NEW STAGES 2010 Festival Schedule (at 24.02.10)

Friday March 5

 

11:00 onwards:

In Cube by Steven Matthews (Foyer, stage@leeds)
Enjoy the view!

Steven Matthews is currently studying for an MA in Performance, Culture and Context at University of Leeds. Previous work: Mainly amateur dramatics work both in York and Leeds. In Leeds with Fulneck Theatre Company in Pudsey, involved in stage productions including
"Travels with My Aunt", "Journey's End" and "Salloon Bar". Steven is a performance artist interested mainly in live art installation performance and experimental theatre.

 

11:00-1:00 Workshop by Geese Theatre (Clothworkers South G11a)
Geese Theatre Company is a team of actors and group workers who present interactive drama and conduct workshops, staff training and consultation within the Criminal Justice System. The company has an international reputation for innovative work with offenders and youth at risk and since 1987 has worked in more than 150 custodial institutions and with 42 probation areas. Andy Watson leads this workshop for students.

 

12:45-1:45 Break

 

1:45 Welcome by Garry Lyons (Stage One)

 

2:00-3:00 From Flipbooks to Features – devising and developing an animation project
Talk by Paul Wells (Stage One)
Professor Paul Wells is Director of the Animation Academy in the School of Art and Design, Loughborough University. His publications include ‘Understanding Animation’, ‘Animation : Genre and Authorship’, ‘Fundamentals of Animation’ ,‘Re-Imagining Animation’ (with Johnny Hardstaff), and his most recent book, ‘The Animated Bestiary’. Wells is also a writer, director and broadcaster, touring globally conducting workshops based on his book ‘Scriptwriting’. He recently wrote and directed a documentary on John Coates, producer of ‘The Yellow Submarine’, and was series consultant for the BBC’s ‘Animation Nation’. He has curated animation programmes and exhibitions, and lectured at festivals, conferences and arts events worldwide.

 

3:00-3:30 The Singer’s Tale by Jessica Walker (Alec Clegg Studio)
The Singer’s Tale is the incredibly sad but true story of the soprano who gained world-wide fame and then lost her voice completely and died. Written and performed by Jessica Walker, this dramatic monologue with sung interruptions takes a satirical, absurdist look at the phenomenon of the talent show star. Who are the real winners – the contestants, or the star-makers?
Jessica is an opera singer who has worked all over Europe, most frequently as a guest artist at Opera North. Her solo show with Opera North, The Girl I Left Behind Me, co-devised by her and director Neil Bartlett, goes on tour from May, starting at the Howard Assembly Room. She is a PhD student at the School of Performance and Cultural Industries, University of Leeds.

 

3:30-3:45 Break

 

3:45-4:45 Desirable Destinations – Careers panel chaired by Iain Bloomfield, Director of Theatre in the Mill, Bradford (Stage One)
Iain Bloomfield is joined by Alison Andrews, Performing Arts Officer for Arts Council England, Yorkshire; Dan Mallaghan of Lost Dog Theatre; Daniel Williamson of Pout Production; and Professor Paul Wells.

 

5:00 Lost by Peter Laycock (Alec Clegg Studio)
Because capacity is limited for this work, it will be performed three times.

‘The story of a man…
A quiet man who thinks loud thoughts’
Told through movement, music, poetic text and video projection, Lost is the intimate and touching story of one man’s struggle to overcome the loss of his love – his soul mate. A prisoner to the tangles of his mind, he searches for a path out of his solitude and basks in the warm glow of the memory of love’s touch.

Movement, text, space and lighting design by Peter Laycock
Movement performed by Sam Kennedy and Peter Laycock
Text performed by Jonathan McPherson
A/V editing by Joe Wood
Music by Arvo Pärt

Presented by Living Story Dance Theatre.With thanks to Steve Ansell, Dr. Fiona Bannon, Alice Clarke, Paul Halgarth, Jessica Rowland and Kathinka Walter. With special thanks to Sam Kennedy.

