25.2.10

lui bolin




just look at
lui bolin's work

just look at it

amazing


22.2.10

every little hurts


wonderclub






Last week I went to see an interactive play at the wonderclub in stokes croft.
It was a lovely night, full of brilliant set designs, dramatic lighting and some top notch acting skills.
The play went by the name of 'the lamentable tragedy'
"an extraordinary site specific performance. We make exciting interactive promenade theatre, bringing to life installation art from some of Bristol's leading artists we merge theatre, music and performance art tied together by a narrative that allows you, the audience to find, play with and gossip about."

this kind of unique experience is something i love to get my teeth into ever since i saw a version of Edgar Allen Poe's 'masque of the red death' at the battersea arts centre a couple of years ago. This play was perhaps the most amazing theatre experience i have ever had. The atmosphere was electric- with every member of the audience wearing a plain white grotesque mask, and after a visit to the tailors, a black velvet cloak to match. The music was intense and constantly building making you chase each character around the set, through wardrobes, out of fire places, visiting each room more than once and finding it changed, the action having moved on to another space. It was fantastic.

in close competition was fuerzabruta an intense piece of interactive theatre at the round house in london. The audience spent the entire night watching around them and above them as characters emerged form within us and stages moved around the space. this was accentuated by a constantly running man on a conveyor belt in the centre of the room, coupled with foil walls dropping down around us and people rushing sideways, swooshing and banging against the wall. The water was something i never expected. but it made the night unforgettable.
watch this video on the website to get an idea of the intense experience.

well done wonderclub for such a good show last week.


pictures: fuezabruta and masque of the red death.

10.2.10

7.2.10

storytime





the story of the beast.

the beast came into our lives four years ago when jungen and gregor traveled to the forest to find something to carry us to our dream destinations... They searched for many days, and many times they feared they would fail their appointed task and return to the coombe with heavy hearts and empty hands.

Then one day, they went to an olde hamlet near the dean, that goes by the name of glowscester. Here they found, nestled amongst the trees, a yard, owned by the kindest, most friendliest forest dwellers they did ever come upon. the dwellers took a shine to the two travelers, took stock of their tasks and offered them a creature so vast, it was perhaps the only vehicle possible that could carry so many heady souls to pastures green and new.

jungen and gregor followed the happy foresters to a small pen out of the back of the ramshackle old yard house, and there they saw it.... the beast.

Immediately the two city rouges took stock of the thing, checked it over, touched its cold clammy sides and decided that yes. the beast was exactly what the coombe needed, not only for this journey, but also for the other deeds that may come in the following years. They understood she was reaching an older age and she had had difficulties at times, but they offered something the beast had never dreamed of in her old age- love, purpose and a family to look after her.

the beast came to be loved by the two young travelers and all that rested upon her belly with an open heart and tired toes. She ferryed them over seas, through sand, rain, snow, sleet and sparkling sunsets that seemed as though they would never end. She took a new life of her own, deciding when she liked a place or hastened her pace to move on to find a new spot to explore, snug and safe in the knowledge that when the time did come... she would be transported to an open meadow near the place of thorns and rocks where the men stood wide with arms bred for lifting weight high.

but of all her dreams, she realised she could not give back enough money nor silver to the beauty of unconditional love she felt for those who had released her from her graveyard of doom and returned her to the magic touch of the road.


Ne'er a beast did ever turn a heart so full of stone to golden dust as the best beast of all.

wake up

Now i am aware that this film is a love or hate situation.

but Linklater's 'Waking Life' made me feel differently about philosophy.
It made me realise it is something very relevant and real and applicable to our every day selves bumbling along in our moments joined up by the beautiful and boring and mundane.

The intensity of the conversations held within this film blew me away. of course i understand that the content can be seen as pretentious and over the top... bringing too much together too fast... kind of like a montage of different views of what is happening around us right now. but i found myself reaching for a pen and paper to scribble notes and pause for thought when my brain caught up with the wavering images.

It tells the story of a young man lucid dreaming.
He is contastantly having 'false awakenings' believing that he is waking up, but ultimately he just keeps waking up into another dream throughout the whole film.

road in It captured so entirely the idea of the 'the human spirit refusing to submit' for me that a friend and i coined the term for our own lives. now we have 'waking life' conversations and moments of our own. I remember so vividly a moment of such when sat outside a greasy spoon cafe on lewesbrighton. just me and rhi, our reflections in the window beside us, a cold winter day with hot chocolate and warm apple pie, talking about how incredibly important the people are in our lives who transcend the normal and become spectacular. We caught each others smiles and suddenly a murmeration of starlings silently emerged from behind her head in the bright winter sky and we both watched quietly until they left our sight.

If you haven't seen any other of Linklater's films.. i highly recommend 'slacker' for those who are of the 80's/90's teenage generations. you have got to love the apathy captured so brilliantly in the characters and their bad fashion statements shuffling through the wide streets of america. clerks eat your heart out.
...and if your a raging emo nostaligic romantic like me... you have to take some time to watch 'before sunrise' and 'before sunset'. absolute gems for those dreamers out there.
The couple also feature in waking life as the couple in bed discussing the idea of 'observing your own life from the outside'.

i've just been trawling through clips to out up here from waking life and its reeeally difficult to chose one. but i think this will do for now. the simplest can be the most effective.
enjoy.


4.2.10

girlishness

I physically wanted to stand up in my room, on my bed and applaud this woman at the end of this talk that i have just had the pleasure of watching.

If you have ever seen the stage show of; read the script of; or seen a film adaptation of;
the vagina monologues,
i doubt if you could disagree with me...

Two christmas's ago, I went to see the Vagina Monologues with some good friends of mine. We settled down in a cold, beautifully decked out church-come-theatre in st.pauls, Bristol. And i listened to a series of monologues from varied women talking about their lives and relationships, and most importantly- their vagina's.
Eve Ensler interviewed over 200 women about their experiences with sexuality and the results are wide and varied.
I have never thought I would take so much pleasure in watching a girl scream her orgasms repeatedly on stage- each like a snowflake; different from the next. As a woman, (and i am sure also for many men) i found the experience indescribably uplifting... with each testimonial being so incredibly personal and unique, perhaps slow at first for some... but each so interesting and well performed it was difficult not to be moved to tears through both laughter and sadness.

when the audience was asked,
"who in this room has been a victim of/
has a family member who has been victim to/
a friend who has been victim to:
domestic violence...
please stand".

Suffice to say there were empty seats galore.


Eve Ensler is an important woman.
From just one viewing of her talk i feel completely empowered.
Which is a shadow of the spring in my strut following my night at the theatre two years ago...

watch this and see for yourself.