The Mudhead Dance

The performance scratched in the dirt

The performance celebrated the forgotten

The performance brought the outsider inside

The performance stirred-up the sediment

The performance soaked up the gravy

The performance filled up the skip

CREW & SPECIAL THANKS

Its safe to say I was well and truly thoroughly spoiled on set with an incredibly hardworking and talented crew. Each and every one of the following people made this shoot possible, I cannot thank them enough.

Steve Glashier - Assistant Director

Andrew Graham - Choreographer

Dominic Warwick - Lighting design

Chris Williams - Co producer

Liam White - Camera assist

Sam Stone - Camera assist

Tabreez Damani - Runner

Frank Millward - Composer

Christopher Daniel Jack - Sound-man

Michael Keane - Set builder

Peter Wylie - Set builder

Pau Ros Sintas - Photographer

Robert Quinn - Photographer

Laura Beduz - Photographer

PLV22 - Delicious crew food

David Beschizza - Driver

A very special thanks also goes out to each and everyone of the Sponsume sponsors that made funding this project possible. Worry not, your rewards are all on route in the near future.

Christopher Daniel Jack

David Bethell

Jenny Wolf

Brett Haskell

James Balmforth

Dom Lancaster

Robin Scott

Alexandra MacGilp 

Ellie Stamp

Ellen De Wachter

Simon Wallace

Michelle Maudsley

Olly Briggs

Seth Cornwall

Francis Dixon

Georgia Harrison

Cassandra Needham

Yva Young

Simon Whitehead

Hannah Watson

Anna Francis

Gerry Holloway

Craig Smith

Anthony Finch & Rosa Tyhurst

Blisters on top of blisters

Shortly after the shoot I staged a workshop at V22 as part of the Summer Club. This was an opportunity to work with aspects of the costumes from the shoot, and a great chance to immerse participants in a day of hands on making. The day was pretty hectic and in the end I was happy just to get something on camera as the mask making took longer than expected. That said, it was really good fun and I think its fair to say we all got something out of it. Luckily on the day I had Berthe Fortin and Chris Williams in to help me out.

These are a couple of snaps from the workshop, there is a film we made currently being edited by moi which will be on the blog soon. Watch this space!

 

Guerilla Performance #3 Bermondsey

Having had a fairly successful day in Peckham the week before we were all looking forwards to some Guerrilla actions in Bermondsey. We decided to start the day with rehearsals on the roof of V22. For some reason, perhaps its because of South Bermondsey's less than friendly high st, I was a little apprehensive about the public response to street ballet and the varying forms of appropriation I had planned.

Andrew and I had worked a number of variants of the snapshot performance I had tested in the last two Guerilla performances. We wanted to try variants ranging from the more to less obvious with the ambition being to end in Southwark Park.

This was followed by a workshop I ran at Southwark Park Band Stand in Bermondsey, London, in which we practiced moving as one entity, and attempted to create appropriated feedback loops between us and the viewing public.

Guerilla Performance #2 Peckham

For some reason unknown to me, I failed to film any of the performances in Peckham. I did however snap some photos. Hopefully more photos, and maybe even some film clips will emerge soon. We started where the last Guerilla performance left off, only this time we would have more performers so I was a little more optimistic about the results. Starting at the Library we worked our way up Rye Lane. There was a dozen or so performers flanked by Andrew Graham, Christopher Williams and myself. The objective was do the snapshot performance the length of the high st, with the snapshots varying in length again dependent on proximity to subject. What we found was that the subtler the performance was the more effective it was. As soon as it descended into obvious flash mob, with prolonged silly poses it fell apart, by that I mean it attracted too much attention, which is a strange sort of position to be in with a public performance because you sort of want it to be noticed. In the end we divided the group in two with Andrew taking one group and myself the other, the intention being to see if we could test and find an ideal proximity for performers to subject and or a better method to configure.

Guerilla Performance #1 Camberwell

Firstly I need to say that these performances were as much research trips for myself and the performers as they were performances, in fact more so. I saw these as opportunities for us to act like sponges and wanted them to be moments of group appropriation. In a way they are akin to the method I employ in gathering new material for my own work, the mudhead dance specifically. My work is a entirely hinged on appropriation of real moments, character and gesture from which the work grows. The guerrilla performances were an experiment to see if this process could be applied live to a group of performers and both an expanded version of my own research but also as a work in their own right.

