Hello
This is probably going to be my last post on this blog as my term with Imaginate comes to an end next week. I can't quite believe it's all nearly over. However it does feel like the right time to be moving on and I'm extremely excited about starting the next chapter of my caree - backed by an incredible experience obtained throughout my residency.
Here are some highlights from the last 18 months:
- of course, Ditto. It's so amazing to have a really brilliant children's show that I'm so proud of under my belt and I look forward to developing, promoting, touring this work in the future. I've also edited the footage of the performance into this short film which you can view here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz_Y6LiIoO4
- I also produced Anmut, which while not strictly a children's show, was a great achievment during my residency. I'm currently looking into plans to develop and present this show again at several places / festivals.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRQBxuJxzD8&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
- And there's Meep and Moop which I developed with my good friend Clare McGarry and TAG theatre company earlier on in my residency. This show for 3-5 year olds will hopefully be going out on tour again in the Autumn.
I've really enjoyed the experience of going to festivals throughout Europe to see some really exciting work for children and young people. My favourite festival was undoubtedly Tweetakt in Utrecht - just a huge abundance of very creative ideas / shows / performers making work that seems to be quite unique to the Netherlands and Belgium and so inspirational for my practice. Seeing shows and meeting people from companies such as Kopergietery, Theatergroep Max and Ontroerend Goed has been a great experience. Personal show highlights have been:
Unfold by Kabinet k and Kopergietery:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lQaDWe2aLc
Run by Kopergietery:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_mJu9UaxV8&feature=related
and Toneel by Thetaergroep Max:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60STE66hGIA
- and of course it has been a great experience working with Imaginate. Everyone that works for this company is passionate about work for children and yong people and that shines into everything they do as a company - from programming really exciting work at the festival, to developing the work of local artists, it has been a privlege to work with such a great team.
Finally I'd just like to let you know that I will probably keep up a blog on my new exciting website! While the site is still slightly under construction you can check it out here:
http://www.gregsinclair.net/
My fantastic friend, Neil Montgomery, is creating the site for me and I'm really pleased with the look and feel of the site so far.
Well I hope you have enjoyed reading my blog over the last wee while. If you want to contact me in the future you can do on my email: gregsinclair@hotmail.com or, hopefully very soon, on my website.
Cheerio! x
Tuesday, 1 March 2011
Tuesday, 22 February 2011
The end is nigh...
So it's mid-February and I'm starting to realise how quickly it's approaching the end of my residency with Imaginate. It's all very sad but I'm so elated about all that I have achieved this past year and a half; it's been a great opportunity and I've loved it. And it's also very exciting thinking about what lies ahead.
I'm going to be going from the residency straight into rehearsals for the new Scottish Opera / Visible Fictions production Clockwork. This is a new children's opera based on a short story by Philip Pullman and I will be playing the cello part. I've worked for both companies before and I know that it will be a very exciting professioanl project to be involved in. I'm also really loooking forward to performing again as I haven't been doing a lot of that recently. More information on the show can be found here:
http://www.scottishopera.org.uk/10-11/clockwork
I'm also trying to set up a tour of my show for 3-5 year-olds created with Clare McGary and TAG - Meep and Moop. We are hopeful to structure a Scottish tour of nurseries and venues in the Autumn. Watch this space! Meep and Moop is a very funny musical story about two meerkats who must overcome their fears through their friendship together. It's great fun to perform (although physically very exhausting!) and it went down really well with the young audiences when we did it before. Here's a really good review of the show from The Herald:
http://www.heraldscotland.com/arts-ents/stage-visual-arts/meep-and-moop-whiteinch-nursery-school-glasgow-1.1033241
I am applying to do a performance of Anmut (the show I did for Arches Live last year) as part of the sound festival in Aberdeen this year. It would be great to revisit this. I fel there are so many directions the work could go in and I'd love to present it to a very different audience to guage their feedback. Fingers crossed for that one too!
And finally of course there's Ditto. I will be looking into my options for developing the piece to iron out its creases and tweak into the piece that I really want it to be. Then hopefully I can try to get a tour set up.
I am also in the process of setting up my new website. Watch this space....
I'm going to be going from the residency straight into rehearsals for the new Scottish Opera / Visible Fictions production Clockwork. This is a new children's opera based on a short story by Philip Pullman and I will be playing the cello part. I've worked for both companies before and I know that it will be a very exciting professioanl project to be involved in. I'm also really loooking forward to performing again as I haven't been doing a lot of that recently. More information on the show can be found here:
http://www.scottishopera.org.uk/10-11/clockwork
I'm also trying to set up a tour of my show for 3-5 year-olds created with Clare McGary and TAG - Meep and Moop. We are hopeful to structure a Scottish tour of nurseries and venues in the Autumn. Watch this space! Meep and Moop is a very funny musical story about two meerkats who must overcome their fears through their friendship together. It's great fun to perform (although physically very exhausting!) and it went down really well with the young audiences when we did it before. Here's a really good review of the show from The Herald:
http://www.heraldscotland.com/arts-ents/stage-visual-arts/meep-and-moop-whiteinch-nursery-school-glasgow-1.1033241
I am applying to do a performance of Anmut (the show I did for Arches Live last year) as part of the sound festival in Aberdeen this year. It would be great to revisit this. I fel there are so many directions the work could go in and I'd love to present it to a very different audience to guage their feedback. Fingers crossed for that one too!
