Elemental rehearsals

Elemental is a new show produced by Family run Cornish Circus Theatre company Incandescence. The show is a 90 minute spectacular, which will be seen at the Gwangyang circus arts festival in South Korea this July/August over the one month run, we will perform the show 40 times.

Incandescence is led by artistic director staya Lapham, who is by the way, totally mega, I dont think she even slept whilst we were on production for this show, not only did she creativly direct the proceedings, but also designed the costumes as well as doing all the buying and much of the making, and practically dreaming the whole thing into reality. Despite being very tired and rushed off her feet, she was chirpy and cheerful throughout (occasionally sneaking off for a quick head in the hands moment) all in all though hats off satya!

Elemental is the story of young Mimi, who after being lovingly put to sleep by her mother, awakes to find herself in a fantasy land, full of flying sea creatures, firey acrobats and paradisical birds, she is led through this unexpected world by her two loving friends RoRo and RuRu, her favourite toys, that have magically come to life in this world of her dreams, all the while carefully watched over by queen Fifi, her adoring mother and also the ruler of this strange land, in which Mimi will spend only one memorable night.

Throughout her travels in this dream world Mimi is introduced to the four elements earth, air, fire and water, represented by a host of otherworldly creatures which sweep her up on the most grand adventure she will ever experience.

To find out more about the wonderful incandescence circus, the Elemental show and it's multitude of spectacular productions see HERE

To find out more about the Gwangyang international circus arts festival see HERE

We spent 10 days rehearsing this full blown spectacular in the Sennon Community hall, Lands End Cornwall, A record breaking achievement as a show of this scale would normaly take three to six weeks to produce. Sennon, a small town on the edgeof our island was, to say the least, an unusual place to be rehearsing a sizable international touring production. Most of the 28 cast and crew members were present for the final days of rehearsals in the hall, bar  6 Tanzanian acrobats who will join us in Asia, i'm very much looking forward to their high energy acrobatic style.

Here is the lovly sennon community centre where Incandescence came together to rehearsa Elemental

Incandescence rehearsal spcae

I play one of the two mischevious clown characters in the show, who come to life from Mimi's toybox as she awakes into her new world, Mimi, RoRo and RuRu quickly become friends never far from the watchful eye of Queen FiFi

RoRo

will always have a big bottom

Of course I couldn't go on such an epic trip without packing a certain Bunny Bunny with me, my adorable mascot, who sadly escaped to the cornish hills (probably for the best, given his wild origins)

Bunny Bunny on the road trip

My Lovly Bunny Bunny

Jo and Gareth working on the doubles trapeze

Lovly Anouk

The Head of the sea queen

A louis Fuller moment during air

Artistic Director Satya teching the hanging frames

The Company warming up in the cornish sunshine

We had a super fun time, working on the clowning content for the show, with the fantastic Bex from Kneehigh Theatre co, she was an incredible director, and helped us to create plenty of clowning acts for this show in the short space of time which we had to rehearse, In the following pictures you can see Myself and Ruen (the two clowns) working with Charlie who plays the child in the show, exploring the elemental world. In the photographs we are making a boat on a stormy sea, as an introduction to the water scene, which is the first big element number in the show.

Bex giving us some tips.

Its raining and the puddles are growing FAST

we are the storm and Charlie is on the ship, luckily the fools have got off (momentairily)

Charlie was absolutly amazing, a super talented young performer (only 14) and off to Korea for a whole month, to be looked after by clowns and sensible circus artists...he he
She was an inspiration and a pleasure to create this material with, and I'm sure she has a long performance career ahead of her!

Here are some images of the opening scene of the show;

Did you hear that?

Do you dare to open it?

Of course we do silly!

Ro Ro has exited the toybox

WooHoooo Freedom, now thats what i'm talking about!

Charlie is a princess waiting to be revealed

New friends!

So thats all for now on Elemental Its six weeks till we all leave for South Korea (plenty of time in which to forget everything we put together for the show, but we wont because we are very very clever x3) It's going to be an amazing experience, and i'm really looking forward to it...

Bye for now Incandescence Circus, Bye  RuRu, RoRo and MiMi, Bye Queen FiFi see you sooooooon!

Carnesky's Tarot Drome

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I have just spent a week in London devising with the wonderful cast of Marisa Carnesky's new performance art project ‘Tarot Drome’.

