Into The New: Plunge into the Future

"Into The New is our graduating students' festival," explains Kate Stannard, teacher on the RSAMD's Contempory Performance Practice course. "It kicks off in The Arches on 16 March, and on the 19th we have an event, Performance Recall, which celebrates the 60th birthday of the RSAMD and the tenth birthday of Into the New."

Stannard elaborates, "There are twelve solo performances, and we inhabit all these different spaces in The Arches. It's an explosion of different kinds of work!"

"Into The New is the high point of the year for us. Performance Recall is our contribution to the RSAMD's anniversary celebrations," continues her colleague Robert Walton. "We've asked sixty artists to come back and recall a performance that is important to them. Some of them are doing performances that they made, others are recreating their audition piece, or a minature version of a longer show. It's going to be a real mixed bag."

The CPP's graduates and students have become a fixture in the Scottish performance community: from Nic Green's Trilogy, through Junction 25's redefining of youth theatre, and even into Random Accomplice's saucy comedy, the course has provided a generation of makers, and influences directors and choreographers beyond the RSAMD.

Into The New is rarely less than fascinating: as Walton mentions, there is no house style, and students are encouraged to find their own voice. Edd Crawley, one of this year's graduating class, insists that the CPP gave him the tools to say things that he could not express in any other way.

One of last year's outstanding graduates was Stephanie Black. Returning this year, she is presenting "a new project called Measure. It is part of the Athena Project, an award given to students from the RSAMD."

In many ways, Black's work sums up the strength of the CPP: her Body of Sand was a mind-blowing gust of desert energy. Examining her experience growing up in Dubai as a western woman, it used her dance background to devastating effect.

"My background is very much dance based: I trained in ballet from the age of four! The movement vocabulary is the first way to express our raw emotion: somehow I cam express myself better through movement than language."

"Measure goes in a different direction," she warns. "Last year, I started to understand how I create work. For instance, I prefer to start from images or colours, or a set task."

"Whenever I make a piece of work, it has got to be relevant to the place I am at," she continues. "After graduating I needed to take a new approach. I looked at ideas I had left behind, took a workshop with Julie Tontino and Ron Athey: we got to focus on small, integral movements. I am getting into a yoga practice: I am fascinated by binding the physical and mental approach."

Black's continued development as an artist reflects the best of the CPP: radical and challenging, it respects the traditions of the performance artists who blazed a trail, yet includes the personal experience and talents of the artists. For anyone gingerly considering whether performance art is for them, Into The New is a broad introduction.

Bodyhoods @ The Arches

If pedagogy is a vital root of the theatrical rhizome, then...

Sorry. I'll start that again.

If one of theatre's functions is to teach an audience, then Bodyhoods is a dynamic example of the form. Bel Jessica Pye attacks the easy identification of disability, repeatedly challenging the audience to spot her disability and recalling incidents in which disability is denied. A sneaky joke about the enthusiasm of the government to get people back to work aside, Bodyhoods homes in on the personal politics of disability, throwing in references to the gay ballroom scene, notions of authenticity and, since this is Live Art, some signifying nudity.

Pye never reveals her disability, but constantly questions notions of how disability is understood. Her 'realness' catwalk competitions takes its cues from the ballroom scene's obsession with 'passing' as straight: in a month when a major motion picture has an actor 'cripping up' to play physics brainiac Stephen Hawkings, her 'crip realness' cakewalk has a harsh, witty resonance. Throughout her performance, Pye presents the challenges of disability: not those caused by any physical problems, but by social stigma and prejudice.

With strong dramaturgical support, Bodyhoods could become a meditation on society's problems with the 'differently abled' that entertains, provokes and educates: there's an intelligent sensitivity and a dry humour that lifts the work beyond autobiographical musing or indulgent rhetoric. It challenges without compromise and balances personal passion and social critique in equal measures.

Round Table on Live Art Part 3

Bearing in mind we saw about six pieces in total, can we call this a vintage year for Into the New?

Naw.
No.
No.

So what is the problem? The quality ranged from good to poor, with many fragments of promise in the middling work. That seems consistent with the usual experience...

