Clod Ensemble movement workshop with osteopath Leon Baugh

As an actor and puppeteer with many years of dance classes behind me, I am greatly interested in how and why my body moves the way it does. This is particularly true when it comes to injuries that impede my movement, and how to both deal with them and prevent future injuries.

Recently, I was fortunate enough to take part in a free workshop on the body and how to keep it moving and performing the way we need it to. The workshop was run by osteopath and former dancer Leon Baugh, and aimed at dancers and other performers for whom movement plays a key part of their work.

Leon Baugh working with a client

Leon is a qualified osteopath, Anatomy in Motion practitioner, acupuncturist and sports injury massage therapist working in London. Before training as an osteopath he enjoy a career as a professional contemporary dancer, dancing with companies such as the Hofesh Schechter Company, before becoming an Olivier Award winning theatre choreographer.

On a snowy Sunday in early December I made my way into London (the trains were miraculously running), dressed in my usual movement get-up of leggings and baggy top, armed with a water bottle and notebook. I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but the following seven hours would turn out to be some of the most useful of my career.

Persistent back pain

About nine years ago I injured my back. I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but over a period of several days a pain started to appear in my lower back and grew worse and worse, until one day I couldn’t move without horrendous painful spasms coursing up my spine. I’ve seen physiotherapists, osteopaths and chiropractors. I’ve tried pilates and swimming. Although each of these things gave me some immediate relief, it never lasted (though I can credit the swimming with improving my mobility and getting me walking again). After two weeks the intense pain had settled down to a persistent dull ache, and I was able to move about more or less as I had done before, with one exception – fear. The pain and immobility had been so terrifying, that ever since then I never made any sort of bending movement without an element of fear that it would happen again.

In more recent years I have injured the cartilage in my left knee playing badminton, and also feel niggles in my right. Perhaps lower back and knee problems are not the best recipe for a life as a puppeteer, but I think it can have some advantages, in that it makes me more aware of how I need to look after and protect my body when I’m working.

I’ve often wondered if the knee issues could be directly related to the original back injury, and through Leon’s workshop I discovered that this could very much be the case. I learnt how, when we suffer an injury, our body adjusts its centre to cope with this. However, long after the injury itself has healed, the body can continue to perceive this off-kilter centre as its true centre. This leaves us with a greatly reduced amount of mobility. Could my body have readjusted its centre when I hurt my back, and when it didn’t revert back to its true centre once my back had healed, could this off-kilter centre have put extra strain on my left knee, making it more susceptible to injury?

Listening to the body

Leon took us through several exercises to tune into our bodies and become aware of any trouble spots. Alongside my work in the theatre I work in communications at a university, which involves sitting at a computer for most of the day. Recently I’ve been very aware of how I’ve almost tuned out my body as I jostle the crowds in the tube, cram onto the train, or sit for hours staring at my computer screen. Leon’s workshop reminded me to listen when my body speaks, and to actively ask it how it’s feeling by taking the time to tune in.

Leon Baugh

Most of the other participants at the workshop were professional dancers, but the majority of what we covered could be directly applied to working as a puppeteer or other kind of movement practitioner. The warm-ups Leon took us through will be particularly useful, following the basic principle of preparing your body for the work ahead by doing a lower-intensity version of that same activity (for example, if you’re going to be jumping lots in a rehearsal then it makes sense to prepare your knees by doing bends and low-impact jumps). One revelation was to not always bend knees over toes when warming up (shock horror!). You cannot guarantee that in a rehearsal or performance you will land perfectly every time, so you need to prepare your knees for those times when you don’t.

There is so much useful information I took away from the day that I can’t possibly include it all here or I’ll end up writing a book! Suffice to say, that one workshop alone has changed the way I think about my body and its pain, and I can’t thank Leon and the organisers, Clod Ensemble, enough.

This workshop was organised as part of Reboot, Clod Ensemble’s free artist development programme for emerging and established practitioners. The programme provides a space for performers and performance makers, teachers and academics to explore ideas and develop their practice.

