Launched in 2009 by ArtsLab artists David Buckley, Sam Dalley and Tim Spencer, the ArtsLab blog features the work in progress of the ArtsLab artists in residence at Shopfront Contemporary Arts & Performance
This is the place for all artists to engage in some creative banter. Raise questions, leave inspirational thoughts, follow the artistic process and perhaps be inspired to create
ArtsLab10 artists – in- residence were Alice Cooper, Aslam Abdus-samad, Clara MacDermott, Sime Knezevic and Sybella Stevens. Follow their ArtsLab journey through their individual posts. Watch this space to see where they go next…
The last thing I ate last night before going to bed, was rather aptly, a toasted piece of mountain bread with nutella. Yes, I thought I would be sick of it too, but alas I think I am more in love with it than ever before. (For those of you who didn’t see/smell the show- I have a moment where my clown covers her entire body in nutella then attempts to lick it all off when she realises it tastes like chocolate).
I will write some notes in the days/week to come about the process and the performance experience, but for now I just wanted to say thank you so much to everyone who came to see the season of work. It was lovely to play to such a packed house every night and be geared on by such a supportive crowd.
Also, a huge merci bien a’ Michael, Saskia, TJ, Eddi, Nerrida and Tom- we truly, truly, truly could not have done it without you all. Thank you from the bottom of my nutella coated heart.
It takes time. I’m reminded all the time, but mostly by myself, that it takes time.
Which means having to mediate my own desires for immediate success, or success full stop, having to re-envisage my time frames, having to postpone, work harder, let things go, or re-orient. Mostly having to admit when I’ve got it, but being willing to know when I haven’t.
To borrow and re contextualise the famous quote from The Princess Bride – “Anyone that says differently is selling something”.
It also helps me to ask… what else would I be doing? Walking to the shops? Drinking coffee? Chatting with friends? Earning money? And then?
When I was eighteen I discussed not going to University with my boss – who was also an early mentor for me. I told him I didn’t want to waste my time, cause University took three years, at least. He replied by asking how old I was going to be in three years – pointing out that no matter what, in three years I would be twenty one either with or without a degree. The question then arose… what would I want to have done by the time I was twenty one…? When I was twenty one, what kind of life would I want to look back on?
I’ve always thought, since then, at how amazingly different time spend looks from before and from after a project.
Five short works flirt with the banal, the fantastic, the mundane, the dream-world and the everyday. Contemporary story-telling meets clowning, Irish love songs get a burlesque twist, dance makes passionate love to new media, gaps in time cut open a typical office space and friendships are tested to difficult limits.
So I had a rather exciting discovery on Wednesday night (yes, even more so than my last post’s discovery). I am actually a clown on a stage. There is no house. It is just me, a clown, who has stumbled (or been beamed onto it- haven’t quite decided that yet) onto an abandoned stage where there happens to be an audience. And this audience have clearly come to see a show. So a show I will give them, using whatever I can find lying around. And so now I have a safe space to play and I’m a much happier little clown this Friday.
So this week I have been thinking, and moving, about a basic question one encounters when making theatre: why am I on stage and who are the audience in relation to the performer/s (in this case me). It’s seemingly simple, as all complex things seem to be. So I am a clown. Yes. I am alice performing as a clown. Yes. The audience is there and expect something of me, both from me, alice, and (as I am wearing a red nose), my clown. Ok, that much is clear. I have been exploring an idea, not too far remote from Aslam (in content rather than style), how do you ‘show’ nothingness, or emptiness, a lack. I want to now begin the piece with my no identity- an impossible task in itself I know for x, y, z reasons but at least to start with s little as possible. So, I thought for a moment this would mean I begin my show in the nude. Continue reading ‘Finding out how I get on stage’
I have become so diluted in you. No one else has ever made me feel so whole. When you are away from me, even for just an hour, I just want to become a hermit, because nobody else is worth connecting to.
