As we torpedo into the end of the year, and wave goodbye to 2016 (And I’m definitely glad to see the back end of this one), it only feels right to re-cap on what Divergency has achieved since it’s successful bid to run for another 12 months. It’s been a while since we’ve been active online, but we’ve been busy making live art and contemporary performance since we last posted!

On October 6^th Word of Warning, STUN + Black Gold Arts Festival presented Divergency’s first open platformed event. Myself and the 6 other current Divergency artists plus guest Yvonne Shelton, took over small but wonderful sections of the Z-Arts building and STUN studio to present a medley of work-in-progress showings that we had been exploring throughout the year previously.

From interactive digital installations and promenade performances accompanied by live violinists, stretching through homelessness to quantum physics - each piece of work took a lens to something different and it was wonderful to see some of our less practiced artists explore new ideas, and as always, great to see our more seasoned artists try out their new work too. Alongside some lovely reviews and feedback from our audience, some of the work has been picked up by some really interesting programmers – so 2017 sets to be a busy one for our current Divergency artist.

We are however seeking new participants for the new year, so if you think you would be interested in taking part of the meeting, talking, eating and making that ensues amongst Divergency, you can emails us at divergency@habmcr.org (or me toni@habmcr.org)

Trainee Project Manager Internship at hÅb

Thu 6 Oct, 6-10pm tickets tbc

From the earth beneath our feet to the stars in our skies, an evening of emerging works by a group of artists as diverse as their subject matter.  Quantum mechanics, homelessness, food and sex brought together in a series of tabletop performances, installations and sit-down shows.

Divergency is an ongoing project - contributing artists include Maya Chowdhry, Jamil Keating, Chanje Kunda, Afreena Islam, Cheryl Martin, Chelsea Morgan, Toni-Dee Paul plus guest Yvonne Shelton. 

Please note this is primarily an adult event and may contain content not suitable for the under 18s, details online from 19 Sep.

image: Chanje Kunda

The dust has finally settled following Ria's beautiful and compelling sell-out show 'Matilda and me', closing Word of Warning’s Spring/Summer season on a real high! Before I go on, have a read of some of the comments left by our wonderfully generous audience:

“Ria was mesmerizing. A history lesson - personal, political and beautiful all in one.”

“Brilliant, thought-provoking message, well written and captivating.”

“Really grateful to have had this story shared with me. Elegant performance. Thank you.”

Planning to be up in Edinburgh to scout out who we should be keeping our eyes on next!! Watch space and all of that…

The day after the show Ria took 6 of us on an afternoon amble around Manchester city centre, where we explored our environment with a different lens, considering our bodies' impact on the space we inhabit…  Or in my words: all of us standing in the middle of Manchester Arndale and looking up at the ceiling or walking around the Arndale on our own and holding eye contact with random strangers… Unbeknownst to us, we’d garnered a small (and just as stealthy!) audience, who gave us a small knowing clap as we left… it’s the little things…

Read more »

We are really chuffed to welcome Bristol-based artist Ria Hartley into the STUN Studio on the 25th June, to present our FIRST EVER programmed show, Matilda and Me.

We were very lucky to have (self-described) ‘Hawaiian transplant’ and performance maker Stacy Makishi kick off our 2015 with a workshop, where we each had a stab at making the worst performance we have ever made… meet the alternative seven dwarfs - Dull, Token, Meaningless, Unhinged, Self-Absorbed, Mainstream, and Unethical! The workshop inspired us to start thinking about making some sort of public performance, the how, the when, and the practicalities are all up in the air(!) but watch this space!

Celebrating our successful Grants for the Arts application (hooray!) we kicked off the project with a workshop from our friend and Divergency 'regular', Selina Thompson. What may have looked like a huge food fight to the untrained eye, was actually a workshop about using food as a stimulus to create work! Following which, we went to see Selina's aptly named show, Chewing The Fat, at The Lowry.

After working with food and watching a show about food, we went and ate some food! We broke (naan) bread and discussed as artists: who we wanted to work with, what we wanted to get out of the project, and how we wanted to do it. Food being a focal point - we decided we would meet and eat one month, and workshop the next... which leads me on to our latest excursion to Artwork in Salford - a huge art space where Jamil hosted us and Chanje set the workshop exercises!  

Great minds and all, we all responded to the same brief, which was: 

No speech in the performance at all. Narrative and/or concept being explored must be communicated without speaking. The performer(s) are at the heart of the piece.

See below a selection of photos of what came out of the workshop.

Plans are afoot for Divergency in the new year, watch this space!

Due to illness, we had to postpone the Selina Thompson workshop - and are delighted to announce the new date is:

selinathompson.wordpress.com

Click here book your free Workshop place, deadline 10am Mon 9 June

Following dinner was a very rapid overnight work bash - to create a "pecha kucha" style presentation (20 slides in 20 seconds - absolutely terrifying and breathless to do) to bring to the Creative Case NORTH celebration at the Tetley in Leeds, yesterday, Thursday 15 May.  

This marked the end of the residency project - a full day of round table evaluation, presentations from all four residency partnerships and a 'long table' public forum to discuss what next.