 

Images: courtesy of Leon Baugh

Steal like an artist

So says Austin Kleon’s little black book of advice for creatives. I picked up the New York Times bestseller Steal Like an Artist at the National Gallery bookshop in London a few months back. Fresh out of drama school and wondering what on earth to do next and how to do it, I saw it as a discreetly-packaged self help book for a creative starting out on their career.

‘Steal Like an Artist’ and the follow-up, ‘Show Your Work’

Sitting in the gallery’s espresso bar with a cappuccino and a big slab of carrot cake, I dived in. One of the first comments that resonated with me was that we get to know ourselves through making our work, whether it be writing, acting, singing, dancing, painting, photography, whatever. I think, like many creative people, I’ve had a tendency to feel I can only start making things once I know who I truly am. The notion of discovering myself through my work had never occurred to me before, but once you think like that, it’s surprisingly freeing, and takes the pressure off the outcome of your creative endeavours. This reminds me of one of our mottos from East 15: ‘Curiosity, not ambition’. Now I see it can apply to your whole creative life, not just each individual project.

Along with ‘marry well’, ‘keep a praise file’ and ‘choose what to leave out’, the book includes one of the most striking and relevant phrases I have read about pursuing a creative career: ‘Enjoy your obscurity while it lasts. Use it.’

One piece of advice Austin gives is to ‘write a blog post about someone’s work that you admire and link to their site’, so here I am doing just that. I think it’s a fantastic little book. You may think some of the tips in there are obvious, but if they’re that obvious, why aren’t we doing them? Sometimes we just need someone to write these things down and put them in a book, and thankfully Austin has done just that.

One Good Man scratch performance

I recently had the pleasure of working with a bunch of super-talented and very lovely actors on a project called One Good Man, a piece of devised theatre about protest. Directed by Eloise Lally and Rosa Manzi Reid (of RIAN Dance), the project involved a cast of ten actors, including fellow E15ers Carol Ellis and Dimitris Chimonas.

The work included a mixture of movement and text-based scenes, and involved the input of the whole ensemble in suggesting ideas for devising work, although it was guided and shaped by Eloise and Rosa. Writers Tom Mair and Jack Flanagan penned some of the scenes, exploring different types of protest and what it means to different groups of people.

Along with myself, the cast included: Carol Ellis, Sheetal Kapoor, Greta Wray, Amy Leighton, Suzy Whitefield, Georgina Periam, Kate Austen, Luke Anthony and Dimitris Chimonas.

Research for the project included cast members bringing in protest art and verbatim text, and retelling our own experiences. I joined the project after its initial stage of research and development, as rehearsals were about to start. One piece I brought in, a verbatim account by my sister of the student protests in London several years ago, made it into the scratch performance. She spoke of how her experience of the protest was completely peaceful, yet social media was going bezerk with mentions of smoke bombs and rioting. I remember texting her that day as soon as I saw the reports on the news, checking she was ok and asking her to get the hell out of there. My favourite comment from her account really struck a chord:

The tweets made me realise how negative and easily led people can be. How lies can run round the world before the truth has even got its boots on.

Earlier this month we gave a scratch performance of One Good Man at The Place in London, in a studio belonging to the London Contemporary Dance School. An audience of invited industry professionals provided feedback, which we are hoping to take on board in the future development of this piece.

I loved working collaboratively in this way and with this group of people. With East 15 and Mountview graduates, amongst others, we brought different perspectives into the room, which enriched the process and the resulting work. I can’t wait to get back into the studio.

NCTJ Production Journalism exam

Last Thursday I took my NCTJ Production Journalism exam. I’m studying for the NCTJ Diploma via distance learning, and after putting my studying on hold while at drama school, I recently decided to pick up where I left off. The Production Journalism unit is one of my two optional units, the other being Business of Magazines, and it teaches you the principles and practice of sub-editing.

As a distance learning student living in Putney, I sat my exam at the nearest centre offering that unit, which was Lambeth College. The exam lasted 2 1/2 hours, which I thought would drag terribly, but once I’d got stuck in to the tasks it flew by and I had to step up my rather relaxed pace in order to give myself some checking everything over time at the end!

While I was preparing for the exam I re-familiarised myself with Indesign by creating some mock magazine spreads. You can see one of the pages I created above, using text from previous blog posts. Unfortunately you can’t see the edges of the page in the jpeg, so it looks like there’s a hell of a lot of white space!