5:15-6:15 Film narrative and theatre -- Talk by Pete Brooks (Stage One)
Pete Brooks graduated from Leeds University with an MA in English Literature. While a student he won the RSC Buzz Goodbody award for student directors and on the back of this set up Impact Theatre Coop with fellow Leeds University graduates Graeme Miller, Tyrone Huggins, Claire MacDonald and Steve Shill. Impact Theatre Coop was widely recognised as one of the most important experimental performance companies of the 1980's. After its demise he founded Insomniac productions with Claire MacDonald directing and touring productions worldwide. Currently he works as an associated artist with Leeds based Imitating the Dog while also working as course director of the MA in Performance Design and Practice at Central Saint Martin’s. Future projects include further work with Imitating the Dog and directing King Lear at Teatro Nacional de Chile.

 

6:15-7:00 Drinks reception (Foyer)

 

7:00 Lost by Peter Laycock (2nd performance) (Alec Clegg Studio)

 

7:30 Mea Culpa by Jorge Balça (Stage One)

I am not what I was. I was not what I should have been. I did not become what I should have become. I did not keep what I should have kept.

Mea Culpa is a physical/visual exploration of guilt based on Peter Handke’s play Self-Accusation: a stream of actions presented in the past juxtaposed with the rules they break.
As social beings, we are bound by moral, religious, social and ethical rules; the choice to abide by them or to break them, is the individual’s responsibility. Man is alone in these choices and in the responsibilities and consequences these same choices entail.

Using a range of performance tools, Mea Culpa questions not only the origins of guilt but, more importantly, also its possible consequences. Is guilt in itself powerful enough to expiate our deeds or does it lead us inexorably to self-destruction? And is anyone ever able to escape its clutches?

Mea Culpa is a practice-led research project exploring the narrative potential of movement and images on stage.

Performed by Frederick Aarons, Jorge Balça, Laura Deacon, Edward Evans, Helen Kennedy, and Louise Roberts
Musicians: Elias Devetzoglou, violin; Kostas Iacovou, bouzouki; Stavros Stavrinides, acoustic guitar

Directed by: Jorge Balça
Music by: Nektarios Rodosthenous
Choreography by: Peter Laycock & Jorge Balça
Design by: Katerina Papadakou
Assistant Director: Lyndsey Ashton

Additional music: ‘Humoresque’ by Antonín Leopold Dvořák (arr. by Nektarios Rodosthenous); ‘Ne Me Quittes Pas’ by Jacques Brel (arr. by Nektarios Rodosthenous)

Jorge Balça trained as a counter-tenor and actor in Portugal, and performed extensively in Portugal, Spain and France before moving to the UK in 1998, when he started focusing on directing during his BA Performing Arts – Drama at Middlesex University. Since then, Jorge has led a series of workshops and research projects in the areas of physical theatre, interdisciplinary performance and cross-culturalism. Back at Middlesex University, Jorge finished his MA Theatre Directing in 2007, which took him to GITIS (Moscow, Russia) to study Meyerhold and Biomechanics. Directing credits include the critically acclaimed The Bald Soprano by E. Ionesco (Oval House Youth Theatre Company), Don Giovanni …a fashion opera by W.A. Mozart (Goodenough College) The Magic Flute by W.A. Mozart (Goodenough College / Bloomsbury Festival), Tango Finale by M. Corbett (+logo), The Tunnel of Rats by A.N. Rosa (Stonecrabs), Blood on the Cat’s Neck by R.W. Fassbinder (Simmonds Theatre) and The Medium by G.C. Menotti (The Orangery). Jorge works and teaches regularly in the UK and The Netherlands as a stage director, movement director, drama teacher and coach. Future engagements include Sunjata (Vondelpark Openluchtheater) and G. Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore (Dutch National Opera Academy). Currently a full-time PhD candidate at Leeds University’s School of Performance and Cultural Industries leading a practice-led research project exploring the application of movement theatre techniques to opera training and opera production, Jorge’s studies are generously supported by a Portuguese scholarship by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia.

 

9:00 Lost by Peter Laycock (3rd performance) (Alec Clegg Studio)

 

9:30-11:00 Short Cuts introduced by David Shearing (Stage One)

Short Cuts is a platform for artists and academics working within the medium of moving image. This year’s 2010 open submission welcomes a variety of projects in which multiple disciplines converge on film. The intermedial aspect of the screenings makes this a unique and rare chance to experience works that explore different representational languages, such as dance and fine art within a cinematic framework.