 Marisa and her husband Rasp Thorne have been colleagues and friends of mine for several years now. We met whilst working together with the Insect Circus, a victorian-esque family show, which regularly brings the wonderful world of performing insects onto the stages of theatres around the country,  for more information on the fascinating world of The Insect Circus see HERE

Marisa, Rasp and I have since worked on together on several other projects, joining Marisa as part of the Carnesky Productions team of musicians, performers and technicians and touring throughout the UK and Europe with shows such as ‘Carnesky’s Ghost Train’ (a live performance art ghost train!) ‘Magic War’, a tale of Masonic rituals and occult secrets, and ‘Dystopian Wonders’ A show about a unusual exhibition, that unexpectedly comes to life as the audience are introduced to the exhibits on a guided tour.

Here are the Lovly Marisa and the wonderful Rasp,

Marisa is an olivier award winning renowned show-woman and magical performance artiste, she has been creating spectacular and kooky shows for over a decade, mixing illusions, theatre and burlesque with subjects both serious and bizarre.

To find out more about Carnesky Productions current and past projects please visit

www.carnesky.com

Together we have just embarked on the first week of devising for the new Tarot Drome project,

An immersive promenade theatre show that brings the mystical characters of Tarot cards to life.

  

Tarot Cards work. No one really knows why. The cards you pick seemingly at random act as a reflection of your innermost hopes and fears, reveal old wounds, historical personalities and speak of unknown futures.

 What if you could meet the archetypes of the cards in the flesh? What if you could immediately understand the symbolism they hold for you by meeting them face to face and taking part in performance rituals that lead you to extraordinary personal revelations?

 Would you dare to peek behind the dark veil of the High Priestess? Frolic with the Fool or come toe to toe with the Devil? Have you ever wanted to dissolve the barrier that separates the conscious and the unconscious so you can see what lies beneath?

The performance will be staged in promenade style, the audience will be free to roam ‘the street of cards’ and meet the characters of the deck to receive there personal reading.

Live Music and songs will be created and performed especially for the shows by Rasp Thorne and The Briars.

Rasp Thorne and the Briars

The cast is a collection of some of Londons finest cabaret and live performance artists, including Vicky Butterfly, Haitch Plewis, Ryan Styles, Nina Davis, Chi Chi, Phil and Helen, Heather and myself...the only Bristolian in the mix!

We spent our first week together studying the Major Arcarna, getting to know the cards and experimenting with tools to embody and physicalise the meanings of the card to create physcal performances in order to convey the messages hidden in the cards.

Each of us experimented and played with several cards until we each found one with which we truly connected or found a kinship with, Marisa guided us through this development period aided by a trunk of old junk from her attick, which we often used to describe things we imagined, for example and old broom handle became a sword or a pile of old hair a dog.

Here are some snapshots of our experiments

Marisa talks to us about the history of the Tarot

Studying the cards

Heather as 'The High Priestess'

Rasp as 'The Devil'

Haitch as 'The Moon'

The Lovly Haitch x

The spectacular Carnesky's Tarot Drome, is a show not to be missed, It will be performed during September at the London Old Vic tunnels as part of the London 2012 cultural olympiad festival, for more information on the show and how to book tickets see HERE

Next time we meet in June, we will be learning more about the Tarot deck from a Tarot expert, as well as trying out our skills on roller skates...

Flying Fun

Well for the last few days i have been indulging in some 'flying fun' with the accomplished aerial trainer Mike Wright. Amongst other fun flying skills, we have been working on the petite volant, AKA mini flying, which is pretty much the same principals as flying trapeze only with a smaller rig, where instead of a net we use crash mats for safe landings. Flying of any sort is a thrilling experience and i cannot even begin to describe the amount of enjoyment and pleasure i feel when i am participating in such activities.

Mike Wright is a full time aerial tutor at Circomedia, Bristol's centre for contemporary circus and physical theatre, where i began my circus training in 2004. Circomedia is one of the UKs leading institutions for the study of circus arts and my time there was instrumental in setting me on the career trajectory which i am still following today. To find out more about circomedia see HERE where incidentally you will stumble upon an image of me on the homepage, dangling in the air, with my legs spread, in some purple tartain trousers.

