In The Rough Mix

by Ruth Barker, 14 Jan 2010

Hello all,

Apologies for my late posting first of all. I’m doing a project in Edinburgh just now, and have had some technical difficulties regarding internet access, which slowed me up a little. Back online now though, and lots of thoughts to share. Also plenty of new 2010 events to add to the listing – some great things coming up – so do have a browse to see if any of them are near you.

The project I’m doing is called Rough Mix, and is based at Dance Base – a fantastic new building right in the heart of the city. It’s so central in fact, that I can see the castle walls rising up above me through the glass skylight in the rehearsal studio I’m working in.

Rough Mix is devised and curated by Nick Bone of Magnetic North, who brings together focussed groups of practitioners – all of whom are working with Live practice in some way – for fairly intensive 2 week residency periods.

There are 5 of us:
Linda McLean (playwright),
Ian Spink (choreographer),
Catriona MacInnes (film-maker), along with Nick (Magnetic North’s artistic director), and myself (performance artist).

We are also lucky enough to be working with performers Catherine Gillard, Veronica Leer, Kirstin Murray, Michael Sherin and David Walshe; emerging theatre director Harry Wilson; and Shaun Bell, an arts journalism student who is documenting the project through written observation.

As a group of 12, we are spending every morning working on a technique called Viewpoints, which teaches us strategies to consider the body in relation to Space, Shape, Time, Emotion, Movement, and Story. Sheila, our tutor, is able to suggest very subtle ideas in a way that renders them wholly understandable but still very complex.

Personally I’m finding the work by turns mystifying, exhilarating, enlightening, and exhausting! It’s been quite a while since I was a student, so the act of spending every day learning so intensively has been a real privilege, but also genuinely tiring. It is amazing how great the cross-overs are though. I’m the only person not from a theatrical tradition, so at first I was quite intimidated and worried about being very out of my depth. My confidence has really increased, however, as I’ve increasingly felt part of the group, and realised that everyone else is learning from each other, too.

The first day we spent learning largely about Space or, to put it perhaps into language I’m more familiar with, Context. Because we were really talking about how things (people, objects) can be understood in relation to other things. Of course anyone can see how this relates directly to ideas of site specific practice and public work. But it was great to be able to examine these ideas from a slightly different perspective, and learn about how another discipline might negotiate them.

The other massive cross-over, and the one I wanted to finish on, was the idea of communication. This is something that has come up time and time again: how can we make our ideas, our intentions, our thoughts and feelings, intelligible to another? Clearly it’s a question for artists as well as for theatrical practitioners, and a fascinating one at that. Is there a single answer? Personally, I don’t think so, but I guess I’d always steer back to that idea of context, or place. What was that about it being ‘Half the Work’?

Anyway, lots to think about, but (as ever) more later.
R