A really positive and thorough day - and just the breadth of residency projects showed the huge diversity in the subject we are all trying to deal with... plus the huge energy and commitment that exists to make a meaningful contribution now and into the future.

STUN and hÅb would like to thank the Creative Case NORTH consortium for the opportunity this residency has offered us to make a start - just a start - on something that we hope will grow into the future.

A handful of frenetic days, hence the time-lapse in posting...

Day Seven was due to the workshop with the lovely Selina Thompson, but unfortunately she fell ill and was unable to come. We wish her a speedy recovery.

After talking to all the registered participants, we decided to go ahead, with a meal and a discussion and with participants bringing some small practical exercises.

So in the end 18 of us sat down around a rather dramatic dinner table, for a caribbean meal and a very animated and very worthwhile conversation - led off with with questions about what artform people saw themselves working in and how they got there (ranging from formal education to wilful rebellion), through perceptions of live art as a form and how it could be made more attractive, through to the social responsibility felt by artists from diverse backgrounds to represent their whole culture.*

The evening finished with a couple of writing exercises and a sharing of the outcomes - resulting in some very strong and very personal words and actions.  

All in all it felt like a very positive exercise and consensus seemed to be that it would be worth repeating it on a semi-regular basis.

*We will be working on a fuller documentation of the evening via video and a report.

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!)

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)

An exciting opportunity has arisen from the conversations we had when planning this residency - the opportunity to participate in the Live Art Development Agency's DIY project - a series of workshops by artists for artists. We have suggested one that specifically addresses the potential for enriching Live Art as a form through a multiplicity of cultural influences, however traditional and we have some artist proposals to look at - so a day of reading and discussing ahead of a selection meeting in London.  

A DIY project would seem the perfect complement to and progression from this Residency.  An opportunity to build on our initial offer and to explore the flip side - not persuading culturally diverse artists to consider this artform, but directly to shape the potential future of the form itself.  A good legacy for this brief residency!

So, with the initial invitation out there by email, blog post and website, where to next?  Social Media seems the next obvious port of call, but here we thought we should pause a minute.  If we are genuinely looking to reach new people, then just contacting hÅb's normal social media isn't going to help - i.e. hÅb's social media is going to only reach the usual roster of artists, who aren't the specific target market for this project - so we made the decision NOT to use our accounts (@HazardMcr, @WarnMcr and Word of Warning/Tamsin Drury's Facebook) and JUST to use STUN's social media accounts.  Here, however, our 'secret weapon' comes truly into her own!  hÅb's intern, Afreena Islam, is a young artist with very good contacts with a younger generation of artists, many of whom are from diverse backgrounds, and for whom 'artform' may be more fluid, but haven't been reached by STUN to date.

A targeted campaign of both personal contact of key individuals by STUN's Board and staff, plus a personal and social media push via Facebook by Afreena seemed to be a positive way of reaching the right people. 

Returning to the existing data via STUN's wordpress site, the registered users cite the following artforms:

Now we know a little bit more about both the systems and, in principle, the people - what can we do to get to actually know them?

How can we get to meet some of them and find out what their perceptions of Live Art and Contemporary Performance are?  

Have we, as a sector, done a great job of putting people off? Or has the potential for the form just not got seeped into their consciousness?

Let's invite them to a show... The outcomes of hÅb's mentored development project, Works Ahead, are just round the corner.  It's a project where we've worked intensively with three recently graduated artists, making some very different pieces, so would be a good sampler of both the breadth of possibility and the kind of support we offer.

And let's organise a workshop and a social event and get to actually talk to people.  

Selina Thompson is a young Leeds artist who is making distinct waves at the moment - from her extraordinary Dark and Lovely performance installation in a giant tumble weave tent to her  recent commission on the 'fun' of the job centre for West Yorkshire Playhouse's Transform festival.  Her work is varied and accessible, fun and approachable but always issue based, so she seems like a great person to encourage people to explore something new.

So we are extending the following invitation:

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: Join us for a show (or rather three short shows) and a drink at: Works Ahead on either Thu 8 or Fri 9 May, 7.30pm at Contact Three new shows about being on stage. Three new works in development by young local artists The houselights dim, the audience goes quiet - and there you are… transfixed in a spotlight… Lindsay Bennett | Exit Smiling In life, as on stage, Lindsay knows the importance of the grand entrance and the dramatic exit… but is everything in the middle just a show? And who, exactly, is she playing? Paul O’Donnell | Nothing! Paul needs adoration, approval and, above all, applause. You WILL clap, you WILL cheer… no, really, you WILL. SheepKnuckle | Echo SheepKnuckle are two young men going to extraordinary lengths to avoid being on a stage… so what exactly are they doing here? We have a limited number of free tickets for STUN members and we’ll even buy you a drink* *a beer, a glass of wine or a soft drink 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 Works Ahead ticket and Workshop place, deadline 12 noon Tue 6 May (Direct URL: https://habarts.wufoo.eu/forms/divergencymcr-booking-form/) For info/queries contact: [afreena@habarts.org]rts.org)

And so... hard on the heels of our first post... another day has gone by!

