So is that what it was all about? 20 years of events too complex to map all in aim of putting me in the right place at the right time to re-live what is my earliest memory, to watch again as ‘we’, another ‘we’ but still in red, play Germany in the semi-finals of the world cup, but this time, finally, to win?
~
I discovered this thing below the other day that I wrote a while back, I don’t know when. Was written for fun really, but is sort of accurate. It’s a list of all of the things that we use to make shows with – a sort of basic ingredients. Something of the form of that is also meaningful – not meaning like we’re ever actually thinking too consciously in these terms, in this structure, not so blunt as that, but there is something in our approach that is about taking from a small vocabulary of possible things to do and making different combinations of those things, running through all the variations to see what sticks, what’s interesting, what works. And I think that there is something incredibly liberating in approaching stuff in such basic simple terms. Of course I’d be lying if I said it really was this simple, but it’s nice to pretend. Sometimes I see writing this kind of stuff as just about eliminating ideas in order to move on to better stuff, like once it’s written down it’s gone, you can leave it behind and think about something different. Anyway, the list looks like this:
BASIC INGREDIENTS
Stand
Lie Down
Talk (improvised)
Talk (pre-prepared)
Laugh
Cry
Energetic Movement (good)
Energetic Movement (crap)
Do Nothing
Turn Light Off
Turn Light On
Play Music
Play Video
Play Pre-recorded Text
Use Non-Spoken Text (eg. write)
NOTE: Individual piece may include other specific ingredients, eg. …THE SIRENS also has “Get Drunk”
~
Haven’t been writing much for a long time on account of something of a creative burnout – 6 months of making stuff near enough constantly has about used up all of our ideas for everything. It’s an unexpectedly physical sensation. All good though: following performances in Spain and Portugal …THE SIRENS is about finished now – just a little bit of soundtrack stuff to finish up – and ready for 5 nights at Avignon Festival OFF in a couple of weeks time. It has been a struggle and it has gone some unexpected places, but we’re very happy with where it has ended up. We’ll be taking some time off in August to recuperate and, once back in shape, work on some new stuff, then we’ll be back in the Autumn for some more shows – we’ve got stuff set in Madrid and back home in Vitoria-Gasteiz, hopefully more on the way. Meanwhile, hoping to get it together enough to finish up one or two things I’ve been writing for this thing here. More soon then, fingers crossed…
