Tag: arts council

Separate Doors residency at the Level Centre

Posted on by Vanessa Brooks

At Separate Doors our mission is to increase the representation of people with learning disabilities in theatre, film and TV.  At the centre of everything we do is our methodology, the Silent Approach – a way of working without too many words which brings equality for those of us who struggle with reading and with speech. We work across the UK and we make theatre, we run workshops, we consult for others, and we produce pamphlets and reports. And last week we had a residency at the Level Centre, in Rowsley, Derbyshire.

The Level Centre is an Arts Council National Portfolio organisation and a base and platform for artistic work which challenges traditional ideas of culture. The Level Centre has a particular objective to create opportunities for people with learning disabilities. We were absolutely delighted to be invited to be resident artists – it felt like a perfect marriage for us.

I travelled to the Peak District in the middle of Storm Franklin and spent the first day of the residency unable to reach the Centre due to the floods!

However, being away from base and having time and space to think meant I was able to create our stimulus film for the week – and a shape for the beginnings of our next performance project, HOTEL.

I pulled down video files and created a soundtrack and edited together the four minute film. At Separate Doors we make a lot of these short films.

The films serve as communicators of concept to actors who can’t or don’t like to read scripts of briefs and are a visual and visceral starting point, its a way into the theatre-making process for those of us who like to explore with our eyes and ears.

This is the film I put together on day one – in my windy cottage in Winster:

Thankfully on day two the weather lifted. This allowed me to drive again and I was amazed to see (now the wind and haze had gone) the beautiful town of Matlock in the deep cleft of a rugged gorge – the river raging on the left of me. Then an extraordinary journey down Via Gellia road, the river to my left and huge dancing trees on either side of the Valley. The work we’re developing is all about escape and finding a safe haven from an unwelcoming world so this introduction to the landscape felt perfect. Opening out into the wide river delta leading up into Rowsley I felt a real sense of finding space to ‘be’ – at the Level Centre, our home for the week.

I met Emma and Kyla – who made me very welcome – and saw me into the most fantastic space – for us as a theatre company, the perfect rehearsal space. The Level Centre is spare and minimalist and calm – and very accessible.

Next door to us in another space we experienced a wonderful installation IN THE MIX by Darius Powell and on the walls in the hallway powerful photographs SICK-GAZE, by Bella Millroy.

Both Laura and Kyla heard many delighted sounds from us during the work.  Its so rare to find an uncluttered and well-equipped rehearsal space and we settled into our work very quickly.

I had a Zoom meeting with our Director of Sound Loz Kaye (Manchester to Matlock was too much of a challenge to travel to in the storm) and we explored the soundscape and influences for the score for HOTEL. At Separate Doors we always start with structure and sound and music and we discussed ideas around hotel lounge music, percussion and plans for the shape of the piece.

I laid out our props across the floor and in the afternoon actor – and advisory board member – Joe Sproulle came in to work on some movement ideas.  Joe and I have an established working relationship, we brain-stormed some thoughts on the perfect hotel and then he worked with some props.

The Silent Approach is based on Stanislavskian method and endowing objects is a central part of our work.

In our next stage of development for HOTEL we plan to work with some key props and this was a start to that journey.

On day three I had a day on my own in the space to achieve two objectives, firstly to develop a story structure for the piece and secondly (with executive and producers hats on) to frame budget and schedule for the project HOTEL will sit within – Directing Tomorrow’s Theatre.  Having achieved both of these things I set off to the station to pick up Faye Billing, our Director of Creative Learning.

Our advisory board guide all of our work and on day four we held a zoom meeting with them, presenting our work and asking for ideas around our concept.

Nicky Priest, Rebekah Hill and Sam Barnard gave great feedback and we will incorporate their ideas into the work moving forwards.

Our Advisory Board, left to right and clockwise: Sam Barnard, Rebekah Hill, Nicky Priest, Gareth John, Izzy Noake, Joe Sproulle and Charlene Salter.

We left the Level Centre so grateful and happy for the opportunity to have dedicated research and development time in such a wonderful space. The team, led by Executive Director Kerry Andrews couldn’t have been more supportive or keyed into our work and what we want to achieve with, and for, people with learning disabilities and neurodivergencies.

We look forward to returning to the Level Centre with our (cross UK) national ensemble of actors with and without learning disabilities and to building our next major project in the heart of the Peak District.