A day of getting practical.  What are we actually going to DO? And what are our resources?

To start with we have STUN - a membership organisation supporting BAME creatives. STUN is an organisation in development, having just opened its own physical studio theatre space and office hub, but still operating on limited staffing resources.  So let's use this opportunity to bolster those resources for a day or two to get to know the membership a bit better - or rather to get to know what STUN knows about the membership!

So Day Two is about exploring the membership.  Who are the members? How many are practising artists and what do we know about their artform practice?

...insert long pause... this one could run and run... 

Inevitably it involves technology, and technology means time: 

websites and code, log-ins and plug-ins, mailing clients and databases, comparisons of lists and data protection and lots and lots of typing! And beyond that the human history of who has come to be on what list and what their current relationship to the organisation might be - so meetings with board members with an overview of that history...

No one wants to read about the mechanics of all of this - it's truly not exciting... but the work's happening and, I suspect, will continue to happen over the course of the residency, hopefully to inform longer term developments for how STUN works with its members.

But so far we think they are reaching approx 400 people through mailings, of which possibly 50 would define as practising artists. Extracting the information held about that 50 however will take some code and some expert input which will take a day or two more.

So next steps... what shall we say to the membership? And how might we entice them to look again - or even for the first time - at a form with which they might not be familiar?

Ok, so where do we start? 

Well, maybe with the assertion that live art and contemporary performance thrive on real stories told in different and surprising ways which can make us see the world in a new light.

And, maybe, if that's the case, it ought to be just the form that embraces and celebrates different cultures and different real-world experiences.

But, maybe also, with the perceived challenge... that live art and contemporary performance isn't currently appealing to culturally diverse artists, that the perception is that artist base is white and middle class, and therefore attracts a white middle class audience. 

If all these are the case, then why the disconnect? 

Has live art and contemporary performance shrouded itself in such obfuscatory and seemingly elitist terminology that it is seen as exclusive by artists and audiences alike?

Is there a gap in understanding within different communities of what those forms might entail?

Is there a predisposition within certain cultures towards certain traditional artforms?

Or is it a question of economics - who in their right mind - or certainly in a less than comfortable financial position - would enter into the most experimental sector of the least stable profession on the planet? 

BIG questions... BIG assumptions... and let's get real - none of which have we got a hope of answering or addressing in a 7 day residency!

So let's get smaller... what can we look at?

Who are the artists out there who we might not be reaching? Particularly those from different cultures.

Is there a gap in their perception of the artform?

And what small contribution could we make to bridging that gap and enticing artists to explore different ways of telling their stories?

Over the next two weeks, hÅb and STUN are delighted to be working together on DivergencyMcr, a Creative Case NORTH residency project:

DivergencyMcr - Live Art and the Creative Case

An exploration into diversifying the northern artist base for live art and contemporary performance through database research, artform tools + strategies workshop and group go-see visit. STUN (Sustained Theatre Up North), a membership organisation dedicated to the development of UK Black and Asian Creatives, will come together with hÅb, a live art and contemporary performance development organisation, with a joint goal of encouraging new ways of telling more diverse stories for new audiences.

Twitter: @stunlive / @hazardmcr / @warnmcr

Check back here for updates on our progress, musings and ramblings!

Creative Case NORTH Residency Announcement

Creative Case NORTH is a programme of sector-led activity exploring the Creative Case. At the heart of the programme is the exploration and development of partnership practice within the context of the Creative Case.

The Creative Case NORTH Residencies provide a new approach to commissioning, enabling exploration of partnership practice within a residency context, with the following aims:
» To support the development of new partnerships between creators and facilitators of artistic, cultural and participatory practice, and venues, spaces or organisations which engage the public in arts and cultural activity;
» To support the development of new partnerships across art forms, spectrums of scale, and levels of experience; 
» To stimulate and support joint exploration of partnership working within the context of the Creative Case;
» To encourage a creative approach to exploring partnership models; 
» To provide residency partners with an opportunity to take risks and experiment with a new idea, or exploration of process, without implications;
» To share the processes, findings and outcomes of the residencies with the wider arts and cultural sector, and public.

The residency partners will spend seven days together exploring partnership practice, recording and publically sharing their processes, conversations and findings online throughout the residency period 28 April - 14 May.

Following an open call for residency proposals, we are pleased to announce that the selected residencies are:
» Passing Places - Aidan Moesby and Visual Arts Rural Communities
» Spice and Space - The Dukes and The Love And Etiquette Foundation
» DivergencyMcr - STUN and hÅb
» REDACT - New Writing North and Lisa Matthews

Creative Case NORTH is a programme of sector led activity exploring the Creative Case for Diversity, developed by a consortium of arts and cultural organisations convened by Arts Council England from across the North area, including:

Creative Case NORTH Partners: ARC Stockton, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Contact Theatre, GemArts, STAY, ZENDEH.

Creative Case NORTH Critical Friends: Alchemy, Art House, Mind The Gap, Open Clasp, Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums.