Convener:
Bridget Floyer
Participants:
Dan Baker, Zoe Cobb, Aliki ?
Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or
recommendations:
Not many people came to my session and I still can’t
decide whether that means it’s a bad idea, not needed, too good to be true (I
did choose Utopia as my location) or whether I just worded it badly. Certainly
there feels like there is a lot of context I struggled to get into my punchy
title. I probably could have (there have been other conversations about
what we can and can’t do this weekend) but didn’t manage to.
My idea came from several observations verging
together about which I also still haven’t quite decided whether they come
together meaningfully or not.
- Trying to make work independently for the first time aged 32 feels difficult. Lots of schemes which help people are for those under 25 or under 30. I think my experience of working for organizations for the last 10 years is helpful but I don’t think it makes it SO much easier that I don’t still need (want?) help! And there are others for whom this will be so much more true
- Even development funding needs a strong idea – a creative idea and an idea of key people you want to work with. This takes time, energy and often money, and until you have an established organization this usually means doing this unpaid
- An article in the Guardian about how many old Etonian actors there are
- Feels to me like there is a gap between being encouraged to get involved in the arts as a young person and being able to move into employment. Audiences and workforces in mainstream theatre are not getting bigger or more diverse. I don’t think anything will change until we genuinely empower people from more diverse (culturally/socio-economically and otherwise?) backgrounds and that means giving equal employment opportunities. If people can’t afford to do the frequently unpaid schemes which are on offer and they need to get experience to get paid jobs then that is very exclusionary – equally if they can’t afford to give the time energy and money to coming up with ideas they’ll struggle to get started independently
My idea is to have an intensive scheme that brings
people together maybe for just a week to have time to work on ideas and have
time to work practically with other people, and help them get to a place where
they have experience and maybe ideas to move forward on. Mentoring could also
be involved.
This would have an emphasis on process over product
though I was imagining some form of sharing.
There doesn’t seem to be such a scheme (though China
Plate? does seem to operate a scheme slightly similar for devising companies to
have paid time with new writers) so I want to try and make one.
Ideally I’d like this to help people from a variety of
disciplines – producers, actors, directors, designers, writers, other artists.
Everyone should be paid but as equally as possible.
My questions
- Who owns the idea afterwards if you bring different people together
- What’s the role of the producers in that space?
- Who gets involved / who really needs it / how do you make sure those people are the ones who get involved
- Will anyone fund it? (I reckon it could be done for £25k (or smaller and cheaper) if space and some other venue-type support was in-kind)
- Who decides who takes part – do I have the expertise/experience to choose?
PREAMBLE OVER: BELOW ARE THE RESULTS OF THE SESSION
As already mentioned, one piece of feedback was the
lack of people at my session.
I spoke to three people, one other producer and two
artists. Both artists agreed this would be useful and that they have ideas
which they need help to get off the ground. This seemed to be partly about them
needing a producer (and a producer that doesn’t need to be paid until the idea
has mileage) and partly about a desire to collaborate and work ideas through.
Won’t be able to note whole conversations but these
were key things for me:
Dan and I talked about how it would be important for
it not to be too restrictive with too many conditions or caveats. We said both
that there must be loads of empty spaces around but also that space really
seems to be at a premium (I have seen various possibilities for space during
DandD so that’s been interesting)
Zoe mentioned lots of things that would be helpful that I
hadn’t even thought of (as I had a practical workshop style thing in mind) eg
phone, computer, wifi, conversations, planning and strategy sessions, advice on
what makes a show workable etc as well as practically trying out ideas.
This was good because it slightly answered my question as to
what the producers might do in that space without becoming glorified stage
managers. I felt strongly they should be involved (ha, of course, as I'm a producer!)
as that feels like an important relationship to allow people to create as well
as artist to artist relationships.
I also realised during discussions that ideas can take a
long time to develop and maybe my thought that ideas could be come up with during
the session is overambitious. Aliki and I talked about how lots of artists will
have an idea but they may be unformed and not in a state that’s fundable. Maybe
I should be looking for artists who have ideas they want to bring in to
explore.
Another thought that came out was not to have to know
answers was positive – to have a space for trials, where a sharing was the
ideal end result but not necessarily performance, not audience focused and that
the possibility of no sharing at all was an option
I was also assuming a theatre venue was the space I was
looking for but other spaces could be a possibility especially if a performance
(even a scratch one) is not going to be a necessary end result of the project.
Even scratch performances are quite formal in a sense if they’re in a theatre
space so maybe more beneficial not to be.
OTHER THOUGHTS WHICH DIDN’T COME OUT OF THIS SESSION BUT OUT
OF OTHERS
I’ve been interested in who leads with an idea and I went to
some sessions about post-dramatic drama and design-led theatre which all
questioned who can lead a process. I’d be interested in having people come in
with ideas who are not directors.
Piloting would be a good idea and this could be possible in
a much smaller way than I was originally thinking I’d want to pilot. Maybe one
group made up of one artist with an idea and others in a venue which has very
close links to a diverse community and could bring in emerging artists (of any
age) to see how the week itself works and what’s useful before looking at the
wider format of applications etc
In fact not having applications per se in an open way but
referrals might get the “right people” – or even better a mix, not to
ghettoise?
Might be useful to bring in some established artists who
might not need the project so much but benefit from reinvigoration of practice
from working with new people or having a test space for an idea (or working on
someone else’s idea) and again meet less ghettoisation, more useful for
emerging artists to meet a mix of people.
Would it then be even more important that everyone gets paid
and everyone gets paid the same?
Seth Honnor (hope he doesn’t mind me quoting) said creative
practice is a constant tension between openness and quality and though I need
to think about that a bit more, I think that’s a good context in which to set
the above – have some known quality and some unknown openness (which doesn’t
mean either isn’t risky but to different degrees?)
Again possibilities for space came from other sessions eg
the Theatre Lab session about people in Streatham Hill (music project, aaaaagh
have temporarily lost email address sorry) who have space and want to encourage
use of it for artistic collaboration and no-one came to that session either –
interesting!
If anyone is post-DandD interested in this or can offer help
for me to do it (I’m determined to try) I can be found on Twitter @bridget_flo
or at http://anoccasionalwildgoose.blogspot.com
which is a slightly rambling blog about theatre and finding 100 things to love
about London but you can contact me through it.
No comments:
Post a Comment