We end up saying the same fins evry year. And that means sayin wun year's a vintage is pointless. 

Can you go on, Cyril?

I get all the shitty jobs. Awright then.

Inta The New is necessary, and gives space to emerging artists. And seeing how they cope with the rigours of performance is fascinating, if not really for a general audience. And Bodyhoods was a great mash-up of queer ballroom aesthetics and meditations on the appearance of disability. If ya like, it was this year's 'winner'.

I hear a big but...

And I cannot lie: any critique of the festival is a critique of the CPP training. And what I see, what I feel, is that the course is asking a limited range of questions. We get 'what is performance?' - the extended theatre business. We get 'how can autobiography be performed?' which has a dash of 'where does theatre end and 'real life' begin?' 

There's also the emphasis on solo performance. So much of it... the odd duo, but it is mostly one person shows. I guess that makes marking easier, but it also becomes... it feels like all the songs sound the same, eh?

They all need a dramaturg, huh? There's a surprise. 

Roundtable on Live Art (part 2)

Awright troops. We got The Mondays on Spotify and we are ready for rahnd two. Let's talk art!

I'd like to get a little deeper into the overall feel of Into the New. This annual event is pitched... well, who do you think the intended audience is?

Lovers of experimental art, innit?

I disagree; this is a degree show, of sorts. The actual audience will consist of fellow students, friends and families. The audience are only there to provide a sounding board for the artists.

This is a work in progress type affair?

After a fashion: but even more than a WIP, Into the New is for the benefit of the performers more than the audience. That might explain why one of the pieces we saw was a big in-joke about the CPP and the RCS.

That was farkin shite.

Either that, or we ought to congratulate the artist on knowing his audience so well. He was playing to the crowd, who got the joke. 


That mentality is wat causes problems for Live Art all ova. It's self-congratulatory, self-indulgent.

Perhaps we could more generously assume that the artist in question is displaying a sensitivity to the audience...

You sed. But if is jokes had bin funny..

Moving past this... we have mentioned the nudity, but did anything else crop up for you, in terms of themes.

I didn't get past the jubblies.

But feminism came up a few times...

Mainly in the durational piece... it felt a little obvious to me.

Let's remember that this is a student work; obvious is going to happen. If I remember, the piece had two elements. The preparation and the catwalk. The preparation was all about the 'creation' of femininity, the catwalk about its performance.

I think it did its job, but there's little to add. I have that same problem I always have with CPP 'feminist' performance.

That it reads like a response to Judith Butler?

More than it seems pretty old fashioned to juxtapose make-up and the body as twin signifiers of the female and its exploitation. It's all a fiction, I know, I know. I am pleased to see the ideas being rediscovered, but I would like something that speaks to 2015, not 1978. 

Yer jus gettin old.

Mad Cyril almost apologises

Vile Arts Roundtable on Live Art... (part 1)

Good evening and welcome to The Vile Arts Roundtable. We've been avoiding this particular discussion for the past day, for reasons that might become clearer as we go on, but I am going to hand you straight over to Mr Criticulous, our host.

Thank you, Gareth. You'll be able to recognise the different speakers by their fonts - I've got a rather dashing Georgia tonight. Our guests will be representing different perspective on our subject, which is Into the New. As a seasoned entertainer, I'll be bringing a few dramaturgical perspectives...

While I'll be commenting on the quality of the ladiez. The kind of Live Art that comes out of the RCS' CPP degree is usually full o burds wiv their kit off.

That, of course, is Mad Cyril, and he has an interest in sexual

representation...

And violence, natch.

And I shall be sitting in the corner mumbling polysyllabic jargon.

Thank you. First of all, a little background. Into the New is the annual showcase for the final year students of the Royal Conservatoire's Contemporary Performance Practice course. Traditionally, it is rooted in live art - in the sense of expanded theatre - and has given us artists like Elaine Black and Nick Anderson. 

And burds wiv their kit off.

I think perhaps we could address that, then, Cyril. You see nudity as being intrinsic to the live art experience?

On the one hand, I reckon it's completely inappropriate to bang on abaht the nudity. We ought to be above checking awt the jubblies, and examine wat the nudity represents. We got to see two naked wemmen this year, and one nuddy bloke. 

