonbury Festival, to Trafalgar Square, Marisa Carnesky has been much in demand for her thrilling genre defying performances. Drawing on Marisa’s fascination with Victorian melodrama, sideshow freakery and female erotica, creating a dark, fairy-tale atmosphere reminiscent of Angela Carter, Carnesky's Ghost Train was part art installation, part visual theatre and part fairground ride - a purpose-built train whisking audiences 20 at a time through a magical environment of optical illusions and performance vignettes.

'A touring blend of fairground attraction and conceptual art... It has a beauty and elegance we seldom see nowadays.'
The Times on Carnesky’s Ghost Train

'A mixture of tat and exotica with illusion and magic, [it] offers the audience hard truths about centuries of dispossession and displacement... The piece's ragged quirkiness is all part of its power, as is the way that Carnesky presents a startling body of evidence about Europe's invisible people. '
The Guardian on Carnesky’s Ghost Train

"I don't know what I call myself," says Carnesky. "I'm a live artist, I'm an experimental theatre practitioner, I'm a showman. I use myself and my body and work with live people to create images."

Marisa Carnesky originally trained as a dancer at the Laban Centre, London, and at the University of Brighton. She has received a number of awards – Olivier Award Best Entertainment 2004, Edinburgh Festival Herald Angel Award 2005 and Time Out Best Theatre Award 2004. In 2003 she launched the UCLA Live International Theatre Festival in Los Angeles and has also developed a decade-long collaboration with the collective Duckie She has been supported by the Arts Council England, Fierce, It’s Queer up North, Nesta and The European Cultural Foundation to name but a few.

July 7th 2007
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SUMMER SHIFT 2007: SIMON THORNE & INGRID VON WANTOCH REKOWSKI


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SIMON THORNE & INGRID VON WANTOCH REKOWSKI
16-18 JULY
VOICES IN ARCADIA

This workshop explores devising with sound, song, and music to create a kind of mind’s-eye-theatre for the ears that is resonant with the modern world and will also explore how engagement with a particular site location can be retrieved as approaches to soundscape composition. Taking the idea of Arcadia and the nostalgia of Paradise as our point of entry, we will be exploring ideas around the construction of Nature and the emergence of mythologies. What if we take these as raw materials? What stories and narratives can we generate? Taking time to explore the specific location of Hafod near Cwmystwyth, we will be exploring strategies for composing image, music and text that are extracted from site research. We will be exploring strategies for staging sonic performance using our ‘natural’ voices and found sound sources.

Joining Simon Thorne in leading this exploration will be French-German director Ingrid von Wantoch Rekowski, whose Belgian company, Lucilia Caeser, works with the theatricality of choir, polyglot language, and painting to give access to musical forms that in turn give life to archetypes, living pictures and transformational metamorphosis. The text develops beyond words, situations and characters to harmonies, images and choreographic structures instead. The outcome is a unique theatre for the ears – music for the eyes.

The workshop is aimed at theatre practitioners who are interested in exploring notions of sonic performance as well as musicians who are interested in exploring theatre as a compositional tool in relation to musical performance and multi-disciplinary artists who are interested in exploring sonic perfo