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."

Of Photography at Frascati - Weds performance

flickr

What can I say... some of the things I have said in the last few days are 'never again wi-fi technology in a live performance', 'enough of this demanding, self-gazing persona' and 'unless I have a revelation in Amsterdam I'm done with this show'.

A quiet revelation perhaps, then, my show last night.

Much was down to the audience being great - good numbers, focused yet pretty relaxed they got the swing of things quite easily and I saw several postshow-glow faces afterwards. That, and receiving some lovely and interesting comments afterwards proves it's all worthwhile...

It is a funny thing, this way of performing - rendering myself passive, blind and open while handing over lots of control / responsibility of the audience's own experience of the show back to themselves. I offer myself up, removing my vision and hence my ability to control - and satisfy - the audience based on 'keeping an eye' and responding to them. All i can do is trust that my setup/framing is strong enough, and that people find the set-up motivating enough to engage with it all. Then over to you, my dears.... thank you everyone who came and took part last night.

Comments and feedback very welcome.

Frascati programme...

Theatre Frascati programme for 'Tender Fall' of which 'Of Photography' is part along with other performances and installations.

Love the venue, and their publicity design too.

It seems to be a dutch (Amsterdam?) thing - graphic design is generally more playful than in the UK. 'Unconventional' seem to be the convention... maybe the brits (me included) have the need for cooool and detached... I like this playfulness.

Performing 'Of Photography' - Shunt London

Sunday 17 Oct

'Of Photography' at Shunt Bar, 42-44 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3UD. Free. Doors open 8pm.

This will be the first public showing of the developed version of 'Of Photography', originally created at the beginning of the year and shown at / co-produced by Plateaux Festival.

The current version is prepared for Theatre Frascati, where it's showing next week as part of a triple bill.

Using technology, my body, paper and choreographed movement, I invite the audience to view and take part in a sensory, maybe slightly unsettling take on Spectatorship, Seeing and 'Visual identity'.

The piece's original concept was a reaction towards excessive photography of performances - or any event with some public 'photo-value'. I wanted to ask what responsibility the photographer, or the consumer of images, may have towards their subject matter.

In this version, I have chiefly kept the concept but shifted the 'everyday' minimalism of the original production to a more distinct visual style, choreography and dramaturgy.

Kindly supported by The Nightingale Theatre.

Performing Of Photography - Frascati Amsterdam

I will show Of Photography as part of a Triple Bill in combination with Corbeau by Myriam Gourfink and Moth by Francesca Grilli at Theater Frascati, Amsterdam.

20 - 21 October 2010

More info + tickets

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.

Image in 4 pieces - at September Fresh from the oven

Video documentation of Sara Popowa's 'Image in 4 pieces' at Fresh from the oven at Coachwerks, Brighton, 25 September 2010. Work in development, kindly supported by The Nightingale Theatre, Brighton.

Camera Andy Towers

September's Fresh from the oven, coming up!

OK it may not rain EVERY day this September.... but even if it does, on Saturday the 25th you can warm yourself with baked performances and hot food at Fresh from the oven - Live at Coachwerks!

Exciting acts are coming together... to be announced soon.

See you there!

Image in 4 pieces

Documentation of performance at 'Wall into pieces', Phoenix Gallery Studios, Brighton, 4th Sep 2010.

The following photos were taken during the performance, as part of it, marking the key points of my choreographed actions.

.. See the full performance + images here ..

Performance at Wall into pieces

Wall into pieces Saturday 4 September | 8pm – 2am

at Phoenix Brighton

A large scale art event with an amazing line-up of experimental performances and music documented by a team of writers and photographers to create a magazine in real time.

Curated by Boca2Mouth.

I perform 8.30, 9.30, 10.30, 11.30 in the Red Room, 'image in four parts' (work in progress)

The Red Room will be shared between 4 different artists/groups, each showing a short piece at the same time every hour.

My solo can be viewed both as individual parts and a succession of parts.

Possibly a chain of events, of actions and images where traces of what has happened before becomes part of the scene.

The material is new, still in progress and developed this summer at Nightingale Theatre, Brighton.

[thank u lovely nightingale people!]

Vid from our launch of Fresh from the oven, our event at Coachwerks last month - next one is next week Saturday - 28th Aug!

The launch's involuntary theme of technical melt-down turned into an applauded feature in Tamar's performance, and into a huge element of distress in my own. People seemed to have appreciated what I was doing, but AHhh - the photos which people took of the scene/me through the window, with the cameras mounted to the glass were supposed to be printed out, one by one, reducing the window's cover of photo-paper and gradually revealing what's behind/inside - making a physical transfer of the audience's view (the photo) back to its source (ME!).

Well, the printer died completely after the second print.... and there I was, lost concept and turned into a sort of arty peep-show. All about the flesh as I was covering myself with the (very unprinted) white photo-papers, and in a very bad mood.

Friends tell me to take it as an experience, learn from it - yes what i learned is that I hate making a show which i don't get anything out of apart from stress, and in this case, no, I didn't. I felt objectified and simplified, and contrary to the sort of objectification I would impose on myself as part of the work, this was forced upon me by that one inflexible thing - 'technology'.

Take it to your bosom, make love to it and then get totally stressed out by it when it doesn't work...

print room @ Fresh from the oven

Performance installation made in response to the enclosed, windowed screenprint studio at Coachwerks during our event Fresh from the oven.

Two small cameras were attached to the glass on the outside of the enclosed space. The window was completely covered with blank photo papers (with a sticky back) from the inside and the performer, wearing a paper dress, was inside on the print table with a printer.

The idea was for the audience to use the cameras to 'view' and capture the performer from the outside of the window, the photos taken would immediately be sent to print on the printer next to the performer. She would gradually remove the blank papers from the window, put them through the printer - printing the audience's 'view' of her - and then cover her body in these prints.

But ... the printer broke after the second print... aaaaaah! Instead I just carried on putting the white stickers on me while people took photos through the glass. Not quite what I expected but people seem to have enjoyed in anyway.... Here are some of the photos.