Daniel Kitson, Keep, Northern Stage, Newcastle

A full house is presented with a minimal set;

a table,

a chair,

and a lamp illuminating a filing cabinet with numerous drawers

Kitson, in his usual slightly twitchy and awkward fashion, reveals his plan for the evening - a 2 hour show with no interval in which he will share with us the contents of the filing cabinet behind him. He goes on to explain that he conducted a systematic review of the contents of his house, going through each room and cataloguing every item he found. Each item has been written on an individual card and then filed in the cabinet according to the room the item was found in.

We will spend the evening listening to Kitson reading aloud the 20,000 individual cards.

He then offers us a get-out-clause; he will go off stage for a short break allowing us to "leave now if this isn't your idea of a good time, go to the toilet now because if you exit during the performance you will not be readmitted."

After a very long 5 minutes, Kitson re-entered, took out the first drawer from the filing cabinet and began reading aloud;

"A brown plastic plant pot with a plant in it, a brown plastic plant pot, a brown plastic plant pot with a plant in it, a large broom, a small broom..."

You get the picture. 



I begin to think that it is probably a blessing that this didn't turn out to be a date night as planned before my said date became ill. I did however, feel rather concerned that the friend who now joined me may be regretting accepting my offer of a night at the theatre. I genuinely think it is going to be a long and tedious evening. 

As Kitson makes his way through the cards he is quick to discover that there are numerous misplaced items and unexplainable disruptions to his accurate filing system. Inevitably these prompt Kitson to abandon his initial plan and the evening becomes one in which he fumbles through a myriad of seemingly unrelated anecdotes and stories about his failing memory, unreciprocated love and the ups and downs of living alone. 

Over the course of 3 hours (a little longer than expected and by which time I was relieved that I had made use of the facilities before the performance), Kitson takes us on a circular journey, tapping into all manner of emotions, and neatly linking the end of his gig with how it started off.

Call him what you will; comedian, storyteller, artist, performer; he does it all, and he does it all very well.

Janice Parker : It's What I Do, Tramway, Glasgow

I was invited to 'It's What I Do', a talk with Janice Parker, an award winning independent choreographer and dance-maker.


It was billed as:

'An examination of practice

An event

Artist, mover, activist, explorer

An investigation, a mapping

A particular process of dance making

30 years, from psychiatric hospitals to main stages


Janice Parker talks to Jo Verrent in lively conversation – questioning, reflecting, interacting, illustrating and laughing. Now what could be better than that?'


I had never seen any of her performances live, and knew little about her, but with a little research it was clear that she is an incredible performer who gives a great deal to what she does and to the people she works with. 

'She creates performance, devises and facilitates performance based projects, is active in dance development, regularly teaches and collaborates with people of all ages and abilities, mentors professional dance artists and organisations, occasionally writes about dance, and performs.

Her work is responsive to context, situation, place and, most importantly, the person.

She works with people of all ages and abilities often mixing the community and the professional dance worlds. Much of her current work is in collaboration with disabled performers. She is committed to bringing the work of disabled artists to more prominence and has created a rich body of collaborative work. Her choreography might easily involve a hundred or more performers in large scale works, or be an intimate solo portraits focusing on the voice of a single performer.

She creates live performance, movement for theatre, dance for camera, cross media installation, lectures and text. Her art-work is fundamentally an intervention. She is an artist interested in context and placement and in the outcomes of collaborative and socially engaged practice.'

http://www.janiceparker.co.uk/

Expecting to walk into a room with a group of chairs facing a couple of chairs, positioned ready for an artist talk, I was surprised by the reality. I was greeted by Parker, who pointed out the coat stands and encouraged me to 'talk to my neighbour'. Looking around the room, it became clear that most people knew each other, and knew Janice, and it became like a social gathering of friends. A chronological archive of Janice Parker's projects and work was presented on number of tables lined along the back wall. Parker then announced that we had 15 minutes to explore the archive. Items included scripts, newspaper cuttings, promotional material for the works, and letters of thanks to Janice from people who had participated in one of her workshops.


Once the 15 minutes had elapsed, we were instructed to gather around Janice and Jo Verrent for a 20 minute discussion about Parker's work. As I knew very little about Parker's work, I was disappointed that the projects/works were not described or explained, and so it was difficult to follow what was being talked about. I was pleased that some short video clips of different performances were shown, giving a sense of the movement that is central to her work. The still images that had been shown before did not do this.


When the alarm sounded after 20 minutes, Parker explained that the final part to the evening was an opportunity for us to write down our thoughts on her work, and what it was to be part of it. I felt cheated; I had paid for a ticket to get an incite into the work of Janice Parker, but was treated as though I already knew about the work. I think it was a case of misrepresenting or mis-advertising the event. It should have been described as some kind of participatory group discussion about Parker's work for those who have either participated in her workshops and projects, or those who have encountered her work before. In this case, it would seem a little unfair to have to pay to be part of the feedback group.

Although I was disappointed by the event itself, it is quite clear that Janice Parker is an incredible woman who does some amazing projects that have a real impact on the people involved and the audience.

