Things to do when you're thirty

Every once in a while I get obsessed. I have the make up of a zealot so let's all consider ourselves lucky that I am in no way religious, new wave, politically conservative nor radically active.

For my thirtieth birthday last November I received two gifts in particular that alluded to my obsessive nature. I was given me a turntable and a first pressing of The White Album, coincidentally released exactly 10 years before I was born. My parents gave me a mixmaster. Pastry and LPs ensued.

It seems that last year I was briefly obsessed with blogging - and now in the cold, sober light of the morning I've looked over what happened here and am in amazement and wonder. You were there, and you were there.

I am humbled by what occurred when I flippantly began to publicly rant. When I reconsider the spirit in which this venture was born and the state of mind I am now in, I think I have this little pastime to thank in no small part. I was reengaged with the performance scene in a way that hasn't been the case for years. I had a voice and an opinion that seemed to be held in some regard. And the voice, at least shall continue, comrades. 

Last year during the fringe I had a wonderful, spirited, challenging, honest and generous exchange with Marcel, the director of 'There' which I had every intention of publishing as I believe in a right of reply, but the moment seems to have passed. Marcel will be the first to be invited to review my next work, and I will invite him to published it here. 

I saw a few more things at the end of last year, things which uplifted and confounded me as much as anything else last year, but again, the moment has passed.

Oh, and there was a delightful evening of Throwies.

So, there are many things I am seeing this year. There are many things I am looking forward to seeing. My own work will, at some stage, be a part of the mix.

And if there's anyone still interested out there: ta.  

Review: Scattered Tacks

Scattered Tacks

Performed and Devised by Skye Gellman, Terri Cat Silvertree and Alex Gellman

Festival Hub, Rehearsal Room

Until 11th October

Without wanting to unduly raise your expectations, this is magnificent. I had no expectations going into this, I saw it because a show I was supposed to be seeing was cancelled. And boy, was that fortuitous. 

From the opening I found this to be totally compelling. 

The three performers / devisers work against the performative history of circus to create something weird, silent and non-theatrical in a traditional sense. The minutia of their performances are heightened and sit in the foreground, the tricks receeding and becoming byproducts. Some moments seemed purely voyeuristic - on the one hand you're watching something that is a private moment, on the other a quite incredible trick is pulled off. But the the performer looks straight at you. Not challenging - somehow submissive. And it forces you to reassess your presence. 

And this is their feat, and it is by no means a small one. To reverse the paradigm of traditional circus, to dare you passively not to look. To emphasise the elements normally glossed over. 

Whilst the tricks are excellent, they are not what matters here. And this moves circus into a  newer, more theatrical area, I suppose in that sense it is somewhat aligned with 'Acrobat'.

The experience was that of a series of vignettes and resonant images, lit largely by the harsh, isolated light of head mounted LEDs (and you know how I love LEDs), exaggerating the performers' seemingly translucent skin and ethereal, almost over-exposed appearance. 

There are some fantastic moments of the performers forcing your attention to a tiny detail - the sound of a bowling ball that is being rolled around and balanced upon, picked up through an onstage mike held close, or their final trick, only seen by a couple of short flashes of their LEDs.

There is a convention amongst a circus audience to applaud tricks which was quite uncomfortable here. It never really took off and was always quite sparse and self-conscious. In itself, that is a credit to the show - it really is absorbing and the silence that fell on the audience was total, apart from those sporadic moments of obligatory applause. 

I understand the need to applaud, particularly if you have a vocabulary for this kind of performance and understand the degree of skill that the performers are utilising, for me though, this sat more comfortably in the world of theatre than circus. And the applause broke the tension and was too intrusive. It threatens to destroy the strange, delicate little world that these performers had done so well to create. 

This left me quite exhilarated.

Without wanting to sound presumptuous, I would probably go if I were you.

  

Throwies

Whilst many in the great cyber pea-soup post the mischief-work of others, here, my friends, it shall not be. No siree.

The miracle of LED realised at last. What a lot of whimsy these little morsels are.

All you need, dear minion, is: LED lights, batteries, magnets & tape.

My handiwork, yes but not my original idea, mind. Follow the link to GRL's website and to some easy to digest instructions from instructables.
Let throwies abound.