Last year we were invited to bring The Woods back to mac as part of their 50th Birthday celebrations in 2012. We originally made it early in 2011 and opened it in the bleak month of February. People loved dropping into the installation to sit and think, to play, to feel a connection to the outside and nature in the dark months.
This year we are opening the installation on the 1st December, in the run up to the festive season, and our performance, which takes place in The Woods opens on 6th December. It is a different performance from last time, and is called The Wake. In 2011 the performance, along with the installation, was called The Woods (which caused some confusion), but it was the leading influence on the making of the installation, and so felt appropriate. We made a beautiful, and at times very hard to watch performance, which cut to the bone, and was described by a reviewer as " a courageous piece - a blast of cold air". He was right. as well as being an important and moving piece it was difficult to make, demanded a lot from the performers and took a lot of emotion from us as a team. The payback of this was to have made something that deeply touched our audiences and genuinely looked at grief and our capacity to deal with it as humans. It was difficult to watch. It was too fragile as a piece (sometimes hitting its peak, sometimes missing). And I'm glad we made it.
In June we decided not to revisit The Woods performance as it was in 2011, but to make something different that is influenced by the beginning of the previous performance. The Wake will be a celebration of the passing year, we will be making an extended eulogy with dynamic input from our audience. It will be a cross between a party, a collaborative live construction of an astounding event and a performance of wonderful musical and poetic brightness.
As you can tell I am very excited. We are working with a great team. The excellent and very funny Francesca Millican-Slater will be hosting our audience, with music by the charismatic singer/musician and theatre maker Sam Fox (of Kindle Theatre) and Ricardo Rocha a wonderful Portuguese musician. As usual Ben Pacey will be providing beautiful lighting and giving his excellent writing and editing skills to the process too. And Barney George will be popping in to give us his astute design advice.
With this team I feel I can get very close to creating a great blend of performance, year review, political comment and carefully crafted collaboration/celebration with our audiences.
As usual for us audience numbers are limited, so book early. See you there from the 6th - 15th December http://www.macarts.co.uk/event/the-wake