In this particular conversation, I think we ought to agree

http://www.sciencedump.com/content/projecting-video-falling-snow

some rules... we won't be mentioning the names of the performers who were naked.

Absolutely: I am more interested in the overall use of the naked body within the context of Into the New, because there is undeniably a consistency between its use in 2015's edition and in previous years.

It's a lazy farkin shortand for emotionally vulnerability, innit?

I think it is also used as a symbol of gender identity, too... it opens up a discourse about essentialism.

So that sort oo was naked and goin about the stage was confrontin the audience with her essential femaleness?

Yes: she was asking questions about what constitutes 'the female'.

And the bloke?

He was doing vulnerability.

INTO THE NEW 2015 (UNKNOWN PERFORMANCE)

Sigurður Jónsson

Back in 2010, I chatted (over the internet) with the then graduating artist Sigurður Jónsson. I had just seen him wrestle a huge trunk in The Arches, and, in the best tradition of live art, this apparently bizarre activity resolved into a profound meditation on man versus nature.

Aware that the phrase 'profound meditation' is a terrible cliche, I bothered Jónsson with a few questions about his art. 

The work moves between personal history and mythology. Do you feel that mythology retains a resonance for you, even in a modern age that has abandoned its traditional stories- even if they are replaced by modern myths?
From a personal point of view I think mythology resonates with most of us, or rather, we hope mythology to reflect certain truths or present us with meta-narratives that we can draw from and count on. This was an inquiry of mine throughout the process: how does my history fit into a greater narrative. 

Maybe this reflects the Icelandic part of my approach as I feel mythology is understood in a wholly different way here in the UK. Here people seem to enjoy the novelty of the myth, while it seems to have a genuine perlocutionary effect on the Icelandic psyche. Many Icelanders will tell you “I don't believe in ghosts… but I know my house is haunted,” and I think that reflects, not necessarily naivety, but a respect for these traditions and stories.

The body seems to be central to the work- in that by being naked, you draw attention to it, and the physical act of wrestling with the tree makes up an intense sequence. I'm interested in whether you see your physical vocabulary as being connected to dance, or any other performers...
By stripping down at that point, I was hoping to draw the attention away from me, the person, and to the sculptural elements of the two bodies in the space. So even though I do consider the work as a whole to be very connected to dance, I was hoping to explore the space between sculpture and choreography. How does the object inform the movement? 

A piece I took a lot from was Bruce Nauman’s Walking in an Exaggerated Manner around the Perimeter of a Square (1967-68). The way I understand this particular piece is Nauman’s seemingly simple attempt to perform a square, but there is an added element of performativity in the way he does it and so instead of just walking, he emphasises parts of the body in relation to the space. I guess I was trying to achieve something similar.

Where did you start? Do you have the objects and stories in mind, and let them dictate the format, or vice versa?

I had wanted to work with driftwood for some time but I had no idea in what way. So when my nan told me a story about this Scottish fisherman who washed ashore and came into the life of my Icelandic family some 400 years ago, I saw a connection. I tried to look up the name but like the driftwood, he seems to have lost his history. So I guess that was my starting point and I started working on lending them a possible past and future. In the beginning of the process I started to try and fit the object and story within a format I thought was apt. 

After a while, and with the help of my tutors and colleagues I realised that the object had to dictate the format. I grew tired of trying to represent something and, with some inspiration from the likes of La Ribot and Florian Flueras, I decided to simply present a series of actions with the driftwood and give the audience a porous structure where they could put their own meaning into how the three main elements interrelate.


This one's a massive question- do you see your approach as especially Icelandic?
No. I understand that people generally might read my work from that perspective but coming from the Icelandic scene, I don't see my approach as Icelandic. If I had to describe contemporary Icelandic performance work there is a certain dry humour in it, an irony that I feel I have moved away from. 

Saying that, the Icelandic scene is very young and volatile and so one particular description will never be fitting. Having studied in the UK I feel much closer to the discourse here and in Europe.














































That is great, thank you... how about I send over some (probably pretty obvious) questions so that I can work up an article?




