Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Pina Bausch
Surely the choreographer Pina Bausch, who died today, was one of the most important artists working in any field during the last thirty years.
I defy anyone to come up with a cogent argument against this statement.
Pina Bausch has always been star by which Stan's Cafe has charted its course across the seas. Though the death of such a star is a just cause for mourn the joy of stars is that they shine so brightly and from so far away that their light continues to reach us long after they are gone. We shall continue to be guided by Pina Bausch, for us she will always be there.
James
Link
I defy anyone to come up with a cogent argument against this statement.
Pina Bausch has always been star by which Stan's Cafe has charted its course across the seas. Though the death of such a star is a just cause for mourn the joy of stars is that they shine so brightly and from so far away that their light continues to reach us long after they are gone. We shall continue to be guided by Pina Bausch, for us she will always be there.
James
Link
Saturday, June 06, 2009
The Last Week
Monday: A small team of operatives descended on Montgomery School in Sparkbrook and had a really fun time letting teachers lose on Stop Frame Animation, Podcasting Kit, Fruit and Veg City Raw materials and inevitably, rice as people. They seemed to enjoy it all.
Tuesday: Mostly just meetings and e-mails and avoiding doing the intimidating jobs.
Wednesday: A meeting with Terry Grimley from Birmingham Post over at Warwick Arts Centre, which should lead to a piece in next Wednesday's paper. Then Craig and I polished Spy Steps up a bit. Including adding "New York, Moscow, Bejing, Coventry" under the four big clocks they have lined up in the foyer – I've got to post a picture of this at some point as Simon left demanding photographic evidence that we would carry out his last request.
Thursday: A trip to Leciester to sort out a major collaboration with a school over there. It's looking good. Much stop-frame action this term before a more significant collaboration next year.
Friday: Unpacking a shipping container, moving a seating bank, clearing up a load of stuff from the space, marking out a ludicrously ambitious Scalextric track, fit together and test the first six pieces.
Saturday: A bit obsessive drag family over to space to fit and test a few more lengths of scale. Get a text to look in the Guardian Guide where Lynn Gardner has kindly done a preview for Spy Steps and said nice things about the company along the way.
Tonight we start celebrating Craig's 40th Birthday.
James
Link
Tuesday: Mostly just meetings and e-mails and avoiding doing the intimidating jobs.
Wednesday: A meeting with Terry Grimley from Birmingham Post over at Warwick Arts Centre, which should lead to a piece in next Wednesday's paper. Then Craig and I polished Spy Steps up a bit. Including adding "New York, Moscow, Bejing, Coventry" under the four big clocks they have lined up in the foyer – I've got to post a picture of this at some point as Simon left demanding photographic evidence that we would carry out his last request.
Thursday: A trip to Leciester to sort out a major collaboration with a school over there. It's looking good. Much stop-frame action this term before a more significant collaboration next year.
Friday: Unpacking a shipping container, moving a seating bank, clearing up a load of stuff from the space, marking out a ludicrously ambitious Scalextric track, fit together and test the first six pieces.
Saturday: A bit obsessive drag family over to space to fit and test a few more lengths of scale. Get a text to look in the Guardian Guide where Lynn Gardner has kindly done a preview for Spy Steps and said nice things about the company along the way.
Tonight we start celebrating Craig's 40th Birthday.
James
Link
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Spys Steps is GO.
A seriously long day was worked on Wednesday and at its conclusion Spy Steps was done. There are a few minor details we still want to improve, but it's essentially all done and we're proud of it. Ultimately the get-in consisted of five days prep and one day blitzing Warwick Arts Centre with vinyl. Whilst frantically adhering we were regularly interrupted with questions about the project and congratulations on it. So the feeling is currently pretty good about the piece.
This is the big flash younger brother of Dance Steps, which we made last year. Spy Steps makes full uses of WAC's big expanses of stone floor and plate glass. It revels in it's own on site vinyl cutter and for the well rehearsed, Nina's music makes the whole thing become not just fun, but very exciting indeed (at least I think so and I'm the only one to have experienced it like this so far, which gives us 100% approval rating, maybe we should quit whilst ahead).
Whilst the soundtrack is played each day over the venue's P.A. system at 1 and 6pm the real trick is going to be getting it available online as an MP3 so people can charge around with it on their headphones. Although I have been induced to create a Spy Steps facebook group I have yet to work out how to post the MP3 there for download, which is humiliating and has also prevented me promoting the group to 'all' my 'friends' (are all my 'friends' Electric? let's hope not).
James
This is the big flash younger brother of Dance Steps, which we made last year. Spy Steps makes full uses of WAC's big expanses of stone floor and plate glass. It revels in it's own on site vinyl cutter and for the well rehearsed, Nina's music makes the whole thing become not just fun, but very exciting indeed (at least I think so and I'm the only one to have experienced it like this so far, which gives us 100% approval rating, maybe we should quit whilst ahead).
Whilst the soundtrack is played each day over the venue's P.A. system at 1 and 6pm the real trick is going to be getting it available online as an MP3 so people can charge around with it on their headphones. Although I have been induced to create a Spy Steps facebook group I have yet to work out how to post the MP3 there for download, which is humiliating and has also prevented me promoting the group to 'all' my 'friends' (are all my 'friends' Electric? let's hope not).