Considerations when creating this spread included:

Fonts/typography: I used a serif font for the main headings and subheadings and a sans serif font for the main body text. I think a sans serif font is easier to read for features, though many magazines do use a serif font for the main body text and sans serif for the headings.

Use of colour: I chose one of the colours in the image (the girl’s cropped trousers) and tried to find a colour similar to this for the main title, subheadings and pull-out quotes. I also used the same colour but knocked back to about 40 per cent for the border around the review. By doing this I hoped to create a theme for the colours so they worked in harmony across the spread.

Breaking up the page: The unit teaches you the importance of breaking up a page to keep the reader’s interest, so I tried to do this by using pull-out quotes, subheadings, placing the image appropriately and laying out the review slightly differently to the main article (placing a white text box on to a coloured box and laying the text out in just one column rather than two).

My practice spread has a very clean and simple layout, which I do like to see in magazines, but I have also come across some rather busy-looking spreads that I love, mainly because of the harmony of the colours, beautiful designs and illustrations, and the skill of the sub in ensuring everything is still clear.

Below are some of my favourite magazines in terms of layout and design (click on the name of each to go to their respective websites – unfortunately the websites don’t always give you a good idea of the hard copy magazines so I would of course encourage you to pick up a printed copy if you can):

Oh Comely magazine

Aesthetica magazine

Elle Decoration

Little White Lies

Please feel free to comment below and share your favourite magazine layouts!

 

Le Corsaire – ballet at the Mayflower

My review of English National Ballet’s performance of Le Corsaire this week at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton. A true delight. I’m not too happy with the headline though. As the reviewer, we don’t write the headline, and though the subs normally do a fantastic job of picking out a phrase from the piece to use as a headline, they haven’t got this one quite right.

Although I do describe the second act as ‘athletic’ and mention the ‘magical mix of athlete and artist that is the beauty of the ballet dancer’, calling the show a ‘mix of athletics and dancing’ is too simplistic. There were no standalone athletics in the ballet. There were athletic elements to the dancing, but I feel that to separate the two in the headline like this misrepresents the piece.

Still, a wonderful evening and my thanks to The Portsmouth News as always for giving me the opportunity to review such brilliant performances!

 

 

Sunday at The Southsea Show

This weekend saw the return of the Southsea Show, revamped and with a vigorous marketing campaign behind it. Heading down to Southsea Common on Sunday, I had only some idea of the wonders that were in store…

Awesome drummers in the carnival parade

After overcoming the first hurdle of trying to get my wrist band on (which really wasn’t that hard), I managed to walk past the beer tent (a ‘wine tent’ would have been a different story), and make my way to the food stalls. Dan Dan the sausage man was very reasonably priced but the others stretched the purse strings just that bit too far.

We wandered into the various tents, admiring home-made jewellery, discussing the fate of Southsea Pier, and giggling at a dog who ran up to every plant at the Southsea Greenhouse stand, sniffed its flowers then proceeded to cock its leg up to urinate, at which point the horrified owner would yank its lead and pull it away for a second before it found the next unsuspecting plant.

In the corner of one tent I discovered the lovely Steve from Joy to Create, who run textile art workshops in Horndean. Only recently returning to needle craft, I’m on the lookout for some good workshops to help me learn new techniques and different ways of working with fabric. We discussed how to recycle old clothes into a funky new bag and he introduced me to free motion sewing, the skill of, in effect, using a sewing machine to draw. This struck me as particularly impressive, so I can’t wait to sign up for a workshop. I don’t actually have a sewing machine yet, but that’s not a problem as they provide all the materials you need at the workshop, along with a homemade lunch.

Colourful costumes in the carnival parade

Two o’clock marked the start of the carnival parade, so we shuffled our way to a spot with a good view and watched as drumming bands, belly dancers and an assortment of intricate and colourful costumes made their way past. One lady in a beautiful elaborate costume with what looked like huge butterfly wings stood her ground against the wind, by now whipping across the common.