Circomedia was one of several centres where i trained in performance and circus theatre (back in the day) and it is very much due to the comforting support of Mike Wright that i got anywhere at all within that particular institution. He was a great inspiration and his loving and gentle teaching method (a mixture of cajouling and compliments ) led me to all the various flighty experiences i have encountered over the subsequent years since my training. So it goes without saying, that it has been a pleasure being under his instruction once again.

More importantly, Mike also runs Above and Beyond, the only grande volant (big flying) troupe in the UK, which has been running for over 15 years, and engages some of the countries toughest aerial artists. Performing all around the UK and internationally at festivals and events, Above and Beyond's aerial shows truely are a demonstration skill and hardwork, combined with incredible performance capabilitis. To find out more about Above and Beyond, and to see some of the artists in action, see HERE

So here is Mike, the gloriously camp purveyor of all circus wisdoms!

And here he is again, in action, during his days of travelling the globe as part of a flying trapeze troupe, as i said before gloriously camp!

Wow!!! what a dude...

And here is a little clip of me working on a layout to catch on the petit volant, the next thing will be to master the return, that means getting back from the catcher to the platform where i started.

Here are some pictures from our session, strating with Niels, he was the guy responsible for catching us, one after the other...again and again and again.

Niels

Me working on my Handstand

various configurations

Our safety belts, all lined up and ready to go.

Shveta and Seamus hanging out on the Cradle

And lastly here is a little video of the girls workin out their abs!

Lumiere Digitale at Pervaisive Media studios

Lumiere Digitale are delighted to have been awarded an artists residency at the Pervaisive Media Studio at the watershed, Bristol, where we will be based for the next few months.

We are being supported by the studio to develop some new technology for our debut show, which will take place in a secret Bristol location this autumn. We are also excited about the potential of collaborating with some of the other residents in the creation of the event, which will include a digital art gallery, visual art displays, and live theatre, circus, and dance performance.

‘The PM Studio is an initiative to bring together creative practice and technological innovation to produce the content, applications and experiences of the future.’

  Find out more about the PM Studio HERE 

I co-produce Lumiere Digitale sharing the creative and administrative responsibilities with top cabaret artist and producer/performer Keda Breeze.
 Find out more about Keda  HERE

We are a Bristol based company, which deals specifically with the use of digital and visual art forms within contemporary circus, dance and physical theatre.

We are a collaboration inspired event; we aim to draw together artists of different disciplines into the creation of a visually inspired theatre. The emphasis is on working together to challenge the boundaries of form, pushing the arts to advance through exploring interdisciplinary performance, by creating immersive environments and events.

The work aims to under-go an in-depth exploration of the integration of video arts, projection mapping and tracking with electronic sound-scapes, visuals and live performance art.

Lumiere Digitale was created as a response to the ongoing developments that digital art forms have made in the last twenty years. Live visual/digital art is a booming industry being invested into and developed far quicker than other entertainment forms.  For performing arts to be current and relevant they need to harness these digital trends.

for more information on Lumiere Digitale please see our website at www.lumieredigitale.co.uk 

Windmill girls for new BBC drama 'best of men'

On Wednesday I had the pleasure of featuring as a 1940's windmill girl in a new BBC special which is being created to accompany the para-olympics during the olympic games this summer. The Drama 'Best of Men has been written by Lucy Gannon (The Children, Soldier Soldier, Bramwell) and is starring Eddie Marsdon and Rob Brydon.

Best Of Men is the remarkable and uplifting true story of the birth of the Paralympic Games and its visionary creator Dr Ludwig Guttmann.

Eddie Marsan plays Dr Guttmann; an inspirational doctor who transforms the lives of his patients and staff. Rejecting the general view that paralysis was a terminal condition, Guttmann threw out the old care regime and brought in a new philosophy - to get all his patients to live full and useful lives.

It is to that end thats the legendary windmill girls are invited to perform at the hospital in order to cheer up it's occupants!

The Windmill girls were born out of the windmill theatre in London during the early 1940's The Windmill Theatre, later The Windmill International, was a variety and revue theatre in Great Windmill Street. That was famous for its nude tableaux vivants.

Find out more about the BBC's Best of Men HERE
Find out more about the windmill girls HERE

So here are the original windmill girls busy filming for the BBC,

 And here we are getting ready to can can for the cameras 70 years later!

After a 7am start and several hours in hair and make-up we were each transformed with curly up-do's into the gorgeous windmill girls.