Some documentation from residency at TAO Liverpool

.. see more photos here ..

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.

November Fresh from the oven coming up!

Winter migration? We are migrating Fresh from the oven from Coachwerks, next one on New Year's eve will be at The Nightingale Theatre.

Acts are still being confirmed but there will be some live gems of performance and music, hot food, cosiness, and maybe some balloons!

Hope to see you there. xx

Liverpool day 2

First try-outs in the space, International Gallery today. Armed with thermal leggings and the spirit of being in a new place, we did some improvisation with a score of viewing the camera as a person we have a relation with in real life, making some simple movements repeated in different parts of the space. We were using a soundtrack Tamar had prepared in Brighton with our lovely musician friend Tristan Shorr (also does sound for our project with the Karavan ensemble).

We still have many ideas to try out, and these are only first sketches but we definitely had some beautiful moments and made some starting images. Tomorrow we will make better use of the natural light in the gallery and also try some ideas of mine out working with the live body, paper and movement.

Liverpool day 1

We arrived to TAO Liverpool tonight and it seem none of the darkish forecasts we had before coming here had much power - it feels great to be here, very welcoming, exciting and very abundant space, and several opportunities to show work as it seems :)

We all felt pretty content tonight after checking the spaces out, taking some heart time and pasta dinner.. ready to see what our first real day on this TAO residency, tomorrow, will birth!

Blackbird, pic and artificial grass

All of next week I will be at a residency at TAO (The Arts Organisation) Liverpool, as part of their S.Q.U.A.T programme (part of Liverpool Biennial). I'm going up there with friends Tamar Daly and Marina Tsartsara, both dance/performance artists (or whatever you may call us!) to mash our latest works together and come up with something new, collaborative and exciting for us. We'll be showing the fruits of our labour Sat 13th in the International Gallery.

Latest news are that things at TAO have become more unorganised than we first thought - including zero heating in the gallery space (International Gallery) and not great support from the Biennial - they were apparently keen on bringing TAO in as part of their programme .. but now are not even including them in their publicity?? So apparently numbers are not great but we will do our best! Generally there's a sense of going up there with an open mind and a pair of dungarees (with tools sticking out of the pockets) and thermals, and see where it'll take us. The main thing for me right now is to be working away from Brighton, in a focused mood, with friends and collaborators who I know well.

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.