The Pulse of Dramaturgy: Mairi Campbell on a one woman musical theatre (without jazz hands)

The award-winning musician Mairi Campbell presents her new solo theatre show Pulse. Mairi steps out on a quest to heal ancient wounds and to “come home”.

In Pulse, Mairi sings, acts, plays and dances the story of her musical homecoming and journey of the heart. Mairi weaves live viola, voice, animation, movement and storytelling with tracks from her latest groundbreaking album Pulse.

The show, which is directed by Kath Burlinson, begins with Mairi feeling creatively stultified by her classical training at the Guildhall School of Music in London.

She then travels to Mexico and Cape Breton before returning to Scotland to take up her bow in the traditional music scene.

In the background is her love story with her husband and musical collaborator Dave Francis, who teaches her to play her first tune by ear.

Pulse is deeply touching, funny and potent. The show is a significant development in Mairi’s artistry and is performed with an incredible power, commitment and energy.

What was the inspiration for this performance?
Seeing a pal who is an orchestral clarinetist doing an amazing one-woman show – bringing so much more to the table. My story was wanting to emerge and seemed to be calling a broader frame than just a gig. She inspired me. 

How did you go about gathering the team for it?
Pulse was funded by Creative Scotland so that meant I could pay a director and producer, which is the bedrock of the team. I asked Kath Burlinson to direct the show – we’ve worked together for a few years now and I love her work. 

How did you become interested in making performance?
I’ve always been interested in the exchange between audience and

performer. I’ve been a musician for 30 years and played concerts across the globe, engaging with audiences in music. 

Kath is deeply engaged with pedagogy and process in theatre and this has made me more aware of what can happen and to ‘showing up’ on stage for the sake of the work. Being vulnerable but with a strong craft is a powerful combination.

Was your process typical of the way that you make a performance?
No. Normally, I work on a bunch of songs and then play a concert with ad hoc chat between them. A lot’s changed in the last few years though – live improvisations are a big thing for me these days.  

What do you hope that the audience will experience?  
Deep emotional connection to the story, both my personal one and the wider story about Scotland. Hope that’s not too much to ask! 

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?
Using the various elements that I can bring to performance, and blending them in a realist/abstract fashion. The audience gets enough of the story to know what’s going on, but experience an abstraction of events through sound and movement, which I think gives more room for personal interpretation. I’ve also been inspired by a method called InterPlay which combines movement, sound and story. 

Do you see your work within any particular tradition?
Maybe it’s closest to music theatre without the jazz hands…

Are there any other questions that might help me to understand the meaning of dramaturgy for you in your work?
Kath Burlinson is a dramaturgist and pioneer in this work today. Her ability to extracting authentic expression is quite extraordinary and helping me, a completely untrained actress, to bring that to a show is impressive. It’s not an easy path, that’s for sure, but her approach is a good fit for me and my voice. 

Mairi Campbell: Pulse premiers at Celtic Connections at the Tron Theatre, Glasgow on 27th and 28th January

Electronic Music: Pulse! (Part 1)

Electronic music is still struggling to find a relationship between the seriousness of its compositions and the immediacy of live performance. Often being closer to classical music in terms of scope and ambition, it lacks the vitality of rock or pop but can veer into pretentiousness when aping the chamber concert. Ben Frost summed up the problems - his music vacillates between Michael Gira and Reich - in his recent gig at the Fruitmarket, which was less interesting as performance than as a soundtrack. 

Matthew Herbert's One Pig at Tramway was more successful, not least due to the sight of a lab-coated boffin bouncing about in a musical cage but for all the live remixing, fancy trickery and performance play - One Pig was recast as a performance for laptops, electric fence, boffins and chef - electronic music thrives on the sterility of the studio rather than the grubby confines of the gig.

While Sonica is going some way to present enough sound art to sketch out the boundaries of modern musical performance, Glasgow City Halls is beavering away with PULSE: Touch 30. Pulse is a new strand of programming - kicked off by Frost last month - and Touch 30 is a celebration of the London experimental audio-visual company.

The gig is a three way mash-up of talents: like a Scottish Ballet triple bill, it has something for different crowds. Philip Jeck gets busy on the decks; BJ Nilsen examines how sound hits humans and composes for film and theatre; Thomas Köner would fit nicely under Sonica's "sonic art for the visually minded" rubric, and has been known to mess about with a bit of dub-techno

Philip Jeck is a rare turntablist who, like Janek Shaefer, is less a hero of the dance floor than a determined sound artist. He brought his Vinyl Requiem up to Tramway in the 1990s: this immense piece is both a nostalgic tribute to the record-player, made at the point when CDs were still looking viable as a replacement, and a reminder of how the turntable has a versatility that makes it an instrument in its own right. 

Jeck is also worth seeing perform. His music may come from a secure intellectual foundation - he learnt his skills at Dartington College, not at the block party, and so shares a tradition with live artists or theatre companies like Fish and Game rather than Terminator X - but he has a presence that is unexpected from the man who won The Paul Hamlyn Foundation Composers Award.

Thursday 22 November 2012, 8pm @Old Fruitmarket