The stage was set...

This first guerrilla performance proved to be challenging. Why? Well put simply, numbers. Staging any kind of flash mob (I hate this reference, but its hard to avoid when your springing impromptu performances on the street) with three people is hard. Anyway, the challenge was set, for reasons out of my control. As it turned out it, it kinda felt appropriate that something which ended so big started so small.

The performers were given the task of appropriating ways of looking for a duration which relates to the proximity of appropriated party. Put another way, the performers first chose one of themselves to be the instigator. As a group they would start dispersed across the street. The instigator would then choose an unknowing target who was in the process of looking (this can be for a fleeting moment or a prolonged pose) and assume the same pose as him/her for a proximity related count. If for example, the subject is across the street the performer holds the pose for a count of 200 seconds. If they are stood directly adjacent to their subject the pose becomes a snapshot. Its important to point out, we were not trying to be wacky or silly, were were not trying to take the piss, this was something that was not aimed at being threatening or invasive, but something liminal. Another key part of this micro-performance is the ability of the performers to time their appropriations to co-incide with each other. A simple choreography in essence, only made difficult by the need to be discreet.

The aim of this performance was not to create obvious aberrations, but to create liminal moments of double take, to bring a renewed attention and focus to the overlooked and unimportant and to place an emphasis on looking.

The other main objective was that the material created would feed back into the ensuing final performance, so we wanted to develop a vocabulary of movement and looking.

An irregular force that fights a stronger force by sabotage and harassment

Running parallel to the costumes being made, and in advance of the set build was a series of Guerilla performances which Andrew and I ran. The idea with these was manyfold. Firstly, it was an opportunity to test out some of the material developed in the Siobhan Davies studio on the streets. Secondly it would give us the chance to try out some things which was not going to make it into The Mudhead Dance itself but I felt was important to try as micro-performances as a way to unite the group of dancers and mudheads, but also as way to test out ideas which might develop into pieces in their own right at a later date. Thirdly, these performances were not involving costumes of any kind. I wanted the performances to hover between seen and not seen. Performers would come together, perform an action or inaction and then disperse.

A recurrent theme within these guerrilla performances was the role of the spectator and appropriation of gesture. There would be three in total, starting in Camberwell with a micro performance about looking to be performed by the mudheads. The second performance would take place in Peckham, working its way up the high st. The third and final performance would take place in Bermondsey, just near my studio. The second and third performance would involved both dancers and mudheads and would take place after a rehearsal in Siobhan Davies, allowing us to test stuff within hours of working it out in the studio.

Starting out on the roof of the Old Biscuit Factory, Bermondsey we experimented with various methods of appropriation and 'snap shot' techniques. These were then used in series of interventions up and down the Bermondsey Blue.

Free chocolates and scaffolding

The steady sound of whirring sewing machines, kettle boiling, cheesy house blaring out of a pirate radio station and twittering ladies soon disappeared into the background as I headed out of my studio and down into the exhibition hall. Today was the first day of the set build. Scared doesn't come close.

Scaffolding had arrived as planned and as ever the free chocolates were much appreciated. A calorific breakfast ensued. Next on the arrival front was lorry after lorry load of rubbish, kindly donated in a sort of back scratching exchange by my housemate Biscuit, who was conveniently clearing out an underground car park he was currently part converting in a recording studio.

I had scouted out his place a few weeks before as he told thought I might be interested in some of the rubbish he was currently shifting. I had ear marked a small mountain of cardboard and some a ton of old polypropylene HedKandi banners which had somehow ended up at the car park. Not quite sure how I was going to use them yet, but was thinking that it might be very useful to have lots of plastic material for one of the sets.



Next to arrive was Keane and Peter, my set builders. Keane had brought just about every conceivable tool imaginable and carry-able in his over laden transit. With a grin on his face and a roll up in his mouth he eagerly began to unload and set up a workshop in the space. The scary load on my shoulder had just been lightened by the power of 2. Still a shit load to do, but happy knowing I had dedicated people both of whom knew the right end of a drill, unlike me.