This year’s journey takes us across various emotional landscapes including Stacy Abalogun‘s brilliantly directed dance film Cause and Effect, which explores the complexities of emptiness with oneself and the environment, and Pat Hodson, Liz Cashdan and Jessica Rowland’s collaborative project Skagaströnd which is an artistic presentation exploring an old fishing port in Iceland’s desolate and rich terrain. Other experimental highlights include David Shearing’s multi-image presentation Lines of Flight and Robin Kiteley’s Carbon Dating Angels whose intense and precise movement vocabulary explores the archive of x-ray films in an intriguing, yet impenetrable and ritualistic choreography.

 

This year’s programme:
(In no particular order)

 

Cause and Effect by Stacy Abalogun
The work investigates the complexities of emptiness with oneself and the environment, looking at the relationships of the characters and the ambiguities that develop through fragmented narrative. Using the 1999 film American Beauty as a starting point from which the artist has extracted fragmented sections exposing suggestive relationships.
www.flatfeetdance.co.uk

 

Lines of Flight by David Shearing
Lines of Flight is a short experimental film exploring the relationship between the body and the city. The film explores notions of simultaneity and explores multiple visual and sensual aspects involved in how we understand and make sense of an environment. The form of Lines of Flight is presented over three parallel screens that operate horizontally as a single horizon but uniquely separate and individual, allowing the audience to take flight of their own personal journey within the piece.
www.davidshearing.com

 

Sandman by Sarah Ellis, Performance by Duncan Marwick
A run on the beach turns into a nightmare when a woman’s past finally catches up with her.
With its tongue placed firmly in its cheek, Sandman takes us on a journey into one woman’s buried past, a place where only she is welcome, returning time and again to the scene of her crime. Amusing and disconcerting in equal measure, Sandman plays both as a horror and black comedy, revisiting the old battlefield of good vs evil but with a twist – who’s the good guy and who’s bad?
Sandman is available to purchase on IndieFlix (www.indieflix.com) after receiving a warm reception in Cannes last year.

…yours frankly by Briony Marston

…yours frankly takes a private view of relationships. Framed in a domestic setting and accompanied by a painful soundtrack this dance film explores notions of control and self-sacrifice.

 

Skagaströnd by Pat Hodson, Liz Cashdan and Jessica Rowland
Is a multi layered sequence of still images, word and sound, a collaborative response to the shore, sea, people and the old fishing port in the north of Iceland. Visuals by Pat Hodson, Words by Liz Cashdan and Sound by Jessica Rowland.
www.artinthefreezer.co.uk

 

x3 by Vicky Hunter
One dancer, three locations. This film explores the body-site relationship in site-specific choreographic practice. The film emerged from Vicky Hunter's PhD investigation exploring the choreographer-site relationship in site-specific dance making (completed Dec 2009).

 

Overslept by Jeremy Gee
After a night out, Dan awakes in an unfamiliar bedroom and has to make his way to safety through a house where everything is not quite as it seems.
www.sillyrabbit.co.uk

 

Handstand Speech by Mish Weaver
Hand stand artist Natalie Reckert endures a ludicrously long handstand, while vocalising the images that flow through her mind as both physical sensations and personal pictures. Originally performed as a live performance within ‘An evening of instability’ 2008.
www.stumbledancecircus.com

 

Carbon Dating Angels by Robin Kiteley
The idea of Carbon Dating Angels suggests a search for origin, and by extension meaning or truth, in that which is beyond the realms of scientific enquiry. This piece appropriates the controlled and precise movement vocabularly of archive x-ray films in an intriguing, yet impenetrable, ritual of choreographed movement.
2009 Official Jury Best Film Award - InShadow: 1st International Festival of Video, Performance and Technology - Portugal

Brown Paper Bag Box & Static by Alice Bradshaw
Static (2009)
The remains of a hole-punched text The Rocks Remain in constant motion.
Best in Urban Ideas Award Toronto Urban Film Festival 2009

Brown Paper Bag Box (2008)
Box, made from a brown paper bag, animated.
www.alicebradshaw.co.uk