I am in the happy position of having many ideas for how to develop my latest show, and final part of the Self Trilogy: Who Knows Where.
Except me to wobble, be enveloped in the blackness, wash my own skin, converse with a dead rat and more!
I am happy with the response to the show. Which have included two positive reviews and my very first bad review! Got to keep things balanced.
I would like to point out that it was a work in progress showing. A fact missing from the intentionally vague and poetic copy in the programme. Whoops. Sorry to those who came expecting to see something finished.
Nothing that you saw will necessarily be in the final show. No one has seen all the transitions this show has been through but here is a little history -
1. Pilot Jan 09 - tape Miller crash
2. Prototype Nov 09 - Bubble wrap dance
3. Ferment Jan 10 - scatter shot joy
4. Mayfest may 10 - Death chance show
5 ???????????????????????????????????
I had an awful time working on this show after version 2. I pulled a manic show together for Frement. After that I just didn't have any inspiration. I made a show that i thought was interesting, about searching for inspiration and reclaiming English-ness from a host of swine, but i didn't care a jot for it. There was no passion in its creation, i didn't *have* to perform it. A total disaster was just around the corner. I would have put uninspired work on stage and that would have been a betrayal. I only do these shows because i have to. So right at the last moment, the Monday night before the show on Thursday, inspiration struck. I sat down after watching the amazing Peggy Shaw's Must and wrote down the new show that i would be performing in 3 days time. About 80% was totally new and the rest was finding places for ideas that have been floating untethered in my head since i started this show in January 2009. So the result was even fresher than ever, so fresh it was raw. Making it hard to digest and perhaps not to everyone's taste.
This raises some interesting issues for me. Where does my responsibility lie? With the audience or with myself as an artist? So to resolve them here is my personal manifesto, this applies to any show that goes out under my name.
1. I will only show work that I care about.
2. I will always work from inspiration.
3. I will never put myself in danger of breaking rules 1 and 2.
