A light through the Night - video documentation

Performing as part of the Karavan Ensemble, White Night 30 Oct 2010.

If you imagine that during the actual shows, there was far more contrast between the blacked-out space and the points of light in it (we had some ambient lighting for the camera). Then watch the video :)

Performing as part of Karavan Ensemble

Photo: Dan Childs

at Inhabit, Brighton Dome

Sat 4 December

11am - 4pm

Free

For one day only Brighton Dome can be seen from an entirely new perspective; local artists, writers and performers have responded to the normally hidden parts of this Grade I listed building to create installations, interventions and mini performances to reveal the building's hidden corners and best kept secrets.

Tours will take place on Saturday 4th December at various times throughout the day from 11am to 4pm.

Artists involved in the project include:

The Karavan Ensemble, Banbazi, Prodigal Theatre's Urban Playground Team Artichoke.

A Light through the Night

The show with The Karavan Ensemble on Saturday went well, I loved making the work, being directed, working in a group and performing! Had lovely feedback from audience afterwards (and a mention on the Guardian blog, below), generally people seem to have really got something out of it. Great turn up as well, pretty much full house all of the 4 performances we did during the White Night.

The work is very different from my solo practice, definitely more dancey, much more theatrical, more storytelling like - although fragmented - more 'poetic' and with a visual language which i can only describe as ... don't know, a bit vintage perhaps, quite like illustrations in a book of dark fairy tales?

It was fascinating to be in someone else's creative vision, an element of their focused process - we made the piece in 5 days - five performers on stage, one outside, one musician - artistically directed by Yael Karavan. I have taken part in Yael's workshops and classes at Coachwerks in Brighton before, and done the graphic design for her company. Working together towards a performance was the first time though. Enjoyed it! Found it challenging the first few days, before i found some sort of space within the group, who are all used to working with each other since crating 'Ship of Fools' a show for the Brighton fringe 2010.

Yael's process with us often made me think of painting an image, a sort of live 3d landscape using different strokes, colours, elements and textures .. and then swatching everything around, several times, and definitely improvising a lot, grab ideas immediately, making them into elements of the show - Marion's heart-light-outfit for example...

All of the improvisations which led to the content of the show were based on a few straightforward ideas: household lamps collected from local homes in a blacked out space, and use of sound and text both recored and live.

All photos by Dan Childs

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review from The Guardian blog

"Next, Karavan Ensemble took us on an anarchic journey out of town to the venue Coachwerks, inadvertently recreating the uniquely unrestrained atmosphere of a nightbus. The mood swiftly became meditative, however, when we arrived and watched an avant-garde dance in which women with the long gowns and opiated stares of Edgar Allan Poe heroines performed with a series of household lamps donated by locals and salvaged from skips – anglepoises, standard lamps, LEDs. Sometimes they cradled the lights as if they were infants; sometimes they brandished them like weapons. Dreamlike as well as surreal, it suggested the sort of obsession that strikes in the small hours."

White Night - I'm performing as part of Karavan Ensemble

A Light through the Night.

Saturday 30 October - White Night, Brighton.

The Karavan Ensemble invites you into a nocturnal journey through visual imagery, intimate encounters and absurd realities, inspired by the stories of lights and lamps collected from Hollingdean homes. A site specific live performance & installation artistically directed by Yael Karavan.