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.