'On Our Terms'

From the 30th of May to the 11th of June, the Vital Spaces Company is touring an interactive performance piece titled On Our Terms around Devon.

Visiting various schools, youth clubs, and county offices, the hour-long show blends workshop and physical theatre to create a the VSC's unique blend of a resonant and vivid show with dialogic outcomes.

The audience ranges from invited members of Devon County Council, to various youth club groups, to school classes and administrators.

Aiming to open up dialogue around what the 'youth' represent and how they can have a voice in society, the piece veers away from traditional issues-based Applied Theatre and manages to look almost like a real performance - studded with poignant moments of conversation and honesty for its blended audience.

Drawing on work by companies like Sojourn Theatre (Portland, Oregon), the aesthetic represents the final outcomes of two years of research, and is a launching pad for future work in partnership with local authorities and youth organisations.

Public Transit Sightings

Vital Spaces Company has been riding the train.

November has seen two invisible performances - one in Exeter city centre's bus system and the other on First Great Western's commuter train from Exeter to Newton Abbot.

The process and workshop development of these performances involved the company's usual method of extended riffing. We spent about four studio sessions in developing the devised material - some of which was recycled from other work being done by company members.

The process began with a simple 'nothing's too crazy' brainstorm session - the products of which can be seen here:

barbershop quartet
karaoke machine
sponanteous tour led by strange guide
pulling faces across a crowded carriage
strangers rendezvous
sponanteous romance
dressing up as stereotypical 'youths' but reading Hamlet or War and Peace
shadow puppetry in the aisle
reverse panhandling: giving away spare change
vending unusual objects - lucky dip
free hug tshirts
playing frisbee in the carriage
simple but interesting conversation in public - epic story, too intimate, etc.
mobile phones and uncomfortable public intimacy
genuine wizard belief - being in Harry Potter
pyjamas, teddies, sleep time
slow motion
quintuplets - all in babygrows
nativity scene
caroling
impromptu massage
sing songs - take requests
busking, instrumental music randomly played
blast classical music from a boombox
conga in the aisle

From this no-holds-barred place, we narrowed the options down to a core 5 which we felt had dramatic potential, could be effectively (aesthetically) actualised, and which would 'do the job'. The goal was the subvert expectations about how young people perform identity in public spaces. The method was an invisible, grounded, subtle performance which would leave people unaware they'd just witnessed a fiction.

We rehearsed and finalised our five pieces:
Fictional mobile phone conversations (solo pieces)
Two 'unusual' conversations (duo pieces)
Impromptu serenade (duo musical piece)
Going to Wizarding School (ensemble piece)

These pieces were finally developed into a series of fluid and adjustable sequences, and performed. Scenes from the train performance are shown in the short film below.

To see the film in full-screen and better quality, click here.

Work continues...

On Wednesday and Friday of last week, two groups of young people from the Torbay area came down to the Torre Abbey Green and painted 'their Torbay' onto the public art wall. Accompanied by some amazing youth workers (thanks Alanna, Dave and Gemma!) and full of enthusiasm, they have made this project into something really special.

Some of the pieces have light touch - depictions of football players and of the balloon rising up over the English Riviera. There's a painting of a fisherman catching line-caught bass. There's a piece which appears to be a picture-postcard of the Riviera, but when you look closely into the palm tree, you can see that words like 'teenage pregnancy' and 'stereotypes' are written on the leaves. There's a picture of a human form, and inside of it is music. That's 'their Torbay'.

Extended Cloister on Torre Abbey Green

All this week... workshops with young people from Hele Village and Torquay. Where are the news stories about this?

How can a paper print two weeks worth of negative press, and put out a call for local artists to be utilised and then disrespectfully ignore those same hard-working local artists when they are out doing good work? It's always easier to whinge than it is to walk your talk...

Or praise good work.

I say - well done. Well done to the youth centres, to the mural artists, to all who have been involved from the council, to all who's creative and open minds make public art like this possible. That's the article that should have been written.

What's that Toni Morrison quote?

"If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it."
— Toni Morrison

BBC Blast

Mark and Sarah Bell ran a workshop for BBC Blast in Paignton on Saturday. The young people's artwork is already up on the mural! It's not just the speed at which they're working, but also the goodwill and cheerful can-do attitude that they've brought to the work. Many thanks to some talented artists, committed citizens and 'yes' people.