Author Archives: Dorothy Max Prior

About Dorothy Max Prior

Dorothy Max Prior is the editor of Total Theatre Magazine, and is also a performer, writer, dramaturg and choreographer/director working in theatre, dance, installation and outdoor arts. Much of her work is sited in public spaces or in venues other than regular theatres. She also writes essays and stories, some of which are published and some of which languish in bottom drawers – and she teaches drama, dance and creative non-fiction writing. www.dorothymaxprior.com

Wise Children/Emma Rice: Wise Children

A name in lights, a vintage caravan, a chorus warming up, stagehands sweeping, a band running through a soundcheck.

The houselights dim. The caravan spins to reveal an open-fronted side, showing a comfy pink-cushioned den. Two ‘ladies’ in identical embroidered satin kimonos look out. Our narrator, Dora Chance, tells us that she was born on the wrong side of the tracks (at 49 Bard Road, Brixton, South London) just five minutes before her identical twin sister, Nora – illegitimate (in every sense) daughters of a maid called Pretty Kitty, raised by the owner of the lodging house for theatricals they were born into, who they called Grandma Chance.

We look at these two bodies of varying build/gender who seem nothing like twins, and we suspend disbelief.

Today, they still live in Bard Road – although we will learn that there has been a grand life journey to get them back where they started – and they are celebrating their 75th birthdays. ‘Something will happen today’ says Dora. ‘Something exciting. Something nice, something nasty, I don’t give a monkey’s. Just as long as something happens to remind us we’re still in the land of the living.’ The ‘something’ turns out to be an invitation to attend the 100th birthday party of the great Shakespearean actor Sir Melchior Hazard, with whom they share a birthday, and who happens to be their father.

So far so good.

Wise Children is Angela Carter’s great last novel. It explores family ties in general, and paternity in particular; the magic symbolism of the twin; UK theatre and showbiz history throughout the twentieth century, high and low rubbing noses; Shakespearean tropes of identity confusion, gender reversals, and father-daughter relationship. It is bursting to the brim with ideas, beautifully written in one of English literature’s wittiest and most beguiling first-person voices. How on earth can all that translate to the stage?

This adaptation, by director Emma Rice (who probably needs no introduction, but still, here goes: director of/with Kneehigh Theatre for many years, of Shakespeare’s Globe for a shorter run – acrimonious departure, setting up of new company which shares a name with its first production, Wise Children) is the culmination of a long-held ambition. Having tackled Carter’s Nights at the Circus in 2006, she has apparently been chomping at the bit to get at this one.

And so the first question is: what is it that makes people want to adapt favourite novels for the stage? I can understand the reluctance to invent plots when so many exist already – myths, fairy tales, historical derring-dos. Shakespeare knew this, and often went for ready-made stories; Rice has usually found a suitable fairy tale or true-life story to hinge her work around. But having the skeleton of a story to build flesh on and breathe life into is very different to attempting to adapt a novel brimming with plots and sub-plots, featuring a hundred years of family history and cultural commentary, all told in a distinctive first-person voice: ‘the history of the world in evening frocks’ as Dora would have it.

The voice is the main challenge. Everything in the novel is filtered through Dora. This translates theatrically into a narrator who rattles through the telling of the tale at full speed, the resulting narrative replacing much of the distinctive wit of Carter’s Wise Children with pantomime bawdiness, as so much of the reflection and insight characteristic of Dora has to be ditched in order to fit in this incredibly long and convoluted plot. Even at two-and-a-half hours length, the show feels immensely hurried, with scenes frequently shorthanded – I wonder if anyone who hadn’t read the book could possibly keep up. And there are some very strange choices made about what to keep in and what to ditch. Oddly, in a production that has so many contributors on and off stage, the one thing missing in the credits is a writer. Or a dramaturg. Here’s a show badly in need of one or other. Preferably both. So, as far as the script goes, it’s a no.

But luckily the show does have very many other things in its favour. Dazzling dance routines from Melissa James and Omari Douglas, who play the Lucky Chances, the twins in their showgirl heyday. (One body is male, one female, and they look nothing like twins – again, we are asked to suspend disbelief – but as so much of the book, and this show, is about fantasy and illusion and role-playing, that’s fine with me.)

There are, in fact, five versions of the Chance sisters seen onstage: puppet babies in a bundle, puppet children, real-actor older children, the showgirls, and Nora and Dora aged 75, played by Etta Murfitt (who is also the company’s choreographer) and Gareth Snook. Other characters – including absent father Melchior Hazard, the great Shakespearean actor, and benevolent Uncle Peregrine – also appear in various forms, both puppet and human. Told by an Idiot’s Paul Hunter makes a splendid older Melchior, and he also appears onstage as end-of-the-pier comedian Gorgeous George, in Max Miller-ish striped socks and rude gags. George’s ‘It’s OK, he’s not your father!’ punchline is the crux of the book and show. And Hunter playing the kings of high and low culture is a nice touch. Kneehigh Theatre’s artistic director Mike Shepherd plays the older Peregrine with his usual aplomb. Katy Owen gives us an ultra-bawdy clown take on Grandma Chance that is highly skilled, but it’s an interpretation that is a little too grotesque for my taste.

The excellent puppetry, which includes the figurative work and a lovely recurring motif of fluttering butterflies on wires – comes courtesy of the Little Angel team of Lyndie and Sarah Wright. There is also a lovely animation scene, line drawings of London images projected onto the caravan. Circus gets a foot in the door in the form of contortionist and hand-balancer Mirabelle Gremaud (playing the pre-adolescent Nora Chance.) The fifteen-strong cast chop and change roles repeatedly throughout – there’s that great raft of main characters at various ages, then also all the smaller roles: the ‘legit’ Hazard twin daughters Saskia and Imogen; object of the twins’ desire, ‘the blue-eyed boy’; Melchior’s first wife Lady Atalanta (aka Wheelchair). And if not that, then there’s work to be done as a chorus member.

Music always plays a key role in Emma Rice’s productions, and here she works with Kneehigh comrades Ian Ross (the new company’s composer and musical director) and Stu Barker. The production features an eclectic mix of live and recorded music, from a repeated playing of Let’s Face the Music and Dance in different forms, to a live sleazy-jazzy version of the Louis Jordan tune Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby? and an anchoring in the present-day of the narration (the 1980s) by the inclusion of a dance routine to Eddie Grant’s Electric Avenue (about Brixton, innit?) and a whole cast rendition of Cindy Lauper’s Girls Just Want to Have Fun.

The scenography carries a lot of the show. The stage within the stage is a familiar Emma Rice motif, seen repeatedly in Kneehigh shows such as The Flying Lovers, Tristan and Iseult, Rapunzel: here, we have the caravan that twirls on its axis to reveal a front parlour or a dressing room at whim; a flimsy fire curtain that drops down to allow for peeping under, or transformations behind; or the delineation of separate spaces determined by the physical actions of the actors – typical physical theatre tricks of the chorus becoming a car full of people whilst the one left behind stands and watches them gad off, or two characters playing out a stylised sex scene, seemingly invisible to others onstage. Wise Children, written in lights above the action, is cleverly manipulated to reveal key words within – Wild, for example.

Eventually, after tackling the whole of the legit Hazard and illegit Chance family histories, we come full circle, back to the birthday in 1989 that Nora and Dora share with their father, and the party they’ve been invited to (to their surprise).

Once more into the breach go the Chance sisters: sequinned mini-dresses at the ready; full make-up to be applied, because ‘the habit of applying war paint outlives the battle’. Is there resolution? Does everyone live happily ever after? The ending hurries the narrative at an even faster pace than earlier, leaving the Chance twins with another set of baby twins who have arrived with very little explanation. Again, in its desperate endeavour to be true to the novel, we have things thrust at us that haven’t been properly set up. It’s frustrating – but it is hard to know what else could have been done.

Wise Children is Carter’s best novel, and she’s one of my favourite authors – so perhaps nothing would make me happy other than just going home and re-reading the book. But it has to be said: this is not Emma Rice’s best show. I understand the standing ovation; the Old Vic audience’s obvious enthusiasm for this glittering showbiz homage. But I leave feeling dissatisfied – for all the merits of the production, it felt like a long night, and I’d have much preferred an hour-long ‘inspired by’ than this frenetic adaptation.

‘Hope for the best, expect the worst’ says Dora repeatedly. Wise words.

Co-Creation, Consent and Criticism

I’m standing outside Summerhall in Edinburgh, talking to a well-known journalist, whose daughter is a circus artist. We’re talking grandchildren, and I mention that mine (aged 20 months at the time) was already a seasoned performer, having appeared in two Spiegelcircus shows with his parents.

Have they thought about the issue of consent? asks my companion.

Which is food for thought. Of course, a toddler can’t give consent to appear in a show – although in this case, his parents are always very sensitive to his needs, and there was at least one day at this year’s Brighton Fringe that he didn’t go on because he was feeling grouchy. But most days he seemed very happy to be invited in on the action, if that counts for anything. Particularly as it involved wearing a tiger suit…

Children have always been part of the circus story. In traditional circuses, the kids sell popcorn and learn their craft and just as soon as they are ready, they are out there in the ring, playing their part. Even in contemporary circus, it’s not unusual. Chaplin’s grandchildren James and Aurelia Thierrée famously made their performance debut, aged 4, as suitcases with legs, starring with their parents, Jean-Baptiste Thierrée and Victoria Chaplin, in the legendary Invisible Circus. Did it do them any harm? James went on to become one of the most respected circus/physical theatre performers of this generation; Aurelia ran away from the circus as a young woman, but found her way back eventually. It’s a family affair.

And it’s not just in circus: Welfare State International, led by John Fox and Sue Gill, were always a company with a strong sense of family and community, and the children were part of it. John and Sue’s children, Dan and Hannah Fox, were an integral part of the company, riding horses or carrying lanterns from an early age. Both have grown up to be leading outdoor arts practitioners, continuing the traditions and practices trail-blazed by their parents.

More contentiously perhaps, physical comedian Trygve Wakenshaw brought Trygve Versus A Baby to the Edinburgh Fringe 2017 – a show which aimed to answer the question: What’s more entertaining – a world famous mime, or a standard baby? Trygve played opposite his own one-year-old baby, Phineas, ‘inducting him into the family business as early as possible’, setting up a number of scenes in which he tried (and of course failed) to be upstaged by the baby. It was a great show, but I did worry what would happen if the little one (like my grandchild) had not wanted to go on one night – in this case, he was not an ‘extra’, he was the main attraction, which seemed pretty risky. I note that Trygve didn’t continue the show after its Edinburgh run.

Basically, when considering the issue of children giving their consent as performers, it is worth noting that we don’t ask consent of our children about many of the activities that we include them in from the youngest of ages – and traditionally that includes accompanying their parents to work. If we run a corner shop or cafe, our little ones will be sitting in a pram in a corner while we do our work, and as soon as they are old enough, they’ll be behind the counter serving. Babies are carried on backs during harvest time; children are expected to muck in with the mucking out on the farm. Across the world, throughout history, children have been expected to play a role in the family business. Of course, this is not to condone the exploitation of child labour, but being part of the family’s activities (including work) is normal in all places and times outside of the strange little bubble that is here and now. Is performance any different? If it is wrong to put children ‘on display’ without explicit consent, does that include photographing them or videoing them? Or writing about them? Where do you draw the line?

Further thoughts on consent for child performers were sparked by seeing the Ed Fringe show Katie & Pip, by Tin Can People. This show features two professional theatre-makers, and the 15-year-old sister of one of them (Katie) plus her dog (Pip). The subject of the show is Katie’s type 1 diabetes, and the role her medical alert assistance dog plays in keeping her safe. The show raised the issue for Total Theatre of how to review work that features children and non-professional performers. Indeed, should this work be reviewed at all? One one side: it’s being presented by a professional theatre company, and needs to be viewed and judged in the same way you would any other work. On the other hand – if children or vulnerable adults and/or non-actors are involved, should their work be judged? Basically, the rule of thumb seems to be, if the review is a good one, and there is nothing much to be critical of, then a review is fine. But if there are reservations, it isn’t. And that is something I am not comfortable with, and I therefore then decided that in future, I won’t be running reviews of co-created work – although such work will be covered in other ways, such as in feature articles (or indeed blogs, as here).

So, ’co-creation’ – let’s stop and reflect for a moment on that most contemporary of arts practices, which comes with its own terminology. The word was originally a business term, coined in 2000 to refer to a management strategy ‘that brings different parties together (for instance, a company and a group of customers), in order to jointly produce a mutually valued outcome’. (I can hear your sighs from here…)

It is certainly riding high as a word with ‘currency’: Battersea Arts Centre has set up a co-creation network, and it’s one of the key words of the moment as far as the arts funders are concerned. In brief: it is work in which professional artists work with non-professionals – real people, if you like – in presenting true life stories or real experiences in a theatricalised context. ‘Agency’ is another key word. How to give agency to the people who own the stories, or whose lives you are throwing a spotlight on?

Although it could be seen as just another way to reframe ’community engagement’, at its best, it is work by companies such as Mammalian Diving Reflex, whose mission is to focus on ‘creating social acupuncture – playful, provocative, site and social-specific participatory performances with non-actors of all ages and demographics’. Their always-excellent shows include Haircuts by Children (which is exactly what it says on the tin), or Nightwalks with Teenagers (ditto). Operating in a more conventional, theatrical context (even though the work itself is highly innovative): Bryony Kimmings made a fabulous show with and about her nine-year-old niece (Credible Likeable Superstar Role-model, 2013); Quarantine regularly place non-performers at the heart of their work, for example in Susan & Darren, an ’event with dancing’, created with and performed by dancer Darren Pritchard and his mum, Susan, a cleaner; and Scottee is currently touring Fat Blokes a ‘sort of dance show about flab, double chins and getting your kit off in public… made in collaboration with Lea Anderson and four fat blokes who’ve never done this sort of thing before’.

Another contemporary example is the recent work of Vincent Dance Theatre, who worked extensively with teenagers and young adults in the creation of installation works Virgin Territory (exploring the experiences and fears around sexual violence of young women) and Shut Down (which did a similar thing for young men). Their latest work, Art of Attachment, is a co-creation piece commissioned by Brighton Oasis Project – a substance misuse treatment service in Brighton.

Throughout 2018, Charlotte Vincent worked with women in recovery from substance misuse, ultimately creating a performance piece in which ‘real-life testimonies combine with visual metaphor and movement to reveal the physical, emotional and psychological impact of drug and alcohol use on relationships… celebrating the everyday resilience of women and children overcoming adversity, whose stories demand to be seen and heard’. The resulting performance is presented by Brighton Oasis Project at the Attenborough Centre of Creative Arts, in an evening of related work that has come out of the project that also includes an uplifting set by poet Lemn Sissay, and a beautifully constructed film by Becky Edmunds.

Vincent Dance Theatre’s piece is an excellent example of co-created performance work,which is not only careful to honour and enable the ‘non actor’ participants with care and respect, but also a dramaturgically sound, satisfying performance piece in its own right.

Four women’s stories are presented, the four women – Annette, Louise, Leah, Vikki (no surnames given) – live on stage, each seated behind a wooden table placed side-by-side upstage, taking turns to speak out, then move out or under or around the table to occupy space elsewhere on the stage. Each testimony is heard as a straightforward text, in each woman’s own voice, but is also deconstructed and re-presented in a poetic blend of rhythmic sound, gestural movement, and intense physical action. Two professional dancer-actors, Antonia Gove and Robert Clark, are there to echo, shadow, illustrate or provoke.

I toy with the idea of reviewing the show for Total Theatre, but decide in the end that my self-imposed ‘rule’ needs to apply both ways. If it is not right to review a co-created work you have misgivings about, on the grounds that it might hurt feelings or worse, then even if (as in this case) you feel something does stand up on its own legs as a performance piece, it shouldn’t be reviewed.

That said, it comes highly commended.

The Art of Attachment, presented by Oasis Project Brighton and featuring Lemn Sissay and Vincent Dance Theatre, was seen at the Attenborough Centre for Creative Arts, 18 October 2018. The Involvement of lead artists Charlotte Vincent and Lemn Sissay was funded by a Wellcome Arts Award.

Featured image: Vincent Dance Theatre: Art of Attachment in rehearsal.

Total Theatre Archive – Phase One Done

Total Theatre Archive: preserving 30 years of UK performance history and creating an interactive archive

Total Theatre Magazine announces the completion of phase one of its Heritage Lottery Funded archive project – 25 years of Total Theatre Magazine in print sourced and scanned, new website in development

We are delighted to announce that with the support of a substantial grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, through the Our Heritage funding programme, we have completed phase one of the project Total Theatre Archive: preserving 30 years of UK performance history and creating an interactive archive.

The very first Total Theatre Magazine, Winter 1988/89

Working with The Keep National Archive Centre, and a team of volunteers trained and mentored by The Keep’s Reprographics Department, every single print issue of the magazine (close to 100 issues over 25 years) has been sourced, scanned and saved to PDF. Volunteers have also been trained and mentored in writing and editorial processes, attending live performance events and festivals in Brighton, London and Edinburgh, and taking part in a series of workshops on critical writing, written documentation and archiving led by Total Theatre Magazine’s editor Dorothy Max Prior.

Volunteer Ciaran Hammond and the BookEye scanner at The Keep

In phase two of the project, the full 25 years of Total Theatre Magazine in print will be made available online in a brand new website with fully searchable content – a valuable resource for scholars, journalists, artists, students, and anybody interested in Britain’s alternative theatre and performance history. The website has been constructed, and data entry is in progress. Once complete, Total Theatre Magazine’s editorial team will then be working with theatre writers, editors, and leading arts professionals to create new content that will reflect upon and interact with the archive; and collaborating with our partners to create a programme of activities and learning opportunities using the new archive. A new Total Theatre Artists as Writers initiative is also launched October 2018, managed by Associate Editor Beccy Smith, as part of phase two of the project. Details of the chosen participants will be announced soon here.

Volunteer Matty Blake and the issue of TTM for the month she was born

Volunteer Matty Blake and an issue of TTM from the year she was born

Total Theatre Magazine’s editor, and project manager of the Total Theatre Archive project, Dorothy Max Prior says:

‘It has been a delight to work with so many brilliant and talented volunteers in phase one of the project. Their dedication to the Total Theatre Archive has been truly wonderful. Whilst data entry to the new website continues, we concurrently launch our Total Theatre Artists as Writers scheme. It’s going to be a fruitful few months, and I thank everyone who has made this possible especially Heritage Lottery Fund and the National Lottery players, Attenborough Centre of Creative Arts / University of Sussex, The Keep National Archive Centre, and our wonderful team of volunteer archivists and writers. Onwards we go!

TTM print archive, year by year

Further information:

About Total Theatre Magazine

For over 30 years, Total Theatre Magazine has been at the forefront of the advocacy, celebration and documentation of contemporary theatre and performance – including the support of forms such as circus, street theatre, site-responsive performance, puppetry, and visual theatre, which have often been ignored, or not treated with the seriousness they merit, by other publications. Thanks to National Lottery players, this archive will be preserved for everyone to engage with, all content provided free to view. The new Total Theatre Archive website is to be launched in 2019.

Total Theatre Magazine was in print 1989–2012, and subsequently online at www.totaltheatre.org.uk The print magazine encompassed close to 100 issues over those 25 years.

Total Theatre Magazine is unique as an artist-led practice-based publication and resource that celebrates, supports and documents innovative work by artists and companies creating ‘total theatre’ – a term we resist defining too tightly, but which includes: physical, visual and ensemble devised theatre; dance-theatre; mime and clown; contemporary circus; cabaret and new variety; puppetry and animation; street arts, outdoor performance, and site-specific theatre; live art performance and hybrid arts.

Total Theatre Magazine is currently in a process of redevelopment which will result in an exciting new phase of life, building on our strong heritage and finding new ways to critique, document and support contemporary physical and visual theatre and performance.

Total Theatre Magazine is managed and published by Aurelius Productions CIC, who took over publication from previous supporters University of Winchester., and before that Arts Council England, as one project of the regularly funded organisation Mime Action Group trading as Total Theatre Network The core editorial team (Dorothy Max Prior, John Ellingsworth, Beccy Smith and Thomas Wilson) is working to progress plans for the next phase of Total Theatre Magazine.

Total Theatre Artists as Writers Scheme

Workshops in critical response and writing skills plus a one-to-one writing development plan put together in bespoke packages to support the artists involved over the period October 2019 – January 2019. The project will result in the writing and publication of an extended essay/article on their own practice in relation to the Archive and, we hope, new conversations about writing on contemporary theatre in the UK. This scheme is being run by Total Theatre Magazine’s Associate Editor Beccy Smith. Contact her on reviews@totaltheatre.org.uk

About Total Theatre Network:

Total Theatre Magazine operates in collaboration with, but financially independent of, the Total Theatre Awards at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which are produced by the organisation Total Theatre Network. See www.totaltheatrenetwork.org

About the Heritage Lottery Fund:

Thanks to National Lottery players, Heritage Lottery Fund invest money to help people across the UK explore, enjoy and protect the heritage they care about – from the archaeology under our feet to the historic parks and buildings we love; from precious memories and collections to rare wildlife. See www.hlf.org.uk

Our Partners and Supporters:

Total Theatre Magazine has received financial support from Heritage Lottery Fund’s Our Heritage, and a number of leading institutions and organisations, including: Rose Bruford College of Theatre & Performance, Royal Conservatoire Scotland, and The Attenborough Centre of Creative Arts at University of Sussex. The project has been supported by The Keep National Archive Centre, Sussex. We have also received support in kind from a diverse range of arts organisations and individuals. We welcome enquiries from anyone wishing to help Total Theatre Magazine in this: contact Dorothy Max Prior on editorial@totaltheatre.org.uk

Call-out for Artist-Writers interested in working with Total Theatre Magazine (UK-wide)

Are you an artist curious about developing your writing skills? Would you like to develop a more robust critical response tool kit for contemporary work? Are you interested in exploring writing about theatre making, past and present? Do you want to think more systematically about how we write about theatre and performance?

As part of our Heritage Lottery Fund project Total Theatre Archive: Preserving 30 Years of UK Performance History, the Total Theatre Magazine editorial team are offering a series of free workshops and one-to-one mentoring for a new cohort of contemporary theatre/performance artists interested in exploring writing about their own alternative artistic practices, and placing them in the context of the Total Theatre Magazine Print Archive.

Total Theatre Magazine champions artist-led critical writing, putting the practitioner at the heart of discourse surrounding their own work and the work of their peers. For the past thirty years the magazine, first in print and now online, has played a critical role in promoting and championing alternative theatre practice in the UK, celebrating and supporting physical and visual theatre, circus, street arts, puppetry, performance & live art, queer arts, interactive work, and more. The current site can be viewed at www.totaltheatre.org.uk A new website is in development to house the digitised print archive, together with new writing generated by this project.

Workshops in critical response and writing skills plus a one-to-one writing development plan will be put together in bespoke packages to support the artists involved over the period October 2019 – January 2019. The project will result in the writing and publication of an extended essay/article on their own practice in relation to the Archive and, we hope, new conversations about writing on contemporary theatre in the UK.

Please note this is a voluntary participatory project, offering free training and mentoring. No prior writing experience is necessary, simply a committed interest in exploring your own and other’s practice through this lens.

To apply, please send a short outline of your artistic background, where you’re based, and why you’d like to take part, to reviews@totaltheatre.org.uk by 12 October 2018. Successful applicants will be contacted by 19 October 2018.

This project is funded by a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and is supported by Attenborough Centre of Creative Arts at University of Sussex, The Keep National Archive Centre, Rose Bruford College of Theatre & Performance, and Royal Conservatoire Scotland.

www.totaltheatre.org.uk Heritage Lottery Fund #HLFSupported@HeritageLottery

Slow Art

Dorothy Max Prior goes to Inside Out Dorset, a biennial outdoor arts festival with an emphasis on work that both honours and engages with the landscape in which it is sited, urban or rural

A Friday evening in September on the waterfront at Poole Quay. A bright night, with a tiny sliver of new moon shining above the rig – the set and site for the Cirque Rouages show that is the big attraction on the opening evening of Inside Out Dorset 2018.

The audience are on all four sides of a big structure which has billowing white gauze sails attached to a ‘ship’ which is sporting two large rusty-looking metal wheels on either end, wires running between them. To one side are the musicians. Behind the veils, we see four figures turning and tumbling, their shadows thrown onto the fabric. I walk around the edge of the crowd. If I stand to the side of a wheel, facing out to the water, I see the performers under the ‘sails’ and I see the masts of the real ships and the dockland cranes framing them from behind. If I stand face-on then I see a beautiful shadow theatre of the four performing bodies. The fabric is drawn back, and the wonder of the rig is revealed – it is, in essence, two tightrope wires, one high and one even higher, attached to the two enormous wheels.

Cirque Rouages: Sodade. Photo Elliot Franks

Over the 50 minutes we are treated to an eloquent exploration of the art of wire-walking by the four-person team of acrobats – although this show is so much more: these four walk, balance, dance, carry each other, and use the wire as a trapeze, creating breathtaking and beautiful images against the darkening night sky. All is augmented by the live sound, a lyrical melange of jazz and world music featuring live strings and vocals mixed with pre-recorded sound and a poetic spoken word text that gives voice to the memories of an older man – mariner, emigré – reflecting on key moments of his long life. When six years old, we learn, his aunt sang him a ballad about the magnificent sea life below the waves, from molluscs to jellyfish to clown fish. When thirty, his dreams of going to sea are a reality, and he finds himself alone in his boat, tossing upon the ocean waves. Now, he is ‘of a certain age’ and has more yesterdays than tomorrows…

There is a breathtaking scene in which two of the performers turn themselves into Catherine wheels within the structure, all four then taking turns to move along the wires whilst others pull: we are all cogs in the machine, reliant on each other, all life intertwined, the image seems to be saying. The concluding song, Sodade, is the one that gives the show its title – a cover of Cesaria Evora’s bittersweet emigrants’ song.

There are many things to praise in this show, from the top-notch wire-walking and acrobatics to the poetic text, live music, and of course the stunning set/rig, so aptly sited here on the quay – but what I love most of all is the way it manages to be both spectacular and intimate at the same time. It is impressively skilled, yet rather than selling itself on big-bang moments, the show is a continuous evolution of clever ideas and beautiful images, welded together into a gentle and lyrical narrative that appeals to all ages. The perfect show for the opening night of an outdoor arts festival.

Les Souffleurs Commandos Poetiques : Manimal. Photo Elliott Franks

The following day I head away from Poole towards the wonderfully named Pokesdown for Coastal Encounters, a series of installations and performances that are sited in Shelley Park or across the road in Boscombe Cliff Gardens, which merges into the Boscombe Overcliff Local Nature Reserve, offering a splendid view of Bournemouth bay.

I open my programme, and immediately decide that a high priority is to get a sniff of the wolves… Manimal: Gesticulating, a way of thinking about the World, by Les Souffleurs Commandos Poetiques, is described as a ‘poetic hit squad’ in which Les Souffleurs transform themselves into hybrid beings – half-human, half-animal, ‘improvising nests, and popping up in the landscape to set up furtive, silent meetings with human civilisation’. In this case, it will be a wolf and human encounter. But this isn’t a timetabled show. There is an installation, featuring a wolf head in a cage, and a series of ironically amusing photographs pinned to a line strung between trees bearing little flags saying ‘If you see a wolf, please call…’ with a telephone number given. Documenting the return of wolves to UK shores, the photos give us a narrative of the wolves as alien invaders, immigrants arriving by sea on rafts or popping up through sewer manholes, dressing in human clothes, and buying packs of shrink-wrapped mince at the supermarket. So the installation you can see any time you like – but the wolves themselves are on their own timetable. There’s no sign of them in the first couple of hours…

Waterlanders: De Weide Wereld. Photo Elliott Franks

But never mind, there’s plenty of other things to see and do. Collectief Waldon’s Olie, for example, was commissioned by the Biblical Museum Amsterdam as part of a major project on the seven sins. The sin in this case is greed – specifically, greed around the mining and consumption of oil. Luckily, by dint of being whisked speedily up to the site by festival co-director Bill Gee almost as soon as I arrive at Boscombe, I witness the very beginning of the installation/performance, which is ongoing over the two days of this weekend mini-festival within the festival. The opening performance sees the setting up of the installation, a tall rectangular perspex box placed in an Italianate corner of the Boscombe Cliff Gardens, in which first oil, then ice, then soil are tipped into the box, forming layers, this ceremonial action completed by ‘workers’ in petrol-pump-attendant uniforms of bright blue and yellow, accompanied by a spoken lecture on the perils of our current oil-greedy policies, and a beautifully sung Bach cantata. (It is Ich habe genug or ‘I have enough’, I have been reliably informed!) Once the installation is set up, the mood switches from ceremonial to relaxed, and we are encouraged to talk to the artists. The group are all multi-talented, with interests that cross over from art to science to eco-politics: Collectief Waldon are possibly unique in the art/performance world, comprising an actor-scenographer, two philosophers, and a musician-biologist. We learn that throughout the weekend, the ice will melt, and the soil and oil will change places. No one quite knows how and when this will happen – there will be very many different phases, with almost imperceptibly slow movement shifting into sudden tipping points. The metaphor is obvious. A dangerously beautiful, clever and thought-provoking piece of work.

At the other end of the cliffs, another Dutch company, Waterlanders, present De Weide Wereld, an interactive installation ‘highlighting the plight of meadow birds whose existence is threatened by our intensive use of grassland’. Giant stylised wooden birds offer themselves to us, to put our heads inside theirs and see the grassy world from their perspective; a ladder and viewing tower allows the spectator a birds-eye view of the bay; and a wooden balustrade offers a stunning panorama of the sky, sea and golden sands below, with a surprising call of ‘Here, I’m here’ coming from the clifftop. Human interference in the landscape is represented by a low table bearing a white linen cloth, with glasses and cutlery strewn around. My visit to this installation is brief, but I enjoy what I see and hear – a charming piece that presents its environmental message in a gentle and non-provocative manner. Walk a mile in my shoes becomes flutter a minute or two with my wings.

Jane Pitt & Lorna Rees: Fl-utter-ances. Photo Mike Snarr

Jane Pitt with Lorna Rees: Fl-utter-ances. Photo Mike Snarr

Talking of fluttering: just a little way back along the path in the gardens is a glade, where we find Fl-utter-ances (Tree Songs), a collaboration between environmental artist Jane Pitt and artist/musician Lorna Rees; a ‘sonic meditation’ and performance work created from woodland field recordings – the sounds of the trees, the leaves and the wind – together with the human elements of recorded choral voice, poetic text using wordplay and local dialect, and live and recorded song in a charming invented language that references Dorset poet William Barnes. The glade is hung with large round fish-eye mirrors, each with its own soundtrack of whispers, rustles or sung chords. Nearby, there are a number of sun loungers bearing ‘sound-pillows’ which each give us one of three recorded sound pieces. I return to these many times throughout the afternoon – but first I catch one of a number of live, acoustic performances that augment the installation. A cellist (Laura Reid) sits in the glade by a hanging mirror. The seductive sound of her instrument, combined with that of the installations, lures us into the glade to explore the interesting sound relationships that occur as you move around from one mirror to another, sounds ebbing and flowing – and then another layer is added in the form of Lorna Rees’s voice, heard first in the distance as she walks slowly through the woods and grassland, then louder as she finally appears in the glade, looking resplendent in a dress made from material printed with images from Jane’s artwork of the ancient Black Poplar tree which inspired the ‘Harkee’ song she is singing. Fl-utter-ances is many things simultaneously: a time-based performance work, a sound installation, and an ongoing environmental art project. Such a nurturing work of art – truly food for the soul.

Fl-utter-ances is one of the four works by UK based artists commissioned by Inside Out Dorset. The others seen here today are by emerging Dorset-based performance artist and poet Dave Young, aka The Shouting Mute, who gives us Prose in the Park, a promenade through Shelley Park featuring sound installation and written texts, co-created with members of the public who use the park; Giorgia Garancini’s Museum of Trees, a co-commission with Arts University Bournemouth that provides us with hammocks and frames that encourage us to look at trees from a new perspective; and Devon-based landscape dance company Stacked Wonky, a co-commission with Pavilion Dance South West called Those Who Are Not Here Are Here.

Stacked Wonky: Those Who Are Not Here Are Here. Photo Elliot Franks

There are more than 60 benches in the park and along the cliff walk, many bearing dedications (as benches do) to departed souls with a connection to the place in which the bench is placed. There is, for example, one for Bert Caffin, who lived until the ripe old age of 89, and is now ‘in God’s garden’; one for Marguerite and Allen West, which comes with the exhortation to ‘enjoy the views they loved so much’; and one for John PE Wadsley, adorned with the message ‘it’s a wonderful life’. The reason I’m particularly noticing the benches is because they are the site for Those Who Are Not Here Are Here, a multi-faceted choreographic work by Stacked Wonky’s Sarah Shorten, in which a number of artists/performers animate the benches, or the space around them. As is oft the case with this sort of work, there is the added pleasure of working out if those kissing teenagers are part of the artwork, or if that tattooed man enjoying a sandwich on the bench is one of the artists or an unsuspecting member of the public. At various points in the afternoon, I come across a man in a sombre funeral suit and black tie (Jack Sergison) dancing exuberantly around the ‘wonderful life’ bench; a woman (Lyn Lydiard) stacking, shifting and re-arranging an eclectic pile of suitcases and boxes, in seemingly continuous transit; a violinist (Sebastian Tesouro) who sometimes plays and sometimes sits and stares out to sea, no doubt enjoying the view loved by Marguerite and Allen; and, most thrillingly, a man (Duncan Hume) and his two spaniels (Charlie and Lola) who occupy a shelter, the man exploring the choreographic possibilities of the space whilst the dogs look on, or rearrange themselves around him, creating a glorious trio of human and animal configurations, an ever-morphing living sculpture.

Stacked Wonky: Those Who Are Not Here Are Here. Photo Elliott Franks

A little off the beaten track is a woodland path, and it is here that a woman can be found strolling with her baby in a vintage Silver Cross pram (Jane Leaney and baby Ada), both looking rather wonderfully out of time – the woman wears an old-fashioned cream dress, and the baby is in the sort of knitted bonnet, cardigan and tights that were popular a generation ago. As an accompanying man plays a gentle and rather melancholic tune on a harmonica, the woman stops, walks away from the pram, walks back, pushes and lets go of the pram, catches up with it, and takes the baby out for a cuddle, thus enacting a soft and gentle choreographic duet that seems to explore the overwhelming love and sweet bondage of motherhood, and invites us to wonder who inspired the story. As they move off down the path, the cream dress and chrome fittings of the pram picking them out from the foliage all around, it is as if we have been visited by friendly ghosts now departing. This is also part of Those Who Are Not Here Are Here, but I never get to see which bench it relates to, or find out whose story inspired the vignette… But oh what a beautiful site-responsive project this is! And I’m delighted Sarah Shorten ignored the conventional wisdom and chose to work with both children and animals.

So performances by dogs and a baby discovered and enjoyed, but what of the Manimals? Well, I am lucky enough to witness two different wolf sightings. In the first one, they are highly visible, five or six of them, close to the installation, grouped around and on a beautiful old tree. Their wolf-heads turn slowly to face us, and they stare boldly back at us, watching us watching them. If a child runs around them, they slowly turn their heads to follow her with their eyes. If anyone speaks, there is no answer, just an even longer, harder stare. After a while, something else happens – slowly, carefully the wolf heads are removed. But each human underneath maintains exactly the same stance and energy as their wolf-self, whilst holding the head under their arm, a completely unnerving effect. After what feels like a long time, each places their wolf-head in a black bag. Nothing of the wolves remains in sight: this is just a group of people carrying black bags, but their wolf energy remains. And still we are stared at as we watch them, people and wolf-people in two separate packs, both circled by the braver of the small children in the crowd. Slowly, very slowly, they leave the tree and walk backwards away from us. Their performance presence, ability to hold a space, and complicity is extraordinary. It is impossible to avert your eyes. Towards the end of the afternoon, I spot them again. This time they are in a more deeply wooded part of the park, just about visible through the trees. They are crouched on the ground, apparently oblivious to our gaze. Again, the wolf-heads are removed, and eventually placed in bags, and again it is astonishing to see how convincingly they retain their wolf selves in human clothing. A poetic hit squad indeed – beautiful work from Les Souffleurs Commandos Poetiques.

Inside Out Dorset co-directors Bill Gee and Kate Wood. Photo Elliott Franks

Such a wide and varied programme of work seen, so very many different artforms and approaches to making work witnessed at Inside Out Dorset 2018 – but if there is one characteristic that unites this diverse programme, it is that it all could be described as slow art. It is not loud or bombastic; the work seduces us gently, rather than shouting at us. The artists take their time, the work unfolds slowly, or sits quietly waiting to be discovered, and the audience lets go of the demands of time and allows itself to stare, to ponder, to potter, or to sit and listen. An outdoor circus show reflecting on the passing of time, and a life well lived in tandem with the sea, seen by the sea; a series of encounters around benches on a cliff path honouring lives passed; a slowly dissolving block of ice sandwiched between oil and soil; birdsong merging with human voice and the rustle of leaves; animated woodlands and walkways; and an exploration of the space where human meets animal… Here is truly environmental art – not so much art about the environment (although that too) as art that engages with the environment in which it is placed. A real joy.

Featured image (top) is Les Souffleurs Commandos Poetiques: Manimal: Gesticulating, a way of thinking about the World. Photo by Elliott Franks.

Inside Out Dorset 2018 ran Friday 14 to Saturday 22 September. Dorothy Max Prior attended for Total Theatre Magazine on Friday 14 and Saturday 15 September 2018. For full information on all shows and events, see www.insideoutdorset.co.uk

Inside Out Dorset is presented by Activate, the strategic organisation in Dorset focused on producing large-scale outdoor performing arts and creating an infrastructure to support the wider dance and theatre sector. www.activateperformingarts.org.uk