WELCOME TO THE FORTY FOOT

OH YES - Jack B Yeats

It was bank holiday Monday and we thought a trip to the Science Museum was in order but we were only to be disappointed, the Science Museum decided to take the day off - closed for business.
So the National Gallery of Ireland was the next obvious choice around the corner. Overall it was a good afternoon but let's say the art spoke for itself.
I was reminded of my intrigue for the work of Jack B Yeats, a favourite Irish example from art history in secondary school and it was a pleasure to be gently reminded of the vibrancy he captured and the period of time in Irish life that he encapsulated in this work. Also paintings from Mildred Anne Butler proved an interesting find and a painting of the Irish Industrial Exhibition in 1853 has prompted me to find out more about the event.
However the building and environment were a let down. A ridiculous over complicated entry system and issuing of free entry tickets created a barrier to a natural flow into the space. I thought of the rush I get when I entre the turbine hall, at Tate Modern. The entry propels me forward into an anticipation of what I might find and see once I take to the escalators and jump from floor to floor -  immmediatly I am engaged in the environment and ready to be engaged in the work. It was also very disheartening to see a lot of empty cabinets and both the mezzanine and second floor closed. As I looked around at the visitors most of whom were tourists I was saddened to think that our National Gallery were unable to offer more for them to see but I am sure this is a consequence of many factors.
It was also upsetting to see may of the walls marked with double sided sticky tape where once something was mounted, the saddle boards were black and marked from the over use of a dirty mop, the toilets had cracked grouting and stained floors. Every surface in the building seemed to inappropriately chosen for the space, all of which held the dirt and markings of their everyday use. There is a lot to be said for a clean environment, smooth surfaces, good choice of materials and finish.
However the cafe looked bright and airy and the book store seemed comprehensive with a great section for young people. I actually feel pangs of guilt being so critical of the National Gallery but at the moment the building is looking neglected and uncared for, I think simple steps could make a more positive impact on visitors.

PEGGY SHAW - Menopausal Gentleman

Peggy Shaw's book - Menopausal Gentleman: The Solo Performances of Peggy Shaw has been published and it is available to buy - if you are in the states click the title above if you are in Europe click here for a direct link to Amazon to get a copy.

She is a living legend - I feel deeply privileged Peggy is a part of my life and I have programmed and presented some of her work since we first met - Menopausal Gentleman, MUST and SWAGGER. Always grounding, always beautiful and always deeply passionate - her book is a window into the genius of her writing, performative language and her optic on the world. Every fiber of her being is fuelled by a performative presence that is beyond this world.

I first witnessed Peggy perform when she performed a short extract from Menopausal Gentleman as part of an event for Performing Medicine - I was a young trainee producer but my 'producer' instinct sent off fireworks in my programming sensibility when I saw Peggy mingle the crowd and deliver her performance. I had fallen in love - this is the best way I can describe the performances and performers who blow my mind - I knew I wanted to make something happen. It took days for me to pick up the courage to make the call, I had an idea - Peggy to revive Menopausal in full 10 years after she had first performed it. It would be part of 'The End of the World Cabaret' at BAC - she loved the idea and from there it began. Peggy played to a full house, the audience hung on every syllable falling from her lips, every dash of her hand, every howl...later she told me what it felt like to do the show 10 years after it's last performance going from being a woman in her 50's to now a woman in her 60's..the show took new meaning, new life and new strength for her. It was during this time she had begun to collaborate with the Clod Ensemble to make Must and I was able to provide some initial modest support for this emerging project.
Since this time I have witnessed and shared many moments and journeys with Peggy. I have had the privilege of presenting Peggy's work to audiences, other artists and student artists too.

Every theatre maker and writer should own this book.

