Poetic Dramaturgy: Neil Hilborn @ Edfringe 2017

Synergy Concerts and One Inch Badge present

NEIL HILBORN

The most watched poet of all time makes his UK debut

11:15pm 9th -15th August @New Town Theatre

12PM 21st – 27th August @Stand 3

Tickets: http://www.seetickets.com/tour/neil-hilborn

With a debut sold out UK tour under his belt NEIL HILBORN makes his Edinburgh Festival Fringe debut August 2017. Neil Hilborn is the most watched poet of all-time with over 100m views online. He is the viral poet behind the internationally successful poems “O.C.D.”, “Joey” and “The Future” and is also the author of the Amazon Bestseller “Our Numbered Days”.

What was the inspiration for this performance?

This performance was inspired by my issues with my mental health. Many of my poems deal with mental illness, and with this show I wanted to find a way to put them together with storytelling and jokes. I’m trying to show my journey toward self-acceptance, but hopefully in a subtle, unpretentious manner.

Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas?

I think it’s one of the best spaces we have. It’s easy to dismiss someone’s story when you have the distance of a TV or computer screen, but with live performance there is an actual, physical being in front of you. It’s difficult to ignore an idea when a performer embodies it in the real world. You can’t change the channel on someone standing on stage.

How did you become interested in making performance?

Being a performer kind of snuck up on me. I had been a writer since I was a small child, but I had never even considered reading any of my poems out loud until a friend introduced me to spoken word poetry and took me to a couple poetry slams. It just seemed like a cool way to think about poetry, so I wrote a couple performance-oriented poems and entered some competitions. I lost them all horribly, but I enjoyed the instant feedback I got from audiences and their energy, so I kept writing and kept coming back, and now it’s nine years later and somehow I’m a professional writer and performer. I'm still astounded that this is a job and that I get to have it.

Is there any particular approach to the making of the show?

I’ve been developing this show over the past couple years of touring, and the process has been pretty organic. I had certain poems and stories that I did every show in pretty much the same place, but I changed some poems out, moved them around, allowed myself to improvise and go on tangents, and I always paid attention to audience reaction with any new bit I was doing. I think of my set as though it were a combination of music and comedy: some poems I’m going to do every single show, but everything around them changes so that the show doesn’t feel stale and so that I seem invested in and surprised by every performance.

Does the show fit with your usual productions?

This show is my only production, so I would say yes, definitely, yes.

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

I try to hit a full range of emotions in my show, so I hope that I can make the audience ugly cry, then laugh until it’s uncomfortable, then cry a little more, and ultimately I hope they leave feeling inspired.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

I don’t think I have a conscious strategy when it comes to audience experience. I design the set around a certain emotional arc so that the audience goes through joy and sadness intermittently, but beyond that I just pay attention to the audience’s reactions and energy when I’m in the room, and I try to give them more of what it feels like they want

Neil began writing and performing slam poetry whilst a sophomore at Macalaster College in St. Paul, Minnesota. He joined the college’s slam poetry team and in 2011 placed first in the College National Poetry Slam.

After graduating with honors in his Creative Writing degree Hilborn began performing with Button Poetry, a Minnesota collective that produces and distributes poetry in various formats, such as published books and YouTube videos.

In 2012 Neil toured the mid-west with Button Poetry’s “The Good News Poetry Tour” and self-published his first chapbook “Clatter”, which was re-published the following year by Button Poetry.

Having been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder as a child, and later with bi-polar disorder while at university, Hilborn has often used his poetry as a means of therapy and of exploring the issues of his own mental health. In 2013, a video one such poem "O.C.D.” went viral, garnering millions of views across social media platforms. As of 2017 the video has garnered more than 62 million views and is the most watched slam poem on the internet.

Hilborn's second book, “Our Numbered Days”, was released on May 14, 2015.

“Our Numbered Days” features some of Hilborn's most well known poetry, including "Joey" and "OCD" and has become an Amazon best-seller.

A Synergy Concerts & One Inch Badge presentation

@SynergyConcerts / @OneInchBadge / @Neilicorn / @New_TownTheatre / @TheStandComedyClub

The Texture of Dramaturgy: Bram Gieben @ Edfringe 2015

Bram Gieben has performed poetry across Scotland as a solo performer and as part of Chemical Poets since 2005. In 2015, this culminated in him winning the title of Scottish Slam Champion. In 2010, the Chemical Poets took our show Twenty Tentacle to the Edinburgh Fringe. Bram returned the following year with a solo show, Neuromonster. He is working on a new solo show, which will début at the 2015 Edinburgh Fringe. 