Best wishes




Gareth





2010/3/15 Sigurður Jónsson <siggiarent@gmail.com>







Hey Gareth,




I've finally put some images on my website http://sigurdurjonsson.wordpress.com/projects/bloðeik-2010/




I you want to use any of them, please send me the name (blodeik1-8) and I will send said image in the full resolution (I have them in .jpeg and .tiff)




Photographer is Hallgerður Hallgrímsdóttir (www.hallgerdur.com)




Cheers,

This is Not a Review @ Into the New

Dust Yourself Off and Try Again begins with Aby Watson making a series of statements about the show, including "this performance will not receive a review."

Aby is set to graduate from the Royal Conservatoire's Contemporary Performance degree this year, and Dust Yourself Off and Try Again is part of her final year's work. A standard review is not appropriate: much of the pleasure of viewing a piece like this is in seeing an emerging artist play with forms. In twenty years time, following the inevitable cultural shifts that see Live Artists replace pop stars as celebrities, this performance will be the equivalent of hearing U2's early demo tapes.

Not that I am saying Watson is in anyway as arrogant as Bono, or that her hour long fusion of personal revelation and Swan Lake is a theatrical analogue to The Joshua Tree. This particular comparison breaks very quickly.

Definitions of Live Art are difficult. I spend far too much time trying to find one that makes me happy. At its most literal, it can mean anything that exists in a certain time and space. More commonly, it is a type of work that is personal and idiosyncratic, that does not respect boundaries of taste and convention.

Watson doesn't embrace bad taste, though. There is that bit where she is acting out an epic puking and shitting session, and she does mock the grandeur of Swan Lake. She's certainly messing about with the conventions of genre though. She hands out roses to the audience and asks them to throw them at her. Then she gets another audience member to read out a prepared statement, saying that Dust is rubbish.

She is trying to show how the grandeur and poetry of romantic ballet is a poor imitation of the difficulties of real life.

She is trying to draw a contrast between the person she would like to be and the person she is.

She is trying to indulge a fantasy of the one woman show.

She is expanding the possibilities of stand-up comedy and staking a claim for a female version of humour.

She is trying to do none of the above.

She is fighting the conventions of theatre to find a way to tell her own story.

"There's no success like failure and that's no success at all."

"Develop success from failures."

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure."

Success implies a particular outcome is preferable. Does the outcome tally with this intention?

In the crucible of Live Art, expectation and meaning are heated beyond their boiling point until they evaporate. If the art form is abandoning the habitual behaviour on the stage, why does the audience feel beholden to maintain its own traditional role?
























(This is not a review that makes any attempt to assess the quality of the work in question. Rather, kit adopts a posture to mimic the broad feel of the piece, to provoke an emotional response in the reader that they might experience during the performance. It's an uncomfortable way to write, critically: by avoiding the usual structure, the critic is forced to imagine possible readings and experience a paranoia that they are going to be misunderstood.

When addressing work made by undergraduates, that paranoia is all the more intense: on the one hand, this is not work that is expected to be as accomplished as that by the National Theatre of Scotland, but to somehow adjust the response to that, to "let the artist off the hook" is to present a dishonest review to the reader and the artist, to pretend it is something other than it is. On the other, to review it with the same intensity as that given to the NTS would be to expect the artist to have an ability, and resources, well beyond their situation.

The compromise here was to fragment a series of responses to Dust and attempt to structure the responses in a way that might transmit how the piece made me feel.)

What A Fanny @ The Arches

What A Fanny has been on my mind for most of this week. Leyla Josephine's  entry for Into the New, it is not really appropriate for review in my usual fashion (a student work, it's not in the same category as the latest touring production by the NTS) and alongside moments of brilliance - as when she segues from arrogant exhibitionism into shameless desperation - there are uncomfortable lapses when the traces of educational process (copying existing theatre, clumsy matches of form and content, and a painfully personal monologue) undermine her uncompromising vision. And yet, in her simple question - roughly, can a feminist wear hot-pants - Leyla  opens up an intriguing discussion.

