In response to the imaginary clamour from across the interweb, I give you yet another barely anticipated and ill-conceived update from Team Scallywag.
So in roughly chroniclogical order, I'll begin with the end of last year and the return of STAN to the world stage. And when I say world stage, I do mean a rather small stage in Croydon. Yet a stage it was, with lights and an audience and everything. A stage in the inaugural year of the soon-to-be-prestigious Croydonites Festival, directed by the redoubtable Anna Arthur. MASSIVE props to those of you who made it down there. I do realize that asking someone from London to come to Croydon is much like asking them to sail to Madagascar. In a bath tub. Naked. Quite simply, something so far from their normal frame of reference that it is virtually unimaginable. So once again, those that did come, big up yo self, for real. I also invited directors and programmers from many of London's independent theatres and festivals, to introduce my work and my self with a view to more performances of STAN and opening a dialogue about opportunities for developing and presenting new work. Due to the overwhelming response I was unable to meet many of you, so apologies for that. In future, I urge you to first contact my PA so she can schedule a time slot for you to meet me and to offer the massive financial and administrative support of your organizations.
Immediately following the return of STAN was a small UK tour of the piece which premiered at The Yard in London in April last year - namely Choreography Of Arguments Around A Table from the wonderful Dog Kennel Hill Project. (Probably safe to say that short, snappy titles are not their strongest point.) We had some excellent performances in Brighton and Warwick and probably somewhere else, but for me the highlight was certainly one night in The Place Theatre, London. It was a Tuesday or a Wednesday night, and the theatre was packed, maybe 250 people. Which is just fantastic. For so many people to come out mid week and pay (it wasn't cheap...) to see extremely challenging contemporary dance theatre is, I think, a very encouraging sign. It's very easy to get swept up in the wave of negativity about the state of the arts in London, so this was a welcome panacea for that common malady of expecting everything to be shit.
On top of that, and on a much more personal, dare I say even spiritual note, The Place is where I spent 3 of the best years of my life, engaged in the beautifully simple and all-consuming pleasure of a full-time dance training. At the end of each year, we would have the thrill of performing on the stage of The Place Theatre, so returning to that stage after 20 years was very special indeed. The audience loved it, and someone wrote this excellent review.
Review of Arguments Around A Table from londondance.com
Next stop was Barcelona, ostensibly for rest and recreation - yet I had the very good fortune to meet my new artistic hero and mentor Samuel Salcedo, who is a fantastic sculptor and an all-around top geezer. For the last couple of years I have been fumbling around trying to develop new techniques for molding and casting smaller scale puppets, with some limited success. (Some pix in this old post.) Last year I took the small step of modeling with sculpture rather than puppets as the end product, which was oddly liberating, as a sculpture doesn't have the limitations of a puppet, because it doesn't need to function. As a puppet. Anyway, my dear friend and excellent sculptor Frank Plant introduced me to Samuel, who not only took the time to show me some of the tricks of his trade, but also gave me a chunk of pro grade plasticine, which is a major upgrade to the kiddie plasticine I'd been working with. Massively inspired by Samuel, his techniques and this new material, and have been spending some time developing out-and-out sculpture skills and ideas, rather than just making puppets. Here's a couple pix of some early efforts.
February saw an unexpected invitation to play Malvolio in the pilot for a film adaptation of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, directed by Uber Geez Tony Wadham. We spent a very intense week shooting in a chateau in Normandy with a superb cast and crew. Hopefully this will lead to a feature length version that will be shot at the end of this year. Tony is busy putting together a show reel to get proper funding with, which might include this scene from the legendary John Ottway, who played Feste.
Fuck me, this blog post is long. Hang in there, imaginary reader, almost there.
Two weeks ago we did another show of Argument, this time in Oxford. Very different performance as it was not in a theatre, but in an art gallery space, but once again got an amazing review. Read it here.
OK, that's pretty much that for now. As a special treat, I will leave you with a Mash-Up I made last Summer for my mate Phil's 50th Bday. The theme for his party was Hawaii Five-0. (D'ya geddit?) Some of you might be old enough to remember that show and it's excellent theme tune, which was gagging for a Jungle Mash-Up.
