A Bad Hand, Folding: A Live Rehearsal

A Bad Hand, Folding: A Live Rehearsal

Featuring versions by:
Faye Green & Beth Ramsay
Giles Bailey
Paul Becker & Francesco Pedraglio

Music by Dawn Bothwell.

Last night I went to the Culture Lab for A Bad Hand, Folding: A Live Rehearsal. I did not know what to expect, and the event was like nothing else I have ever experienced.

It was like sitting in on a practice session as the group tested out different ideas, sometimes stopping in the middle of some spoken word, other times waiting until the end of a section in order to have a chat about what was working/not working.

It made me question the role of the audience. We were not acknowledged, except at the start when they explained that this was not something that they had finished, and therefore that we should be patient with them. Were we there to give them an idea of what it would be like to have an audience? At times I wondered whether some of the performers were off-put by having an audience there, and them having to critique their own performance.

It was really interesting to spectate, what seemed to me to be a kind of critique session for a spoken word performance. As this is not my area of practice, I learned a lot about what they thought was not working within the performance, and different ways they could change and approach their work.

It would be fascinating to see the final outcome, and see how far it has moved on since the rehearsal.