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The Fringe

What inspired this production: did you begin with an idea or a script or an object?
I guess you could say I started with several ideas - the show is made up of short stories, rap songs and poems, some of which have been performed before, others not. What I found was that once these 'objects' were on the page of a script, their pace and shape changed, and became part of something new and different - that ended up being the show. The theme - an exploration of nihilism, and an attempt to escape from it - is absolutely present in the original 'objects.' It was the only theme it made sense for me to explore - existential terror, and various coping mechanisms.


Why bring your work to Edinburgh?
Well, I grew up there, so it's near. I have a network of friends and collaborators there, many of whom are involved in SHIFT/ as well. Mainly though, I wanted to bring my show to Edinburgh first because Summerhall very kindly gave us the opportunity to stage it there, an opportunity we might have struggled to find elsewhere. It's a rare example of a major Fringe partner putting some faith in local performers. Hopefully we won't let them down!


What can the audience expect to see and feel - or even think - of your production?
I hope these poems, stories and songs will get them to ask existential questions of themselves - why am I here? What is the purpose of life? How does one avoid suffering, and should it be avoided? I also hope to provide some answers to these questions. Nihilism is a dark theme to start exploring, but I try to offer some chinks of light and hope. For me the solution to existential dread has always been cosmic awe, so I hope the audience get to experience a little bit of both - terror and wonder.


The Dramaturgy Questions
How would you explain the relevance - or otherwise - of dramaturgy within your work?
As I said above, the thing that surprised me most while writing the show was how different the pre-existing poems and stories seemed to want to change shape and pace once they were on the page all together. There's something about the dramatic structure implicit in an hour-long show.. the peaks and troughs, the highs and lows, sort of suggest themselves while you are performing. So that process of writing, rehearsing, revising, tightening, re-writing and rehearsing again has been great fun, and completely central to how the show has developed. People who might have seen me perform one of the pieces separately might be surprised at how much has changed.


What particular traditions and influences would you acknowledge on your work - have any particular artists, or genres inspired you and do you see yourself within their tradition?

The beat generation continue to be a huge inspiration - one of the poems in the show is a homage to Alan Ginsberg's Howl, sanctioned by the estate of the great man himself. The themes of the show are heavily indebted to Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Camus, John Gray and Thomas Ligotti. 

On the performance side of things, this year I have been really

inspired by one-man performances from Chris Thorpe ('Confirmation') and Christopher Brett-Bailey ('This Is How We Die'). Inspired by these shows, I wanted to create something that felt muscular, utterly singular, and intense. A loaded dialogue between performer and audience, in a way... I want to use my show to infect people with ideas. I am trying to picture myself as a disease vector for nihilistic thoughts, and then an inoculating needle.


Do you have a particular process of making that you could describe - where it begins, how you develop it, and whether there is any collaboration in the process?
Not much in the way of collaboration, in terms of the writing - but the rehearsal process, and the feedback I got from my fellow SHIFT/ers was invaluable. So the performance was a case of trial and error, informed by detailed feedback. Some of the music was made collaboratively - there are drone pieces in there which have elements co-written by a musician I work with called Partisan, and some mandolin samples from a producer called Mild Maynyrd. The pre-made elements of the tracks for the show were also mastered by Asthmatic Astronaut of Black Lantern Music.


What do you feel the role of the audience is, in terms of making the meaning of your work? 
I suppose their role is to examine these existential questions about suffering and existence, which I am posing quite directly at some points, and more cryptically at others. My show is quite heavily didactic - it is unapologetically polemical, with some of the language taking the shape of political speeches, rhetoric, and loaded satire. So their reaction is somewhat dictated to them, if they are sympathetic to my bleak world-view... otherwise, they are free to react with disgust. Perhaps they will find that it is all a bleak and monstrous tapestry with no meaning. Perhaps they can just enjoy the imagery in the writing, and the music... I hope it means something to them, anyway.


Are there any questions that you feel I have missed out that would help me to understand how dramaturgy works for you?
I am, undoubtedly, an enthusiastic amateur at the dramaturgy part of this - but having written traditional scripts, short stories, and three minute performance poems before, I can say that this script is different. It was developed through performance. It has been road-tested and it is rugged. I am new to the process of creation-through-repetition-and-feedback... and I have absolutely loved experiencing it. I think this is the strongest work I've ever done. Why haven't I been working like this for years?!

Between 2009 and 2011 under the name Texture, Bram recorded the Neuroleptica Trilogy of EPs, featuring collaborations with Morphamish, Asthmatic Astronaut, dustmotes, Monkeytribe, Krowne and Harlequinade, among others. The EPs were remastered and re-released in 2012. In 2007, he released Future Proof with long-term collaborator Morphamish, under the name Double Helix. Bram is currently working on new music with his band DUST, new solo tracks as Texture, and a collab with US rapper p.WRECKS as Power Hungry Liars.  

