Anon

Comments:
No comments for this photo...
 

Launch Night

Launch Night : 21 January 2005, Square Chapel Arts Centre, Halifax

This chaotic and contemplative evening welcomed the Square Chapel’s largest ever audience for contemporary theatre. Since then several TREASURE HUNTS and a couple of SIDESHOWS – as well as numerous residencies and workshops – have been undertaken around the UK.

The ICD collaborates with exceptional musicians, performers, dancers, builders, clowns, designers, thinkers and do-ers. It functions through consent and counterpoint in the world (or given context), in order to illuminate, extrapolate and create imagery, action, understanding and questioning of the world / context in which it is creating.

The ICD is a devising process. It started with the notion of PERSUASION, the use of basic building materials and an urge to create participatory / active work where the whole audience becomes fully engaged in the process - without singling out or humiliating anyone...


Keywords :

devising / contemplation / chaos / counterpoint / musicality / choreography / raw materials (emotional, physical, intellectual, building) / absurdity / surrealism / dada / physical / precarious balance of multiple forces / people / connections / choreography / cartography / start gently / love / play / chance / extravaganza


Motivation :

To connect – to engage – to play – to multiply


Trajectory :

To chart the lines – make maps – devise openly through the world – relishing... a carto-choreographic cultural procession through carnival, masquerade and devising performance / art.

If you scroll further down this section you will be able to see the jumble of ideas and speculations that have brought us to this point. We are in a constant state of production and evaluation – and always ready for further thought or input from others... Please get in touch!

Last Updated : ( 09 January 2007 )


Interim Statement

Interim Statement : Brollies, Water, Fire & Boiler Suits

  1. Brollies, water, fire & boiler suits
  2. Elements under scrutiny in the musicality
  3. Through the musicality of the TREASURE HUNT COUNTERPOINT / mis-en-scene / RHYTHM / detail / PACE / clarity / SPEED / composition / DYNAMICS / texture / FOCUS / punctuation / accent

Meaning :
Can only be defined & experienced by those present in the moment? Becomes clarified only as it becomes / unfolds ( folding, re-folding, re-doubling... repeating? )

Last Updated : ( 30 October 2006 )


Construction

Technical Theatre & Web Bar Construction

These elements of the project are in conversation, development work is underway, plans and possibilities are being considered.

This period is also encompassing the re-structuring of Leikin Loppu to allow the Institute for Crazy Dancing to proceed as a stand-alone organisation. The extra special website with interactive discursive virtually physical possibilities is under discussion with a platform player...

The design and construction of special props and mechanicals: including glass screens and cones, mechanical furniture / objects, umbrellas, masks and banners is all in conversation. The oven ( a Baby Belling ) has already been purchased and operated...

The technical and IT elements of the project will continue to underscore the live work...

Last Updated : ( 30 October 2006 )


Conversations (Part 4)

Associated Conversations :  Funny Stupid Sad / Join Our Club

  1. When :  March 2005
  2. Where :  Scarborough, NSDF05
  3. With :  60 Participants / Audience +300

This work involved 3 two hour workshops with assorted students at the National Student Drama Festival. Boiler suit explorations into the outside world were undertaken.

Last Updated : ( 30 October 2006 )


Conversations (Part 3)

Associated Conversations :  Have No Fear In Our House

  1. When : February 2005
  2. Where : University of Hull, Scarborough School of Arts
  3. With : 27 Participants: 1st year Performance Studies students / Audience 150

This work pursued the work of the School of Athens, playing in a realm of personal obsessions and egalitarian devising structures to produce a work of image-based poetic theatre.
The work was much appreciated by audience and staff at the Department open day.

The students found the work challenging, exciting and confidence-building.

Last Updated : ( 30 October 2006 )


Conversations (Part 2)

Associated Conversations :  Anyone can be an artist...?

  1. When :  January 2005
  2. Where :  Arts Council England, Yorkshire / Artistic Practice Seminar
  3. With :  16 Participants
  4. Who :  Elizabeth Besbrode / Rebecca Bramwell / Beth Cassani / Tiago Gamboghi / Stevie Goodwin / Isaac Heywood / Jason Hird / Bettina Muss Jensen / Ben Lea / Tanushka Marah / Matt Marks / Dan Mossman / Claire Thacker

Institute for Crazy Dancing biscuit baking greeted the participants as they arrived at a seminar to discuss the notion "anyone can be an artist". After coats and opening conversations, it was proposed that everyone put on boiler suits and venture into the outside world, whilst the biscuits baked. After sparklers and playing outside for 15 minutes, all returned to eat biscuits and discuss the notion. ( In "real life" the boiler suits are used for cleaning jobs, forensic and police investigations, and other tasks requiring protection during active searching / cleansing. They are protective and liberating. They encourage play. They are like a neutral mask for the body. They conceal and reveal... )

I thought this might be an interesting state to promote in such a seminar.