The strongest moments of the show capture the tension in her understanding of feminism. A romantic interlude set to Disney music is brutally interrupted by bellowing, misogynist hip-hop. When she describes a disco and its erotic frisson, she undermines her brittle sexual confidence by collapsing into a desperate begging for attention. A rhyming summary of her introduction to sex, and how she became "a woman with a reputation" is contrasted with a visit to a hospital for procedures unnamed, possibly an abortion. Throughout, What A Fanny is clear: a modern woman might see her seductive outfit as empowering, but it unfortunately makes her an objectified fantasy figure for men.

It's an idea that Ruth Mills is set to address later this year in Girlfriend, and although the actual question is less challenging to older feminists (rejection of lipstick as an intrinsic tool of the patriarchy has not been fashionable since the 1970s), O'Coll-Reilly deals with the issue not as a philosophical ponder, but a lived experience. That she wipes off her make-up and dresses in a modest outfit to finally present herself as a feminist does destroy her hopeful suggestion that a feminist could wear "that outfit": but the battle between looking glamorous and identifying as a woman ready to stand up for her equality is engagingly portrayed.

The actual question of whether a feminist can wear hot-pants - or whether hot-pants and high heels are only worn by women in a severe state of internalised oppression - does depend on which strand of feminism is under consideration. The crop of female artists, from Rihanna to Lady Gaga, who stomp about half-naked and claim that they are making a statement about individual liberty, are useless: never mind the social impact of videos that would have passed for pornography in the 1980s, no major recording artist has made a decision for themselves since Radiohead dropped Okay Computer. They are commodities whether they wear lingerie or a boiler suit. But since Madonna, the idea of wearing provocative clothing and believing in personal autonomy has been current. Those hot-pants could just be a way of attracting attention or an expression of individual liberty.

What A Fanny's trick is to move the discussion beyond the abstract and into the real world of the nightclub: bitching in the toilets, judging other women's outfits, grinding against an unwelcome stranger, grooving to lyrics that make Eminem sound like an intellectual parody of rap's excesses. Of course, the emotional nakedness of the performance is, in itself, a form of exhibitionism and to judge her outfit while accepting her monologues is to miss a serious danger in the sort of Live Art that encourages such confessional honesty.

Ultimately, What A Fanny exercises a dialogue between the woman's right to control her appearance and her recognition that her choices might give a certain impression. She gives no obvious answers, no solutions, but offers an intelligent and sincere attempt to put feminism back into the public sphere.

Children are Victims

With all due respect to the other speakers at Into the New's symposium, Ben Fletcher Watson really knocked it out of the park with his paper on "tyranny in theatre for the very young." Between provocations on the moral responsibility of the interactive artist and invitations to participate in the performance, BFW pointed out that theatre, when it tries to entertain babies and toddlers, ought to be hauled up for breaching human rights.

Both as a director, PhD candidate and dad, BFW knows his way around the specifics of kids' theatre. He's even reviewed White for The Skinny. He has a handy way with a metaphor - comparing theatre to malaria in its need to infect future audiences - and is unimpressed by those spectacular stage shows starring characters off CBBC. Commenting on the prices of the various souvenirs available, he reveals them as simple money traps, playing on the boredom of the adults and the vulnerability of the child.

His point is that the very young don't have enough agency to choose theatre, and they tend to end up there because mum, dad, uncle or granma think it is an improving experience. There's a violation right there. Next up, they get told to be quiet, their behaviours trimmed to suit the theatre (apparently, BFW reveals, there are theatres that have sound proof containers for noisy nippers). And while he doesn't explicitly say this - this is more about my bitterness at a month of pantomimes - most of the actual material is rubbish.

Rather than doing anything to build future audiences, theatre for youngsters is a deadly turn-off. The exceptions - like White - are sadly rare and the dominance of the super-show (Peppa "Snort Snort No Plot Ends with Daddy Laughing Every Time" Pig) is little more than consumerism feeding off child and drama alike.

BFW does have an answer - he imagines a theatre based on genuine communication between adult and child, and certainly not made up of a few patronising tweaks of format. Of course, he'll never make a proper post-modernist if he continues to speak so clearly, and wittily, maintaining a case and offering a solution.