In 2009, he  helped set up the label Black Lantern Music, releasing music by more than thirty artists from Scotland and worldwide. In 2011 he released the self-produced album Sigil Kids on Aural Sects, following it up in 2012 with Sigil Kids II - Thrown Room. Bram regularly performs live and puts on shows, and has played the Kelburn Music Festival's Viewpoint Sessions, the Wickerman Festival and at gigs throughout the UK. In 2011, he recorded a live session for the BBC Radio 1 Introducing.... New Music: Scotland show. Black Lantern hosts a fortnightly show on Future Music FM - Bram co-hosts with Asthmatic Astronaut on alternating fortnights. 

The Dramaturgicon: Ali Maloney @ Edfringe 2015

The Fringe

What inspired this production: did you begin with an idea or a script or an object?
This particular show, HYDRONOMICON, was inspired by a variety of ideas. I was interested in exploring how to mould the bouffon discipline to storytelling. I was particularly struck by two shows that operated in, or around, bouffon: Red Bastard and Al Seed's Fooligan. (Aside: Red Bastard for me, was the closest I have ever been to seeing slam-dancing to spoken word, which is something I strive to achieve.) I was keen to explore the issues and techniques used by them and see how they could fit into my own style of performance poetry. 

Concurrently to this, I also had this idea of telling the story of the end of the world by flooding. Traditionally, flood myths always open with humanity bringing the wrath of the gods upon themselves; if there was ever a situation that invited the satirical sneer of the bouffon, it is this: would we deserve to be annihilated? Probably, yes.


Why bring your work to Edinburgh?
I live here so, inevitably, the majority of my formative theatrical experiences were at the Festival, so it makes sense to have aspired to perform here too. That, and I live here, so it's easy and cheap(er than it otherwise would be here) and I can sleep in my own bed rather than ten to a mattress squat.


What can the audience expect to see and feel - or even think - of your production?
There are jokes, and there are moments of utter bleakness; there are moments of flippant silliness, there are moments of terrifying truth. Sometimes these moments happen all at the same time. I want the audience to be entertained while questioning how they live, I want the audience to be taken on a narrative journey while being worked up into a revolutionary frenzy.

It is said that the ideal audience response to a bouffon show is to laugh uproariously throughout the whole show, then go home and kill themselves. I wouldn't want that to happen - the second bit, I mean, not the laughter; the laughter's ok though, isn't it? - but it's that dichotomy of response I am interested in.


The Dramaturgy Questions
How would you explain the relevance - or otherwise - of dramaturgy within your work?
As someone operating, nominally, within performance poetry / spoken word, this is something I need to address anew with each project. In some respects, performance poetry lies at the root of theatre, and yet still is establishing its own dramaturgical conventions. As an art form and a medium, it is undergoing somewhat of resurgence and yet we are still striving to leave the cliché of the unsteady voice reading awful angst from clutched and quivering pages.

Dramaturgy is of vital consideration to anyone who is doing anything on stage and in front of an audience, for that is where theatre happens. There is a tendency within spoken word to consider itself as somehow distinct from theatre (or stand-up comedy for that matter) which I fundamentally disagree with. It should be a very physical and tactile experience; anything less and it’s just someone reading off paper.

In this respect, it becomes a question of how I interpret a set of poems (or more likely, a rag-tag of fragments and platitudes) into a coherent piece of theatre.

What particular traditions and influences would you acknowledge on your work - have any particular artists, or genres inspired you and do you see yourself within their tradition?

Bouffon, weird fiction, backpacker rap, grotesque burlesque, horror, cosmic pessimism, plunderphonica, Dadaism; I enjoy, and am mostly inspired by, culture that attempts to eschew tradition and deliberately crosses boundaries. So yes, I see myself as being in the tradition of the flippant anti-tradition. I am very aware that my work as spoken word artist, as a band and as theatre are all, to a large extent, indistinguishable - and that is an ambiguity in which I thrive, but makes being booked more problematic (LOLZ).

Some specific things that I enjoy and inform my work: Lauremont’s Maldoror, Bill Burroughs, Svankmajer, blackSKYwhite, Berkoff’s Kafka adaptations, Keiji Haino, The League of Gentlemen, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Mr Bungle, Zdzisław Beksiński, Chris Morris and so on and on.

Do you have a particular process of making that you could describe - where it begins, how you develop it, and whether there is any collaboration in the process?
I keep being asked if I write the words first, then choreograph them, or if I start the other way around. The truth is, it’s a little of each but, really, it all starts with a concept, an idea or a central image. Out of that, words and movements tend to extrapolate themselves.

Despite the fact that I almost always work in collaboration (normally with musicians), a lot of the development work goes on inside my head (normally in the shower).

What do you feel the role of the audience is, in terms of making the meaning of your work?
They are there to play, and to be played with.