Start gently...

Last Updated : ( 30 October 2006 )


Conversation (Part 1)

Conversation Part 1 : "Goodbye Elford Place"

  1. When : October / November 2004
  2. Where : Thomas Danby Further Education College, Leeds. Undertaken and performed at St Aidens Church Hall, Elford place, LS8
  3. With : 20 participants: 1st year HND Performing Arts students. / Audience: 75

Worked On :
Developing the ensemble with a strong focus on the individual, and drawing from materials of Part 1. Looking at pursuing personal obsessions in an egalitarian devising framework. Testing principles of process / practice where all participants are equal in the generation of the work. Pursuing a choreographic image-based theatre engaging with the obsessive, absurd and surreal.

> One image / accident brings a title to the "associated conversations" : The School of Athens, due to compositional similarities to the painting by Raphael of the same title. This also links tentatively to the Italian Theatre Company: Societas Raffaello Sanzio ? currently creating an exceptional body of work across Europe. <

Last Updated : ( 30 October 2006 )


Persuasion (Part 3)

Persuasion ( Part 3 ) – Trying To Get People Talking About The Work

  1. When :  January 2005
  2. Where :  Square Chapel, Halifax
  3. With :  150 Audience / 1 Performance / 13 Performers / Musicians / DJ / Artists
  4. Who :  Elizabeth Besbrode / Rebecca Bramwell / Beth Cassani / Tiago Gamboghi / Stevie Goodwin / Isaac Heywood / Jason Hird / Bettina Muss Jensen / Ben Lea / Tanushka Marah / Matt Marks / Dan Mossman / Claire Thacker

Intensify working process and contributors, expand the scale, create a launch party: adopting, trying, transforming and utilising principles, material and form from Parts 1 & 2 in an experiment with MUSICALITY.

> Aim :  To create a launch party, for the Institute for Crazy Dancing... Some kind of participatory, performative, musical chaos to celebrate the development of this foundling Institute... Maybe a market place with elements of performance and participation... To begin to craft a community of crazy dancers – To generate further discussion and engagement in the process of Persuasion. <

Last Updated : ( 30 October 2006 )


Persuasion (Part 2)

Persuasion Part 2 :  November 2004

  1. When :  November 2004
  2. Where :  Yorkshire Dance Centre, Leeds. Streets, bars and clubs in Leeds City centre
  3. With :  500 Audience / 4 Performers / 8 Outings / 1 Choreography
  4. Who :  Rebecca Bramwell / Tiago Gamboghi / Jason Hird / Bettina Muss Jenson

Promoting and advertising the LAUNCH NIGHT ( part3 ) for the Institute for Crazy Dancing... Defining "The I4CD..." ( beginnings ) Utilising props, structures, forms and choreography from Part 1. Proceeding with persuasion to action / engagement in the work. Taking the work from inside the theatre building ( our house ) to the outside – without fear; seeking an audience...

> Broadly, Part 2 created a 13-minute choreography to the Rite of Spring ( recorded, not yet performed ); and engaged in un-announced subversive performance activity in Leeds... <

Last Updated : ( 30 October 2006 )


Persuasion (Phase 1)

Persuasion ( Phase 1 ) - The Institute For Crazy Dancing

...has been founded on shifting sands. It is fluid, emerging, beginning... It is a process, it is a work-in-progress. It is a collection of ideas, images, people, places, movements, shifts, dynamics, aspirations, fantasy, structure, chaos, business, surrealism, accounts, absurdities and flows.

> It is a project in pursuit of PERSUASION through a series of LITTLE CONVERSATIONS :  discussions, devisings, activities, performances, seminars, situations, movements and twists. <

The following notes chart the development of "The Institutes" researches ( aka :  little conversations ) to date.

Start gently...

Last Updated : ( 30 October 2006 )


Little Conversations

Persuasion ( Phase 1 ) - A Long-Term Speculation


1.  Little Conversations  -  Archive?
2.  The Conceptual Ball
3.  The Institute For Crazy Dancing


Introduction :
From the preparatory draft plans through to final proposals, one paragraph regarding the "Little Conversations" has sustained a place in the process:

>  The conversations will take place with many people of all persuasions. There will be gossip, tittle-tattle, profundity and laughter; there will be discussion, debate, music and dancing – possibly the odd song or two; deals will be brokered and broken. Steadily and incrementally a concept, text and strategy will be drafted  <

This sense of development and pursuit continues to fuel...  The Institute For Crazy Dancing

Last Updated : ( 30 October 2006 )