Mick Peter: Pyramid Selling at Tramway, Glasgow

Pyramid Selling, Mick Peter's current solo exhibition of sculptures at Tramway, Glasgow,   "draws on a number of sources, including those of literature, commercial illustration and graphic design. Mimicking the tropes of ‘witty’ graphic design from the 60’s and 70’s, the exhibition takes a satirical look at the role of the individual against the backdrop of industry and labour (the making of his exhibition at Tramway included)."

The sculptures resemble quick hand drawn sketches that have been transformed into large three-dimensional forms. 

Peter sets a scene, rather like a theatrical stage or retail space. In one part of the gallery, the human sized characters are working towards the exhibition, moving around pieces that form a pyramid structure. Meanwhile, a man, who appears to be a boss, monitors their performance, tracking their sales charts.

On the other side of the gallery, a number of large-scale zips pose on the completed pyramid.

Peter's installation commands the incredibly challenging gallery of Tramway 2, a space that has been, and continues to be many things, from a tram shed, to a museum of transport, and for this exhibition, a kind of theatre / retail space.

http://www.tramway.org/events/Pages/Pyramid-Selling.aspx
http://www.mickpeter.com

Winter Solstice at The Lit and Phil

Mariam Rezaei is the current Composer in Residence at the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle, and has been working with ZENDEH, an organisation led by Artistic Director Nazli Tabatabai-Khatambakhsh that produces high quality cross art form productions with creative engagement programmes that are culturally eclectic, unforgettable and attract new audiences.

ZENDEH is a Farsi word meaning ALIVE, and the organisation adopts an approach that listens, breathes and transforms. It values creative collaboration, sharing and the imagination.

 

Inspired by Shab-e Yalda, the Persian Winter Solstice, ZENDEH held a Winter Soltice event at the Lit and Phil consisting of poetry readings, storytelling, workshops, art, music and theatre.

I went along to help out and participate in the evenings happenings.

ZENDEH's next production, CINEMA, was at the core of the event with the artists and musicians responding to the tragic event of August 1978 in which 422 people died in a fire that happened in Cinema Rex, Iran.

I took part in a workshop ran by multi-disciplinary musician and new media artist Sean Cotterill. We made primitive synthesisers producing different tones and then used these musical devices in a performance. We were given a graph depicting the population statistics of Abadan, which we interpreted as a musical score, and over a period of 5 minutes we made a range of sounds with the synthesisers. As the population rose, the tendency was for us to make our devices louder and more intense.

www.seancotterill.com

Yvette Hawkins presented an installation of cut-out paper scenes illuminated in the dark and quiet downstairs library. http://www.yvettehawkins.co.uk/

Christopher Younger invited visitors to interact with, and add to his three-screened artwork.

www.cyounger-paintings.co.uk

The evening ended with poetry readings that were read from the balconies overlooking the library.

Bearing in mind that I will be participating in a small group exhibition in the Lit and Phil in March, I was interested to discover the audience that attended the event, and was surprised to find that the majority had never been in the Lit and Phil before, but following this special occasion, they certainly intend to return.

85A at The Clyde Amphitheatre

For one night only, Glasgow Film presented a cinematic performance, where artist collective 85A – aided by musicians, circus performers, artists and filmmakers – took the audience on an adventurous voyage.

"85A are a tight-knit brood of multidisciplinary artists. With their own crossover brand of visual art, music and performance, and with 15 provocative shows since 2008, they have been establishing themselves as Glasgow's most irreverent cultural agitators. They are consolidated in their belief that work ought to reveal itself by non-conformist means: an ongoing theme being the presentation of art projects in disused buildings, forgotten spaces, and the ‘sideways’ of man’s environment…… allowing the viewer to be confronted by an alternative, hidden pathway leading through the glistening alleys of experimental-experience."

People at The Clyde Amphitheatre were invited to take part in THE HUNT FOR THE RATTUS ORLOVA, a fictionalised film shoot of an unbelievable, larger-than-life tale of an abandoned Russian cruise liner that was drifting eerily towards Scotland. Crewed only by a slew of rats and a stalwart captain, the ghost ship was the inspiration for a colossal set, docked along side Custom House Quay.

The audience was instructed to provide the sound effects (including seagulls, seals clapping and rats squeaking) throughout the fictionalised film shooting. The stage was a huge wooden ship, with an inbuilt stage to house a live band. Props were all handmade, and had a very specific, black and white DIY aesthetic.

The ‘Cargo, Camera...ACTION!’ show happened five times over the course of the day, with a different band setting the musical stage each time. 

As day turned to evening, the ship was transformed into a stunning open air cinema, with the area where the bands played becoming a projection screen. 

Four special artist commissions were screened; Games by Torsten Lauschmann consisted of archive footage with the theme of gaming and competition, Chris Leslie's film The Last of the Govan Cranes investigated Govan's shipbuilding history, Seawards the Great Ships was the first Scottish film to win an Oscar, and documents the process of creating a ship, Matter Fisher's animation told the story of a fisherman who discovered a curious ball of stuff. 

The setting for these screenings was ideal, particularly for The Last of the Govan Cranes and Seawards the Great Ships.

I had never seen the amphitheatre used for anything other than a hang-out space for scaters and Glasgow youths, so it was wonderful to experience it being used for its original function, and I really hope that more of these kind of events are scheduled.

http://www.glasgow2014.com/news/features/cargo-cameraaction

http://85a.org.uk/info.html