One of the writing groups began by showing the performance
pieces they had developed in the previous session. The combined work had a lovely streamlined
wholeness to it. As one group member
said, ‘They are such bizarre stories and the movement brings it to life’. Here is an example of Karrie’s part of the
story.
PAUL
Paul threw back the orange to the crowd. There were
resounding boos from the audience. The group began to perform a song – Love Me
Do. As the song progressed the booing got louder until the band stopped mid
song. They walked off the stage defiantly.
There was no second act. The crowd fell silent. Murmurs and
conversations then ensued. From a small faction of the crowd erupted a chant.
“We want Paul”.... This gradually spread across the arena....
The first group then began the group poetry exercise that the
other group had undertaken the previous week.
All the drafts had something original and interesting to offer and most
were even fairly polished by the time we reached the editing stage! However, the piece they chose to develop was
on a theme all of us living in the modern age know well – tiredness. Compared to the slow stirring of porridge and
other striking images that I won’t spoil by giving away, I think the finished
piece will be a novel take on the subject.
Here are some of the first drafts.
The second group experienced their first foray, of the project, into performance and voice work. We all giggled as we breathed out strange sounds and then began to think about how the two pieces might be performed. They thought in depth about their work, one member even ‘coming out of her shell’, as she put it, and reading out for the first time. I told them that there would be an opportunity to read at the Open Door Exhibition in July and shared with them my own first experiences of reading publicly – how nervous I had been, how much I had loved it, the positive feedback I had received. I explained that I wouldn’t make them perform but that I hoped they would want to join in the process of developing their writing into performance within the sessions. They smiled broadly and agreed.
Becky Cherriman
Before we started tie dying our cotton bags, I showed the group the ironed-up sample pieces we made last time. They were surprised how beautiful they all looked. Everybody was very enthusiastic, and some people brought their own cotton hats and T-shirts. Soon the room was full of strange looking alien creatures.
Because it takes much longer to tie dye big pieces, nobody saw the results of their labour, so on Thursday there will be a lot of beautiful surprises waiting to be unwrapped. Some people were worried about the mess in the studio, so I’ve brought a couple of photographs of famous artist studios, just to show them what a professional mess looks like!!! We’ve got a long way to go yet, but at least we won’t be worrying about the mess!
Milena Dragic
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