Once the parade had passed we headed over to the outdoor theatre area to see my friend the beautiful and talented Leigh Cunningham and co-star perform a rehearsed reading of a scene from One Off Productions’ Present Laughter, by Noel Coward. Both actors fared admirably against the booming music coming from various other tents around them. With mic in one hand and script in the other, they still managed to transport us into the world of the play, and I watched on in delight.

Me and the Boxmouth dragon

After another wander round the tents, this time admiring the handiwork of Tinder Theatre’s cardboard dragon for their new show Boxmouth, we returned to the theatre area via the donkey enclosure, me deliberating whether it was possible to sneak a donkey out past the security guards and keep it for a pet. Common sense prevailed, along with the thought of what the RSPCA would have to say about my plan, and we left the adorable creatures munching grass while the next group of children were hoisted into the saddles.

The next show was The ‘Ouses in Between, a Cop The Needle Music Hall-style performance about the ‘Father of Southsea’, architect Thomas Ellis Owen. Jamie Aspden, Nathalie Gunn and Patric Howe harmonised perfectly and played the comedic touches with perfection. It was a lovely fun piece, and the three performers looked completely at home entertaining an audience.

Sadly I left before the circus show that closed the weekend’s festivities, but the afternoon I’d spent at The Southsea Show had already proven well worth the £8 ticket price. Ways to improve it next year? A discount if you buy a ticket for both the Saturday and Sunday. Oh, and a free glass of wine on entry. Okay, maybe not the last one. It is a family show, after all!

6,000 miles away part 3: Bye

Photo: Bill Cooper

The piece we had admittedly all been waiting for, Guillem’s solo Bye, arrived at last. Choreographed by Mats Ek and set to Beethoven’s last piano sonata, the piece was a delight to watch.

Mats Ek is not only a choreographer, but has also staged productions of various plays in his native Sweden. A former stage director and ballet dancer, he has become a guest choreographer for many of the leading companies in the world. His style is known for conveying the feelings and emotions behind a storyline rather than just the narrative itself.

This style is beautifully apparent in Bye. The choreography bounced from flowing arms and legs to clunky child-like movements, channeling joy mixed with discovery. Guillem’s exuberance and energy filled the stage as she leapt and bounded about, belying her 48 years. This looked like a woman rediscovering freedom, breaking free from the confines of her daily life and revisiting that childlike joy of dancing just for the sheer pleasure of it.

As first the cardigan and then the shoes and socks were removed, I sensed the carefree abandonment of youth, like when you strip off your socks and skip across the slippery stones to paddle in the icy cold river, knowing you’re late for dinner and will surely get a telling off, but just wanting to feel the water run between your toes.

The staging of the piece included a screen the size of a doorway, on which we were first met with Guillem’s eye looking around at us all before the face pulled back. The projected video footage showed Guillem trying to figure her way out to us, a human leg unfolding from around the side as the film Guillem stuck a leg out beyond the parameters of the screen. This use of film in harmony with the physical, tangible dancer delighted the audience.

The ending of the solo saw Guillem put back on the cardigan, socks and shoes and return to the world of the screen, where a curious crowd had by now gathered to watch her dancing antics. As she returned from whence she came, the people seemed accepting and the crowd dispersed as they presumably went back to their daily business. It conjured in my mind images of village life, where everyone knows your business and leaping through the fields would most definitely draw a crowd. Once returned to the flock and what is considered as ‘normal’ behaviour, the interest wanes and you return to routine… until the next time you venture out without your shoes and socks on!

6,000 miles away part 2: Rearray

The second piece of the evening, Rearray, was choreographed by the internationally renowned choreographer William Forsythe. A former dancer with the Joffrey Ballet, Forsythe was director of Ballet Frankfurt for 20 years before founding The Forsythe Company. He is an Honorary Fellow at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance, holds an Honorary Doctorate from Juilliard, and has pioneered new approaches to dance documentation, education and research.

Photo: Bill Cooper

Despite the brilliant Sylvie Guillem dancing in this piece, I have to say it was my least favourite of the three. The music, by David Morrow, was discordant and jarring and made me feel strangely uncomfortable. There was one particular note whose high pitch physically hurt my ears, and brewed within me a sense of violence that put me on edge and filled my muscles with the urge to lash out. That said, a friend sitting next to me enjoyed the piece, and said he could detect a pattern within the music so the discord no longer seemed apparent.

