Sunday 25 April 2010

Musings on life and The Woods

Over the last two weeks I've been doing some work on The Woods with Louise Platt and Graeme Rose. I want to make some headway on the shape of the piece before coming back to work with the performers in August/September to make the finished show. One of the things I really miss from not being in The Other Way Works are the conversations in preparation to devising - it seems that my brain needs conversations to go that extra mile.

Anyway thanks to Graeme and Lou for some productive sessions and for listening to me jabbering and being able to jabber back.

Here is a bit of what I've found:

I started making The Woods around the same time I left The Other Way Works. During the last two years my sister has married, my Grandma has died, I have started making my own work with other artists, and four friends have had babies - it has been a time of things passing as well as renewal. And thanks to realising this I think I'm finally discovering the heart of the show: It's about losing something and letting it go - about the death of something and how to live with it not being there anymore.
It may sound kind of gloomy, but my take on it is that there's beauty as well as sadness to existence, and I hope the performance can touch on aspects of both. Remember the Golden syrup tin with the dead lion and bees "out of the strong came forth sweetness" - you get the picture?

Here is my manifesto for The Woods:

We want the audience to be a crowd, a force, and to feel like they matter.
We want to make an enticing installation that can be explored in the daytime as well as holding the night-time performance.
We want to develop the role of the performers as presenters of the action.
We want to be influenced by the savagery of Arcade Fire and Nick Cave's Murder Ballads.
We want the directness of Brecht and the tenderness of Jane Campion.

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