And finally of course there's Ditto. I will be looking into my options for developing the piece to iron out its creases and tweak into the piece that I really want it to be. Then hopefully I can try to get a tour set up.
I am also in the process of setting up my new website. Watch this space....
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
Ditto
I have recently completed a very successful run of my show Ditto, which I have created with support from Imaginate during my residency. The show was on at North Edinburgh Arts Centre and the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh.
The show is an exploration of silence and the spaces between sounds for children in upper primary school and features a very talented quartet of musicians:
Katy Barry - soprano
Fran Pybus - clarinet / bass clarinet
Chris Barclay - trombone
Roy Mohan Shearer - percussion
During the rehearsal week I had the fortune of working closely with the show's designer, Kate Temple and movement consultant, Chris Devaney. Each brought something very special out of the performers and performance. Chris really helped me to find moments of humour and touching emotion throughout the show and Kate really vividly brought the music alive with her bold costume and design.
My aim with Ditto was to create a show that wasn't patronising to its young audience. I wanted to create a very sophisticated artistic experience that would be richly rewarding for them, whilst being very challenging both aurally and visually. There is no narrative to the piece - this was something I had decided upon after doing the research for the project in three schools. I wanted t created various rich tableaux of sounds and images and allow the individual audience members to formulate their own ideas about the narrative of the piece. Similarly there were suggestions of character throughout the piece, without anything being too blatant. In one movement the clarinet appears to want to play a different piece of music from the rest. Eventually they join in with her but then, abruptly drop out, one by one, leaving her to finish on her own. It was a moment that could be interpreted in many ways and I really enjoyed watching the faces of the young audience members at this moment as they tried to figure out why the other instruments had seemingly rejected the clarinettist.
At other moments the musicians run towards each other as if about to hug but something stops them before they touch. This happens several times before, finally, two musicians actually do hug. This funnily prompted one wee boy in a performance to shout out, "awww a wee couple o lovebirds!"
I was pleased in the performances where children felt comfortable enough to shout out and interact with the stage action. I think this is only natural for children to want to do this and, if you let them, they feel more involved with the people on the stage. This was really important to me as I knew the material was quite challenging. And I think this allowance of audience freedom helped them through some of the trickier moments in the show. For example, at one point the clarinet plays shrieking multiphonics and the other musicians all cover their ears - this often prompted the children in the audience to copy, thus turning something quite harsh and potentially frightening into a game that they were in control of. In another moment the four musicians all unexpectedly pause for a full minute, without moving. This often created very interesting reactions from the audience, my favourite being one wee boy who stood up and shouted, "move go go gooooo!"
I was so pleased with all the great feedback I received from audience members both young and adult. Here are some of my favourites:
Children:
"It sounds like magic."
"It was like being in the jungle"
"It was about what is music and what is not."
"They were wearing colourful clothes to make their skin stand out."
"I didn't like it. I LOVED it."
Adults:
"It was like post-modernist Blue Peter."
"I've never seen anything like that before. It was so...weird."
"Spectacular."
We also received a couple of reviews. This one is great from the Edinburgh Guide:
http://www.edinburghguide.com/reviews/theatre/dittotraversetheatrereview-7408
And this one is from The Scotsman. An ok review, but doesn't really give musch insight into the piece:
http://living.scotsman.com/features/Gig-review-Ditto.6695296.jp
The show is an exploration of silence and the spaces between sounds for children in upper primary school and features a very talented quartet of musicians:
Katy Barry - soprano
Fran Pybus - clarinet / bass clarinet
Chris Barclay - trombone
Roy Mohan Shearer - percussion
During the rehearsal week I had the fortune of working closely with the show's designer, Kate Temple and movement consultant, Chris Devaney. Each brought something very special out of the performers and performance. Chris really helped me to find moments of humour and touching emotion throughout the show and Kate really vividly brought the music alive with her bold costume and design.
My aim with Ditto was to create a show that wasn't patronising to its young audience. I wanted to create a very sophisticated artistic experience that would be richly rewarding for them, whilst being very challenging both aurally and visually. There is no narrative to the piece - this was something I had decided upon after doing the research for the project in three schools. I wanted t created various rich tableaux of sounds and images and allow the individual audience members to formulate their own ideas about the narrative of the piece. Similarly there were suggestions of character throughout the piece, without anything being too blatant. In one movement the clarinet appears to want to play a different piece of music from the rest. Eventually they join in with her but then, abruptly drop out, one by one, leaving her to finish on her own. It was a moment that could be interpreted in many ways and I really enjoyed watching the faces of the young audience members at this moment as they tried to figure out why the other instruments had seemingly rejected the clarinettist.
At other moments the musicians run towards each other as if about to hug but something stops them before they touch. This happens several times before, finally, two musicians actually do hug. This funnily prompted one wee boy in a performance to shout out, "awww a wee couple o lovebirds!"
