Halfway through Works Ahead at Contact and big thanks to the STUN members who joined us tonight - and we're looking forward to welcoming more tomorrow - and even more to discussing your thoughts on it at Selina Thompson's workshop of Wed 14th.
Whilst the deadline has now passed, there are still a few places available on the workshop - as an added enticement, the menu for the evening is looking pretty, good courtesy of local purveyor of fine food - M & M’s Caribbean Spice! So you see, live art isn't all about body piercing and navel gazing... we like to combine it with the finer things in life!
If that's whetted your appetite and you DO want to join us for Selina Thompson's Free Workshop on Wed 14 May (details below) please book asap* as we have to pre-order the food!
Onto things less sensory - the DIY selection day in London was intense and we've got a great project lined up (which I'm not allowed to divulge as yet!). What was a really interesting feature of the day was a significant amount of discussion around the low levels of diverse (particularly BAME) artists who applied (153 proposals received). This was cited as an area of national concern, which goes to underline just how timely and important the DivergencyMcr residency could be - and the need for ongoing and consistent focus in opening up the form to diverse artists.
(*nb obviously ignore the show booking boxes as the dates are now past!)
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DivergencyMcr
Over the next two weeks, STUN and hÅb are carrying out DivergencyMcr, a brief joint residency as part of the Creative Case NORTH. A big part of what we want to achieve is to get to know the membership of STUN a bit better, and just maybe, for you to get to know us and what we do too…
hÅb specialises in developing live art and contemporary performance and showing it through its Word of Warning programme. STUN is a membership organisation supporting BAME creatives, which has a brand new theatre studio space within Z-arts.
Together, what we want is to find is artists from diverse backgrounds already working with - or who might be interested in exploring - live work that finds different ways of telling new, real and often personal stories: be it through installation, one to one performance, a journey through the city or even a performance lecture. Real experiences and surprising stories that make an audience think differently about the world.
We think that showing you what we mean is more important than lots of artspeak, so we’d like to extend an invitation to STUN member artists to:
Participate in a Workshop with artist Selina Thompson at STUN Studio on Wed 14 May 5.30 (for 6) - 9pm including drinks and nibbles.
Selina Thompson is an artist and performer based in Leeds. Her work is playful, participatory and intimate, focused on the politics of identity, and how this defines our bodies, lives and environments. Her recent work includes Dark and Lovely - storytelling from within a giant tumbleweave tent; It Burns It All Clean a commission for West Yorkshire Playhouse’s Transform Festival and Chewing The Fat, coming to Manchester in Autumn 2014.
Of this workshop she says:
I want to spend a couple of hours working with people on the importance of bringing their own authentic voice and stories, to the work they make. I feel that our lived experience, our thoughts, dreams and fears bring something truly unique and sincere to the work that we make: but that it can be quite scary doing that in a performance context, so it’s important to invest time and energy into nurturing our capacity to do that, and to keep things as ‘real’ – and in some cases unpolished – as we can. So we’re going to be doing exercises, (writing, performing, some where we’re just imagining and plotting things together), to help you feel more confident in bringing your voice, and your heart to your work: in a way that allows you to connect with your audience but doesn’t leave you feeling exposed.
We’re also going to devote some time to the very serious business of being silly
It’s important
selinathompson.wordpress.com
Click here book your free Workshop place
(Direct URL: https://habarts.wufoo.eu/forms/divergencymcr-booking-form/)
For info/queries contact: [afreena@habarts.org)
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