February 2012
Allerton Studios, Salford
I lead a day long workshop for Visual Arts students last month. They really inspired me, diving straight in to the strange world of performance for the first time with wild, brilliant results. This is my favourite photo from the day; returning inside after a 15 minute foray into site responsive performance in the car park. We also explored gesture, actions and task lead improvisations. See more of what they’re up to here.
I am project coordinating Storybox, a creative storytelling project for older people with Alzheimer’s and Dementia.
It is a brilliant, fun project that I deliver in Manchester. The workshops involve taking in a box full of sensory and thematic props, costume and music to stimulate games, improvisations and worlds of make believe. We are currently working on an activities guide for carers, building a website, investigating how to evidence the impact this project has on the participants’ well being and planning training days for artist facilitators and carers later in the year.
I do this at Library Theatre for three days a week, it is funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
Photo taken by Roshana Rubin-Mayhew
Courtesy of Library Theatre 2011
Today I gave a talk called ‘What is Performance?’
I tried to answer with a five minute performance, a navigation through the history of performance, an exploration of the edges of performance, theatre and art, and then talked about my work and where it fits into all that!
It was good to spend the sunday evening before to reflect on the journey of my work.
17 September, 8 October, 12 November 2011 12.30 – 2.30PM
Cornerhouse, Manchester
I am facilitating exciting sessions with the aim to create a new performance network in Manchester. Everyone welcome.
Are you an emerging artist looking to make your own theatre / performance work?
Theatre Makers Creative Lunch is the Library Theatre Company’s brand new network aimed at supporting emerging artists to make their own theatre / performance.
Find out more here
September – December 2011
Wythenshawe
I am project managing Word Up, a series of performance poetry workshops for young people in Wythenshawe which will end in a performance and publication of their poems. It’s my first experience of management and I’m really enjoying working behind the scenes, so much so I’ve invested in a pair of fifties reading glasses, step into the office baby!
St Thomas’ CE Primary School, Nelson and Newchurch-in-Pendle St Mary’s CE Primary School, Burnley
Spring 2011
I made a giant map of the Lancashire Hills for Sonia Hughes’ schools project. The chidren presented a performance on the 6 metre by 4 metre map, after folding it out. Landscape stories looked at the past, present and future of the area the school children lived in and was a mixture of real Ordinance Survey maps and the pupil’s own maps of the area.
FKUK and First Take, The Bluecoat, Liverpool
Spring 2011
I facilitated a week long spoken word performance project in Liverpool with FKUK and First Take. On Monday, a group of eight women from all backgrounds and experiences met and on Friday they performed a show of their work. Spoken Like a True is is committed to nurturing and exposing female talent in an intensive week of workshops. This project was especially important to me as I was a participant in 2008. You can see a video about this project here.
The Library Theatre, Manchester
2006 – 2010
I have worked as an Assistant Director and Lead Artist on various projects with Norfox Young People’s Theatre, including Troilus and Cresida (2007), Fugee (2009) and The Magnificant Tale of Emily Law and Arturo the Waterboy (2010). The latter was a research project into Victorian Manchester which culminated in a beautiful, magical freak show with the young people.
The Library Theatre, Manchester
Spring 2010
A series of creative storytelling workshops for older people with mental health problems. It has been one of my favourite jobs ever and I hope to develop more work like this. The challenge was to find ways of communicating against the odds. Playing was very important in the workshops, and creating make-believe worlds together every week allowed to us to be who we wanted, and we all shared the same reality in that moment, with props, games, chats, costumes, exercises.
Photo by Roshana Ruben-Mayhew
Courtesy of Library Theatre 2010
Manchester
2006 – Present
I have done a lot of work for Contact Theatre over the last few years facilitating workshops for young people. Recent projects include developing and delivering Drama Drop (2011) and assistant directing for Contact Young Actors Company (2009) which resulted in a collaboration with Brazilian theatre makers, Grupo XIX de Teatro in a site specific performance, Memoria da Chuva at Museum of Science and Industry. Don’t miss the Fish Head I made out of Sainsbury’s carrier bags.
Manchester City Council
2008
I made large scale interactive sculptures for the Campaigns team in 2008, including this giant M for people to pledge one thing they could change to make Manchester a better place. I love making things out of nothing: freely, easily, quickly, spectacularly.
100 Cauliflowers, Independent Photography, London
Autumn 2007
100 Cauliflowers was a project, created by Kerry Morrison that happened in the Greenwich Peninsula in 2007. Together with local residents we grew and harvested 100 cauliflowers, to celebrate the peninsula’s history of farming before the gas works built there, as well as raise the issues of food growing, sourcing and consumption.
Rifco Arts, Leeds
Autumn 2006
I was support artist on this intergenerational and intercultural project for school children and elders in Leeds. I developed a series of postcards to the future and the past with the participants.
After finding an old school photo at Burnley Market, I traced the school and recreated the school photo in the exact place where it happened, life-size. Afterwards, each face blew away in a paper chase along the old school path.