Having spent probably too long making a scale model of the space complete with stages, you'd think I knew exactly where we would be erecting scaffold and building. Alas, this wasn't the case. When faced with the space all my planning seemed suddenly effervescent. After a day and a half the scaff was up and in the right place, finally. We only had to move on the of the stages once...

Part of the fun but also the pain when working with found materials is just that, the materials are found. If you don't find what you need, you don't have it. Also you have to be very good at improvising with whatever you can get your hands on. Technical drawings are about as good as chocolate tea pot when the timber you are using comes from skips, gardens and alleyways. Chalk on floor was about as technical as it got. That said us three were in our element. Well at least until I stepped on a rusty nail with a thinly soled trainers on day 1.5 of the set build. Holy crap that hurts! I was hobbling for the rest of the week, and the following week... and the one after that. There was no time to stop though, grimacing and loaded up with painkillers I soldiered on.



A plan was formed, the stages were set, the models I made did actually turn out to be useful as did the myriad of drawings I had made.



One stage was two small kiva style mounds with ladders sprouting out the top. This was the easiest to make, comprised of two small scaffold platforms with an enormous carpet draped across them both. Simple and really striking with a surface much like a giant boulder. This would be the point of emergence for one of the tribes.



The second stage was akin to a sermon mount, enormous, tall, dangerous, psychedelic, monstrous... did I mention dangerous? This stage employed the genius use of the plaster spraying gun which I bought on Keanes recommendation. Like all the stages the surface was basically built by nailing, screwing, cable tying and glue gunning any and all rubbish we could to the scaff structure before draping this with material and more card to give a solid facade. One the facade was sturdy...ish, we (Keane) loaded up the plaster spraying gun, fired up the compressor and caked the whole thing in finishing plaster. This gave a strange pink brown finish a bit like a mix between plaster and leather which when dry could be painted.



I needed paint, lots of it. After some calling around I found out that rubbish dumps all shared a common problem. Namley... paint! Paint is frequently dropped of at the dump as people often only need a small amount, buy too much, the wrong colour or just want to clear out their shed. So, if you pay a trip to the dump and present proof of you address they will happily let you take as much away as you can carry. Woop! Settling on a palette of pastel shades in-keeping with the masks we loaded up the truck and got to work.



Note to self.... place plastic sheeting on the floor before spraying enormous sculpture with emulsion paint. Not fun to clean off later.

Foam, blow torches, fur, skin rashes

First and foremost, these are the incredible costume designers I am very fortunate enough to be working with. I cannot sing their praise enough.

Berthe Fortin

Emily Ni-Bhroin

Ksenia Vashchenko

Lisa Duncan

Laura Sepp 

Marta Jimenez

Ottavia Trama 

Sandra Arroniz Lacunza

Vana Giannoula

Drawings done, choices chosen, materials sources, sewing machine replacement bulb purchased, tea stocked, glue sticks got, studio completely and utterly taken over by me (I have a shared studio space, luckily my two studio mates are not around much at this time). 

About now I'm feeling pretty much like a blue ass fly. Never in one place for long enough to do anything substantial, my time is spent hanging on the telephone, emailing performers, sourcing materials, buying food for costume designers, and more emailing. Oh did I mention, more emailing? Never have I spent so much time chained to my laptop (The very laptop I am writing this on now, which thankfully my dear sweet Mum helped me out with in my hour of need. My iMac at home is great (something I accrued whilst working as a technician at Kingston Uni, job-perk) but its not that easy to carry round with you. My iphone is kinda fine, but I have developed serious neck cramp from hunching over it all day. So, my Mum persuaded my brother to part with a still shiny laptop be bought a year ago and has never used. Anyway, I got it cheap, end of boring apple talk)!

So, when I had time I was in the studio working with the costume designers, but as it was I spent most of time coming and going. Everytime I returned I was however always greeted and surprised with the incredible work that was being made. My team were working immensely hard, once or twice I found myself heading home before them!