thoughts from a cleod

Images for Scream Away Slide show

karenmcleod — Wed, 19 May 2010 09:28:18 +0000

The water it is like a machine. sharp searing sound breaking siren feathers

I am doing the first showing of my new performance piece Scream Away on Saturday as part of the Poolside Emergency festival at The Bluecoat. The middle section of the performance is a slide show and above is one of the images that I will be using. Creating the right images for the piece has been a difficult task. I started by re-creating a Cindy Sherman style image that captured 101 questions and emotions, but I was mortified at the result. After speaking with Gavin who I am collaborating with on this project I refined and filtered the ideas

Last week I was in a very successful run of Broken Biscuits by Tam Hinton at Studio Salford. It is very satisfying to go from one performance to the next. However I am not enjoying all the lines that I have to learn!

Scream Away

karenmcleod — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 09:41:53 +0000

Below is the project proposal that I used to get a slot at Emergency Poolside. I’m very excited about it as it is honest, which is something that I have been battling with. It’s a new direction that I can get my teeth into and investigate some interesting approaches to making narrative.

What I also want to celebrate is how little a great performer needs to do to engage an audience. I was Clowning again this weekend with a teacher from Lisbon called Sam Meyler. He was very complimentary about my presence, saying that I ‘changed the space’ and I was ‘very open’. It’s nice to hear things like that isn’t it!?

Scream Away (a love story for one player)

We are in a street.

It is hot. We are near water.

A woman screams.

Pleasure and pain slide across her face.

We are witness.

Our eyes flash like cameras, processing the cry leaping out of her body and into the air.

It’s a teeth grinder.

A lung burster.

A gut wrencher.

An explosion in the pit of her perineum as her whole belief system falls and crumbles before our eyes.

Scream Away plays and repeats and plays and repeats archived footage of this moment, this incident. But this is not video-tape being paused, rewound and played again. It is live creation. Liveness with a cinematic feel, inviting audience inquiry as to why this woman is screaming. In the here and now, witnesses are not yet witnesses. They are players. Evidence is created before the audience’s eyes. Their perspective switches as different personae appear to reveal new insights into what has taken place, before they dissolve again. Just as our heroine’s scream will.

Eventually.

Clowns

karenmcleod — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 15:35:47 +0000

April has been busy and creatively very satisfying. At the start of the month I directed a piece for the Wave If You’re Really There event at St Leonards Church in Shoreditch organised by Mercy and the Wave Machines. I have done five of these events so far and working with Mercy is a wonderful experience – what lovely people and what amazing events. Each event has a theme and this event was Baptism. I explored the story of John the Baptist looking particularly at different versions of Salome. I also sent information to the actors about rituals with water. It was the rituals that were the most interesting for me – hopefully I will get some pictures up here soon to show what we created.

After working at this event I went straight to Coventry to do five days of Clown and Dark Clown training. The very nature of training in performance is that you have your ups and downs, but what an incredible experience. The Clown process is fascinating and incredibly sophistcated. I can’t get enough of it – I have just finished a weekend of Clown and Mask! Good job as I have three weekends of training in it in June.

Very excited about my solo practice at the moment. I have just been accepted to perform at Emergency Poolside where I will perform the first version of Scream Away my new piece. Really glad that I have taken the time out to make sure that my work is honest as I feel like I can take it in really interesting directions.

Probably need to write more on this, this week…

Fallen Behind Again

karenmcleod — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 14:39:47 +0000

What with going to New York and everything I have yet again fallen behind in my blogging!

Naughty.

Very naughty especially since I have hit on a diamond of a starting point for a new performance piece. The idea came out of the darkness and hit my across the face. I was making a collage and saw a comment in an old magazine that said ….

The director told Margaret to scream as much as she wanted!

My new focus is about screaming and what we say using non – verbal langauge. I have done loads of writing and I will post more details after I have finsihed my application for poolside emergency.

Ta-ra for now Xx

This was the collage that helped me. You never know where an idea will come from!

Inspiration

karenmcleod — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:36:34 +0000

I’ve got so much that i want to get down that it might come out like puke….

After having an awful couple of weeks (maybe even the past month) creatively and really pulling apart what I do today I finally feel inspired. How do I keep that feeling alive?

I’ve been thinking about Cindy Sherman again in the past week and her untitled stills from b movies. Such lovely images.
Reading One Dimensional Woman (can’t remember who wrote it – will correct that later)
Talked to David Parrish about business and creativity – he had some very interesting ideas.
Oh my gosh it’s just started snowing!
Saw two very inspirational performances last night – Marcia Farquhar 12 shooters ( 12 films rather than performances) and a performance by Justin Allen
Still thinking about routine, obsessions, clothes and domesticity.

Is there is a link here. I’m starting to feel like there is something appearing. I just need to stay focussed and honest.

Marcia Farquar’s 12 Shooters was shown at the bluecoat last night and i went along to see as well as perform with the improvisation group. There was a work in progress showing by Justin Allen from switch performance. I thought the show was very brave and he was sharing some good ideas to the audience. It was interesting because i think he was working something out personally/ artistically and he stated that was what he should show. I think thats where my head is at.

In reference to this what should i do first. Know EXACTLY what i want to do and then try and do work in progress showing or get a date booked in a work towards that??

Marcia Farquar! Ah where do i start! I’m not going to write about what i saw because it was too wonderful to put into my clumsy words, but i loved it. So if anyone does read this go and see 12 shooters for a visual treat and scrumptuous narratives. So good i could have spread butter on it and eaten it for my tea!

p.s i have no picture today. I have done another bubble map but i don’t want to highlight how much of a geek i am. I think if i spent as much time making bubble maps as i did making performances then i wouldn’t be so worried!

Bubble

karenmcleod — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 11:41:56 +0000

Bubble Map

In my rehearsal on Monday i spent my time scrawling this bubble map. Isn’t is pretty!

I had a realisation while lying in bed on Sunday night that maybe i’m not about doing big shows but instead small interactions and moments. I’ve also started to think about how much i’ve been living in the past during the last year. “Why are you making work about a conversation that you had 3 years ago and why aren’t you making work about things that you love?”

New resolutions added to the list…

3. Live in the present.

4. Start from what you know.

p.s You can probably read most of the points on the map. The key one that doesn’t stand out is in lime green and reads performing / performance. Thats the most important part of the map.

Trydays – a New Year – a New Resolution

karenmcleod — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 10:41:22 +0000

Resolutions January 2010

Put yourself out there – take a risk!
Act out your thoughts don’t just think about acting them out.

I have decided to do some interventions around the bluecoat, in Liverpool where my studio is based. By doing this i hope to move my ideas forward. Last year was very busy, but towards the last half of the year i wasn’t experimenting with performance enough. I will use Trydays to weekly experiment with performance, space and costume. Please come and have a look and as always let me know what you think.

Fridays at three

First Rehearsal for a New Performance Piece.

karenmcleod — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:04:38 +0000

A new year, a new decade a new approach. It is difficult sometimes when working creatively to keep a balance between creativity, money and rest. This year i hope to get to grips with this. So January the 4th and i’ve gone straight into the performance space at The Bluecoat to play and experiment as i am starting the process of developing a new piece of work.

I made a couple of important discoveries today. The performance is about two things;

1950′s – Amphetamines and weight loss, body image, perfect plastic
contemporary – club/rave culture, the dance floor, ecstatic dance and euphoria.

Feel like i’m returning to the work that i started with my MA, which perhaps i shyed away from before.

Below is a picture of the set that i am going to use. It is a lot of space running around the space with this behind me!

The thought that i have been left with after today’s rehearsal is to remember cliches at this stage aren’t a bad thing you have to remember to work through them.

Its about time!

karenmcleod — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 19:19:19 +0000

Image courtesy of Brychan Tudor

For some time i have been talking about starting a blog. Today is the day that I acted on it. While i get in the swing of things i will leave you with an inage of what i was doing this time last week at St Leonards Church Shoreditch.

WAVE IF YOU’RE REALLY THERE!

Hope i can have a lot of fun with this!