Have a word theatre

Posted on by Vanessa Brooks

30274
A really interesting diagram about words

 

Pressed at an event, a well known theatre director isolated ‘class’ as a possible driver behind his premature departure from a high profile post.

An inability to understand a Latin word used during a board meeting marked his card, denoted his rank and, he suggested, may have started a process which led to the door.

A producer, known for excellent work in promoting diversity and with a desire to represent people with learning disabilities, posited casting actors with mild learning disabilities .

‘Learning disability lite’ as she put it, meant minimal or no adjustments to text or issues with on set communication but meant she was still ‘ticking the box’ by ‘cheating a bit’.

An award winning actor with a non R.P. accent, waits for a resurgence in Irish writing on the London stage to secure employment, knowing that casting directors won’t see her for roles unless they are specific to her dialect.

Is it time to break the tyranny of words and language in theatre?

 

“Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.”

Samuel Beckett

 

The Silent Approach offers a route into accessible, universal theatre for playwrights, directors and actors,  making work which includes the talents of actors who aren’t verbal or cognitively usual and mines a rich seam of story telling offered by exploring characters and worlds invisible.

If words create hierarchies of sound and language then why not leave them at the door?

No theatre maker I know works to a process where one collaborator is afforded more artistic value than another but we let the language we use and the way it sounds determine status.

A highly accomplished verbal athlete working the most complex of text needs another actor to listen to him, both actors are in the scene, one can’t exist without the other.

 

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”

Aldous Huxley

 

For many years Arts Council England has encouraged board diversification for theatre companies and although progress has been made there’s still some way to go.

Formal language can act as a major barrier to the advancement of individuals not versed in the (usually archaic) lingo of the board.

How about re-thinking governance, aiming for accessible language and removing linguistic signifiers constructed to seek out and define social status?

 

“Silence is so accurate.” 

Mark Rothko

 

And finally, must all roles be cast according to an idea of acceptable accent?

We’re all accustomed to bumping into people from all over the UK and all over the world in many different contexts.

Its dramatically unnecessary to explain why the guy running the corner shop is Welsh when the soap is set in Newcastle or why a character in the Cherry Orchard has a Ghanaian accent (Does everyone else sound like Putin? No).

Can we give actors a break and move our imaginations in tandem with their talents?

The world may suddenly look a lot more interesting, and realistic, on stage.

language difficulty and diversity
Some languages and how long on average it takes to learn them (as a non native speaker)

 

From a scream to a whisper

Posted on by Vanessa Brooks

whisper

Every actor knows that shouting on stage only works in tiny doses but that speaking quietly, with conviction, makes an audience lean in…and listen.

This weeks’ Arts Council and British Council supported NO BOUNDARIES conference, live-linked between Hull Truck Theatre and Home in Manchester was a gathering of the UK cultural clan.

The great, the good and the doing it anyway to the best of their ability sat in the two auditoria, in front of a heady mix of opinion, reflection and prophecy delivered rapid fire, in 10 minute blocks, by a diverse range of speakers. 

Provocations from dynamic artists, producers, shapers and thinkers chewed over the indigestible Brexit cud, and break out groups wrestled with challenges for the arts around identity, collaboration, diversity and it’s birth mother- inclusion- brought giddily out of the Ashram on the hill and back into town-  a repositioning generally viewed as a far better active aim- after all it’s very possible to be diverse without including anyone in anything, least of all decision-making.

The symposium highlighted disability-focused theatre as a political mechanism and platform, powerfully articulated by the extraordinary Jess Thom.

The Separate Doors 2 project ignites at RADA in London next week and the NO BOUNDARIES symposium served as a timely reminder of the many different ways people are fighting the battle for disability representation in theatre.

Complementing the polemic charge, Separate Doors 2 aims to find routes for actors with moderate learning disabilities, less equipped to fight verbal battles, to take their place on stages, in stories crafted to move, to shift perception, assumption and prejudice via imagination and analogy.

1865_sea_and_rain_2k

It’s hoped that by finding a place for exceptional actors with learning disabilities on main stages, in TV and film, collaborating with exceptional writers and directors, in drama and comedy that appeals to general audiences that the rudderless dark sailed boat the UK currently drifts along in is guided away from the rocks by warm breezes of knowledge and understanding.

Or at least to be part of that drive for a broad-viewed future.

The artistic integration in high quality theatre programming and making that Separate Doors 2 wants to encourage won’t shout, but it will influence those who need to hear the message, delivering a compelling argument for inclusion to those who can effect change… in a whisper.

IMG_3807

ace-gfa-logo