I can see how the music set the mood for the choreography, which was brilliant. Massimo Murro partnered Guillem with strength and grace, the two dancers complementing each other in their physicality and lean, flowing arms and legs. I got a feeling of a disjointed relationship, of two people not quite on the same page – perhaps wanting to be, and at times achieving this with beautiful moments of harmonious choreography, two bodies reaching an elegant symmetry, but then falling away to their individual rhythms.

The choreography was firmly rooted in a classical training, but at parts it would veer off to something more abstract than I was accustomed to, which really opened by eyes to the artistic possibilities of contemporary dance. A stalwart of classical ballet, it could be said my preferences are a bit tame!

6,000 miles away part 1: 27’52”

Sylvie Guillem is one of my heroes; a brilliant ballet dancer with seemingly elastic legs who these days excels in contemporary dance. To me, she is dance.

6,000 miles away programme

The chance to see her perform in the flesh as opposed to countless YouTube videos understandably filled me with a giddy glee. That chance arose last weekend. Guillem was performing at Sadler’s Wells in a triple-bill called 6,000 miles away.

The name 6,000 miles away is a bow to the people of Japan who were hit by the tsunami in 2011 while Guillem was working on the piece in London.

However, there was another reason for the name. Sarah Crompton, arts editor and dance critic of the Daily Telegraph, said: “-it sums up her [Guillem’s] belief that you do not have to be physically near someone to admire and like them. This evening is also a tribute to the ties that bind people of like minds.”

I’ve split the review into three parts, one for each piece, in order to do each justice while not prompting a scrolling spree for the reader.

27’52”

The first piece of the evening, 27’52”, the name reflecting the length of the piece in minutes and seconds, was choreographed by Jiří Kylián. Former artistic director of Nederlands Dans Theater and founder of Nederland Dans Theater II, Kylián has received many awards and titles, including the prestigious Commander of the Legion d’honneur from the French government, and the Medal of the Order of the House of Orange from the Netherlands.

The piece was an enthralling opening for the evening. The music, a new composition by Dirk Haubrich, created an eerie sense of unease. Early on in the piece, the voices of people speaking in various different languages slows to a drawl then speeds up as the choreography perfectly matches the changing tempo. The two dancers, Aurélie Cayla and Lukas Timulak, showed immense skill and artistry as they weaved across the stage in a game of push and pull. The choreography was at times jagged and staccato, at times soft and flowing, and suggested a sense of something not quite right in their relationship.

At one point, Cayla lying with her bare back to the audience whilst Timulak seems caught in his own self-absorbing dance downstage, I sensed her vulnerability, and wondered if there was an undercurrent of something more sinister in their relationship. When he returned to her and lead her around she seemed almost reluctant, but after pulling away she would return to him, as if the desire to be free of him could not override the need for his affection.

The ending of the piece, as Timulak disappeared under a black sheet, which was cleverly disguised as part of the stage floor, left me with a great sadness. While he seemed resigned to his fate (death?), Cayla looked confused and tried to find a way out of this fate. But as a third dancer entered the space to hold up the other end of the sheet for her, she solemnly accepted that she too must be enveloped in the darkness.

As the lights came up and the dancers were met with applause, I tried to shake off the sadness that had settled on me. It was mixed with a sense of awe and appreciation of such gifted dancers and such thoughtful and touching choreography.

Rite of Spring signals theatre’s rebirth

As the Rite of Spring reaches its centenary, what better piece to mark the rebirth of a theatre than one so rich with regeneration and the creative power of spring.

Rite of Spring rehearsals

Choreographers across the country are reviving the ballet that caused such controversy with its first performance in 1913, and which some say still holds the power to shock and unnerve. One performance, in a cosy Portsmouth theatre last week, was particularly significant.

Over 100 young musicians and 40 local dancers brought this infamous piece to life. It is perhaps fitting that these were the final notes to fill the auditorium of the New Theatre Royal before it closed its doors for redevelopment. It will reopen in 2014 as a theatre reborn. Just as spring finally comes after the long winter, so the day has finally come, after 40 years of tireless work, when the regeneration of the theatre can finally begin.