Obie-award-winning performer and writer Peggy Shaw has been playing her gender-bending performances on Off Broadway, regional, and international stages for three decades. Co-founder of the renowned troupe Split Britches, Shaw has gone on to create memorable solo performances that mix achingly honest introspection with campy humor, reflecting on everything from her Irish-American working-class roots to her aging butch body.
This collection of Shaw's solo performance scripts evokes a 54-year-old grandmother who looks like a 35-year-old man (in her classic Menopausal Gentleman); a mother's ambivalent ministrations to a daughter she treated like a son (in the raw You're Just Like My Father); Shaw's love for her biracial grandson, for whom she models masculinity (in the musically punctuated To My Chagrin); and a mapping of her body's long, bittersweet history (in the lyrical Must: The Inside Story, a collaboration with the UK's Clod Ensemble). The book also includes a selection of Shaw's other classic monologues and an extensive introduction by Jill Dolan, Professor of English and Theater and Dance at Princeton University and the blogger behind The Feminist Spectator website.

LOSING YOU

The world was kind to me when it gave me both of you. Never again will I be loved as you have loved me. In my bones lives the witness and testament to you being here, the swell in my chest a constant reminder of the everyday that has now slipped away.

Welcome To The Forty Foot - ABSOLUT FRINGE FESTIVAL

Last week Absolut Fringe launched their programme to begin on 10th September running until 25th Sept. I am super excited about lots of the work in this year's programme and very proud to be producing Welcome To The Forty Foot - a one woman show by Niamh McCann.
It's a wonderful tale of both the personal and universal experiences of swimming in the Irish sea - read more about it -          


What do you get if you throw yourself into the Irish Sea 365 days of the year? Niamh unearths the compulsion and joy found both in her own personal journey as a ritual swimmer and the voices of the many other women who bathe there. Investigating the effect of the daily dive.


Developed as part of Project Brand New - the work in development first appeared in PBN's The Lively Fall and was then taken on tour by PBN as part of Imagine Ireland to Solas Nua, Washington DC and HERE Arts Centre, NYC. Earlier this year Niamh received a Research and Development/Mentoring Award from the Arts Council's Artist in the Community Scheme managed by Create.

Book Now - http://www.fringefest.com/event/welcome-to-the-forty-foot
                                                                                                              

Tear Down The Walls - UBDTF

Last night saw the launch of the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival with an exciting programme of work ready to hit this city between 25th September - 16th October 2011.
Some of the work is very exciting with a programme of independent German theatre work - A Radical Mind, exceptional Irish theatre work in the form of THEATREclub, Anu Productions, Brokentalkers and some of my own personal favourites from the UK in the shape of 1927 and Kneehigh - both of whom I have produced their work in the past.

But also we have our own offering in the shape of Project Brand New with Tear Down The Walls. Project Brand New in collaboration with Geraldine Pilgrim founder of Hesitate and Demonstrate and Corridor will occupy The Hendron Building, a 1940's Modernist monument in Dublin City Centre.
Artists will be invited to work site specifically and/or site responsively in the building over two days to make a piece of work for the festival audience. A call-out for expressions of interest will be announced soon.

In the meantime public booking will open on 16th August.

LET'S GET BACK TO IT

The original intention behind starting this blog was to devise a tool whereby I remedy the consequence of having a really bad memory. When I say I have a 'bad' memory it is a strange thing, somethings I remember with absolute clarity and other things play through my mind like a super 8 reel - filmic, distilled, just one frame at a time - others get stored in what seems like a very dark cupboard often brought to the fore with optimum speed by someone else's passing recollection of a shared event - revealing to me the memory was there all along but dormant, inactive and tinkering in a place between becoming irretrievable and being ultimately illuminated and vibrant.
The distance in time between the memories don't determine the clarity but instead seem inconsequential to the sequence and order - memories are not stored in my mind in any sort of chronological order.
For example every memory I have of being a child I refer to the time when I was 7, it helps other people if you pin an age to the donkey but to be honest this could mean a recollection from any point within my pre-teenage years.

However the blog was originally intended as a way to chronologically remember events, a reference point from week to week, month to month, year to year etc but there is no accounting for time and the spaces in between - so the conclusion is I must accept that this is how it is meant to be for me. The pattern of my experiences and subsequent memories is not linear, it is a non linear event - I need to sit back and enjoy the flickering resolution of gentle images, fragile chinks of imagery and the space between trying to remember and trying to forget.