I was pleased in the performances where children felt comfortable enough to shout out and interact with the stage action. I think this is only natural for children to want to do this and, if you let them, they feel more involved with the people on the stage. This was really important to me as I knew the material was quite challenging. And I think this allowance of audience freedom helped them through some of the trickier moments in the show. For example, at one point the clarinet plays shrieking multiphonics and the other musicians all cover their ears - this often prompted the children in the audience to copy, thus turning something quite harsh and potentially frightening into a game that they were in control of. In another moment the four musicians all unexpectedly pause for a full minute, without moving. This often created very interesting reactions from the audience, my favourite being one wee boy who stood up and shouted, "move go go gooooo!"
I was so pleased with all the great feedback I received from audience members both young and adult. Here are some of my favourites:
Children:
"It sounds like magic."
"It was like being in the jungle"
"It was about what is music and what is not."
"They were wearing colourful clothes to make their skin stand out."
"I didn't like it. I LOVED it."
Adults:
"It was like post-modernist Blue Peter."
"I've never seen anything like that before. It was so...weird."
"Spectacular."
We also received a couple of reviews. This one is great from the Edinburgh Guide:
http://www.edinburghguide.com/reviews/theatre/dittotraversetheatrereview-7408
And this one is from The Scotsman. An ok review, but doesn't really give musch insight into the piece:
http://living.scotsman.com/features/Gig-review-Ditto.6695296.jp
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Composition update
I'm currently in the process of composing the music for my show Ditto which will be on in January next year. Following an exciting development week with my four musicians a couple of weeks ago I felt powered and energised about going into the composition process.Having five days with my creative team was really great because I learned about all the players' strengths in performance. I'm not going to say I learned about their weaknesses, but I did learn where some were more comfortable than others. For example, two of my musicians are very used to improvising, whereas the other two are more used to note-learning. This is a really interesting mix and will hopefully lead to quite an exciting balance of styles in the final performance.
I am inspired by many things when I'm composing this music. At the forefront of my mind is an interview I read with the British composer Rebecca Saunders. She, like myself, is very interested in silence and she talks of teasing threads of sound from the silence when starting a new piece.She looks at the blank manuscript paper and doesn't think she necessarily has to start at the top, rather she can allow the sound to organically evolve from out of the white blankness. I think this is a really poetic way of working and it's something I've been experimenting with myself.
I'm also really interested in blending various styles of music together and this is having a profound impact on the soundworld of Ditto. I had a niggling idea ages ago that there should be some Renaissance music in Ditto. I have no idea where this idea came from but I couldn't shift it so I'm just running with it! In a way I feel that it will be a great contrast to the stark, rhythmic soundworld of the rest of the piece. I also presented some Renaissance music to a group of children when they came to see some work during the November development on the piece. The children really liked the quality.
I'm inspired by contemporary composers who blur boundaries between various styles of music. Works like Asyla by Thomas Ades - with its rave-influenced heavy beats and repetitive melodies, and Ayre by Osvaldo Golijov - with its frantic switching between operatic and pop vocal styles are really exciting. I'd quite like for Ditto to take the audience by surprise - to lull them into a false sense of security with its blankent of bleak silence, only to jolt them with loud outbreaks of noise and rhythm.
Here is a link to the third movement of Thomas Ades's Asyla:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRQr33PdyiQ
Here is a link to a piece by Rebecca Saunders called Traces:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QMzcHuNmbc
And here is a link to a song from Osvaldo Golijov's Ayre:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6SZ-KGVQvI
I am inspired by many things when I'm composing this music. At the forefront of my mind is an interview I read with the British composer Rebecca Saunders. She, like myself, is very interested in silence and she talks of teasing threads of sound from the silence when starting a new piece.She looks at the blank manuscript paper and doesn't think she necessarily has to start at the top, rather she can allow the sound to organically evolve from out of the white blankness. I think this is a really poetic way of working and it's something I've been experimenting with myself.
I'm also really interested in blending various styles of music together and this is having a profound impact on the soundworld of Ditto. I had a niggling idea ages ago that there should be some Renaissance music in Ditto. I have no idea where this idea came from but I couldn't shift it so I'm just running with it! In a way I feel that it will be a great contrast to the stark, rhythmic soundworld of the rest of the piece. I also presented some Renaissance music to a group of children when they came to see some work during the November development on the piece. The children really liked the quality.
I'm inspired by contemporary composers who blur boundaries between various styles of music. Works like Asyla by Thomas Ades - with its rave-influenced heavy beats and repetitive melodies, and Ayre by Osvaldo Golijov - with its frantic switching between operatic and pop vocal styles are really exciting. I'd quite like for Ditto to take the audience by surprise - to lull them into a false sense of security with its blankent of bleak silence, only to jolt them with loud outbreaks of noise and rhythm.
Here is a link to the third movement of Thomas Ades's Asyla:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRQr33PdyiQ
Here is a link to a piece by Rebecca Saunders called Traces:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QMzcHuNmbc
And here is a link to a song from Osvaldo Golijov's Ayre:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6SZ-KGVQvI
Monday, 15 November 2010
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