Caroline Sharman, Director of New Theatre Royal, says: “the symbolism couldn’t be more apt.”

“To mark the centenary of the composition that totally challenged the music conventions of 1913 and is so rich with expressions of rebirth and regeneration chimes perfectly with our own story of rebirth.”

Construction work began this month as part of a £12 million joint project between the theatre and the University of Portsmouth to restore the backstage area and stage house, increase seating numbers and add much-needed workshop and office space. The theatre currently uses a temporary thrust stage after the original stage, orchestra pit and backstage area were completely destroyed in a fire in 1972.

The rebuild is also set to include a new Creative Learning Space where film, television and drama students from the university can train and perform, and where new practitioners and companies can develop and show their work in a cultural hub at the heart of the city.

Collaboration is key

Last week’s performance of the Rite of Spring was a truly collaborative project, involving the Hampshire County Council’s Music Service, local schools, community dancers and the Hampshire County Youth Orchestra, with the assistance of players from the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

Caroline highlights the importance of creative collaborations like this: “It is only through collaboration that great art can be created and will be sustained. Our collaboration with the University of Portsmouth is enabling us to rethink and restore our theatre, and our partnership with Hampshire County Council’s Music Service enabled a 100-piece youth orchestra and 40 dancers to create such a great event together.”

“Partnerships, in my view, only work if both sides really want it and are prepared to work at it as much as each other. Saturday’s performance was testament to this collaboration’s success.”

Conducted by Carl Clausen, over 100 members of the Hampshire County Youth Orchestra performed the classic score live. A company of local dancers, choreographed by Jamie Roberts of Jam Jar Dance and Donna Bish, brought to life the story of an ancient society deciding which maiden to offer as sacrifice to the gods. The dancers, aged from early teens to mid seventies, came from local schools as well as community dance groups, including the Misspent Youth dance company, Fred and Ginger group, and the Aging Disgracefully dance group.

Students from two local schools worked with Fraser Trainer, an internationally renowned composer whose work has been performed at the BBC Proms, to produce music inspired by Stravinsky’s original score, which they performed on the night. A University of Portsmouth student production team, fondly referred to as ‘Laura’s Angels’, was involved in the costume design and stage management of the project, and also included the assistant creative producer and assistant choreographer.

A shared experience

Lead choreographer Jamie Roberts, of Jam Jar Dance, was keen to involve the local community in the project. “We decided to use community-based artists to make up our cast. Working with school and colleges as well as dance artists and over 50s was imperative to the success of our ‘Rite’. The collaboration between these groups leads to a wider bank of experiences on which to draw in the choreographic process. Using a range of people with a selection of ages provides them with a shared experience that helps bring the community together.”

Jill Larner, Head of Hampshire County Council’s Music Service, can see the benefits for the young people involved, of the different artistic disciplines working together. “It’s rare for the instrumentalists in the orchestra to have dancers there,” she says. “Suddenly the music isn’t just music, it’s being performed in the way it was meant, and the audience has a visual stimulus as well as the sound of the music itself. The dancers added a new dimension for our young musicians, and enabled them to experience the excitement of a different outlook on the music.”

“Equally, most of the dancers are probably used to dancing to a recorded track, so to perform to live music created by a 100-strong orchestra was hopefully a great new experience for them too.”

Looking to the future

So with the final performance of the season over and the doors firmly closed until next year, are the theatre staff confident of this being a success story, where so many regional theatres have failed?

Caroline is mindful of the challenges they face, but optimistic. “I still have much to do to embed our partners into our future plans so as to ensure the theatre’s sustainability. My challenge now is to find the balance between making and touring great shows to attract new audiences, providing a space to experiment as we nurture artistic talent of all ages and, importantly, providing excellent skills development opportunities for our local community. A tall order, but we certainly have the ideal place to offer it and some excellent partnerships already in place, so I feel optimistic too.”

Following on from its sell-out performance at New Theatre Royal on Saturday April 20, the Rite of Spring was performed at Anvil Arts, Basingstoke on Saturday April 27.