James
Monday, May 25, 2009
Penny Dreadful Theatre
Our esteemed collaborator Bernadette Russell, who was part of the devising team for Home Of The Wriggler and The Cleansing Of Constance Brown, has been commissioned to write a piece for the the theatre company Penny Dreadful. The show called Missionary's Position is currently on tour in the UK and will be at The Custard Factory Theatre this Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I'm planning on being there, and recommend it as potentially a good night out. Bernadette's great to work with, she has a strong personal aesthetic and is full of ideas, so I'm keen to hear what the text will be like. Penny Dreadful aren't dreadful at all. I saw their show Bitches Ball in Edinburgh a couple of years ago and it was engaging and well performed, so there we go, that's the plug. Possibly see you there.
James
Link
James
Link
Friday, May 22, 2009
Planning Ahead
As, amidst all its other activity, Stan’s Cafe scrambles to promote 24 Hour Scalextric, which takes place in less than a month time and Spy Steps which opens in less than a week, it was shocking to receive Ex Cathedra’s 2009/10 brochure through the post urging us to book for their Rachmaninoff Vespers concert on Wednesday 23 June NEXT YEAR!
James
Link
James
Link
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Spy Steps: Day 2
Late yesterday afternoon Simon and Craig got the great vinyl cutter sparked up and expertly tamed – it pays to buy expensive kit. Today the three of us paced the whole sequence out, resolving a few glitches and intelligent kinks. I’d had some thoughts on the train, they last night. Nina turned up to talk sound. One of the new innovations for this version of the show is to play a soundtrack through the foyer for the audience/performers to synch their action to. As a consequence a few hours were spent with Nina attempting to imagine how long certain sections of the soundtrack may need to be and when specific spot effects are required. The foyer sound system seems beefy enough and Nina was grinning widely, so it could all sound good.
Simon got his head down to designing a host of new icons for the show whilst Craig and I paced out scenes and bounced text ideas and refinements back and forth until we have most of a script we’re happy with.
It’s all coming together… so far.
James
Simon got his head down to designing a host of new icons for the show whilst Craig and I paced out scenes and bounced text ideas and refinements back and forth until we have most of a script we’re happy with.
It’s all coming together… so far.
James
Labels: spysteps
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Spy Steps: Day 1
Day One proper of the Spy Steps devising/get in: Simon, Craig and I did a day at Warwick Arts Centre a couple of months ago and started to sketch out plans and possibilities, now the serious work begins.
The piece starts to form itself as the only clear logical outcome once a host of competing desires and imperatives are pitted against each other. There are architectural features of the Arts Centre that demand to be used and those place practical constraints on us. There are narrative and choreographic incidents that nominate themselves for a place somewhere within the piece. There are visual ideas, which suggest themselves for inclusion for their own sake but need to be bound into the piece. Our narrative is the algorithm which pulls these variable together to equal Spy Steps.
We have a confident swagger with the ‘Steps Series’ now. With Dance Steps at MAC last year we learnt a bit about how the idea works. Now, at WAC, we have a more open building with larger surfaces to work on. Choosing to make a genre piece has given us a host of existing references to draw on, short-hands audiences will immediately recognise and allow us to be more playful and ambitious. We have improved vinyl handling technique, a better sense of what is possible and, perhaps most importantly, we now have our own vinyl cutter.
It’s a relatively expensive piece of kit but as precision cut vinyl is the show’s primary media it seems like a sensible investment. Previously Simon’s designs have taken a minimum of 24 hours to come back from cutting shop, now we can do our own in minutes. This allows us to be more flexible, ambitious and experimental. We probably only need to do two or three more gigs before the machine has paid for itself and of course in the worst case scenario that we don’t get any more gigs, at least we can improve signage @ A E Harris.
James
The piece starts to form itself as the only clear logical outcome once a host of competing desires and imperatives are pitted against each other. There are architectural features of the Arts Centre that demand to be used and those place practical constraints on us. There are narrative and choreographic incidents that nominate themselves for a place somewhere within the piece. There are visual ideas, which suggest themselves for inclusion for their own sake but need to be bound into the piece. Our narrative is the algorithm which pulls these variable together to equal Spy Steps.
We have a confident swagger with the ‘Steps Series’ now. With Dance Steps at MAC last year we learnt a bit about how the idea works. Now, at WAC, we have a more open building with larger surfaces to work on. Choosing to make a genre piece has given us a host of existing references to draw on, short-hands audiences will immediately recognise and allow us to be more playful and ambitious. We have improved vinyl handling technique, a better sense of what is possible and, perhaps most importantly, we now have our own vinyl cutter.
It’s a relatively expensive piece of kit but as precision cut vinyl is the show’s primary media it seems like a sensible investment. Previously Simon’s designs have taken a minimum of 24 hours to come back from cutting shop, now we can do our own in minutes. This allows us to be more flexible, ambitious and experimental. We probably only need to do two or three more gigs before the machine has paid for itself and of course in the worst case scenario that we don’t get any more gigs, at least we can improve signage @ A E Harris.
James
Labels: spysteps
