Dancing Brick

Farmham Maltings

2011-11-02T07:47:00.001-07:00

We're delighted and proud to announce that we are now one of the associate companies at Farnham Maltings. We are going to be working with them on the professional development of the company, financial management and building a solid foundation for our forthcoming projects.

http://www.farnhammaltings.com/

Looking good on their associate companies section on their website!
http://www.farnhammaltings.com/news/associate_companies/761/368/915/dancing_brick.aspx

Wellcome Arts Award for Public Engagement

2011-11-02T06:28:00.000-07:00

We are thrilled to announce that Dancing Brick has received a Wellcome Trust Arts Award for Public Engagement, thanks to its collaboration with Professor Sergio della Sala from the University of Edinburgh to make Captain Ko and the Planet of Rice [working title]. We are currently in our second period of research and development for this project which we aim to take to Edinburgh next summer.

To follow our progress, visit the Captain's [b]log we've started specifically for this project.

http://planetofrice.blogspot.com/

This week's Scratches and a nice mention by Lyn Gardner

2011-04-24T01:13:00.001-07:00

Our ship is on course and progressing at steady speed. We will be docking in Buckinghamshire and Cambridgeshire this week, showing a few very scratchy ideas at the MK Gallery this Thursday and looking forward to joining a great line-up of creators at Sampled Festival at the Junction in Cambridge on Saturday (mentioned by Lyn Gardner's What to See this double bank holiday weekend).

Fantastic Voyage

2011-03-21T05:02:00.001-07:00

big small future past.

Nostalgia

2011-02-18T01:31:00.001-08:00

An expert example of music, text and image coming together and moving apart in the service of nostalgia and loss.

Lost Buildings from Kobey Teef on Vimeo.

New trailer for 6.0

2011-02-09T14:19:00.000-08:00

A new trailer for Heap and Pebble now online. This one actually has a bit of the show.

Devoted and Disgruntled, Theatre Teachers History Lesson

2011-01-31T10:53:00.000-08:00

Here are the notes from our session today at Devoted and Disgruntled 6.

The purpose of this session was to try to learn who the names on the D and D map were and why they were significant. Phelim revealed that the connection between all of them was that they were teachers (of theatre practice) and, as we went through (almost) all of them we tried to trace a heritage or lineage that might reveal something about where we are now or where we’re going.

We all learned a lot.

It was suggested, and I would love to try (but it might be better suited to one of the ‘teachers’, that the Tate modern’s ‘map’ of 20^th century artists both in time but also in space is a very useful conceptual way of figuring this lineage and wouldn’t it be good to have one of the people below.

The purpose was also to be brief so, in that interest, I have tried to keep the biogs / definitions short. I have also tried to write them in the order we discussed them as this was often informed by links/similarities.

The descriptions are key words, places, book titles and things they said / stood for.

Book titles are underlined. ® symbols used to be arrows in Word, but blogger doesn't like it.

Jaques Lecoq.

1960s ® / Paris. / Work that concerns the body in space / a practice based on the purity of movement from his background as a sports teacher / The Poetic Body / “Everything moves” / Complicite, Mummenschantz, Clod Ensemble.

Philippe Gaulier

1970s® / Paris, London / Pleasure, playfulness, games / “You are not funny” / Clown, bouffon, melodrama / catholic / Spymonkey, Sasha Baron Cohen, Peepolykus.

Prattki

1990s ® / London / LISPA / Lecoq disciple but adds elements of psychology, zen, meditative, mindfulness / A negotiation between Grotowski and Lecoq.

John Wright

1980s / UK, Paris / Clown, bouffon / Moved to England because ‘he got cash’ / Like Gaulier but ‘more english’ / Improvisation / Codifying comedy, the science of laughter / Games as opposed to play / Pushed clown towards the pathetic, the tragic / Told by an Idiot, Trestle.

Keith Johnstone

1970s, 80s / UK / Impro / Impro towards narrative, storytelling (as opposed to Gaulier who was towards the relationship w an audience ® often people who don’t connect w Gaulier are more comfortable/successful w Johnstone) / Ran the writer’s room at the royal court in the 70s ® Barker, Brenton, Bond / Gaulier and Lecoq say ‘No’, Johnstone says ‘yes’ / Failure is an active part of the process / Lifegame (anecdote from Phelim about a woman recounting a story in Lifegame about her mother’s heart attack and it being the first time Phelim realised impro could create wonderful, memorable scenes, and not just comedy, moments).

Viola Spolin

1950s / USA / Pioneer of early ‘impro’ in the US. / Worked w street kids and developed, through this work, improvisation techniques / if Johnstone’s impro is about narrative, Spolin’s is about space / ‘Single focus’ allowing for instinct and intuition (eg. Coming onstage focusing on your feet allows you to instinctively use the rest of your body) / Improvisation for the Theatre / Games, play / ‘anyone can be an actor’ /

Anne Bogart

1990s onwards / NYC / Serious badass with a sensitive, vulnerable side (!) / Founder of Siti company / Works with ‘Viewpoints’, a system of codifying patterns in space and time to describe things and thus to be used in training or as a starting point for creation / not dissimilar from Laban / The performer of this has a 180 degree field of vision (unlike, say, a Gaulier performer who focuses on the audience) / an awareness tool / The director prepares

Tadashi Suzuki

Japan / Comes from a Japanese tradition of Noh and Kabuki / voice centering (in the diaphragm, not the chest or head) / THIGHS.

Yoshi Oida

Japan, Paris / Part of Peter Brook’s company / Noh training / the Japanese tradition of clear pictures, clean, clear language / Jo-Ha-Kyu / The Invisible Actor.

Konstantin Stanislavski

1890s-1920s / Russia / Came out of a period where declamation was king, his practice was a reaction to this, a search for authenticity, truth to life and a rejection of self-consciousness / He evolved from a place where actors worked as individuals to ensemble work / His system(s) has been misappropriated by Stella Adler and The Method in the US and is unfairly maligned as a result ® in need of reconsideration!

Michael Chekhov

1940s / Russia, USA / Stanislavski’s student / ‘the psychological gesture’ ® the idea of creating a whole body physicalistation of a character or a play / ‘Atmospheres’ as tangible, physical things, ‘there’s an atmosphere of love in the room, what does it feel like to move my hand through it?’ / He himself was a star performer (an amazing clown) and ended up in Hollywood teaching Marilyn Monrow, Yul Brynner etc. (you can see him as the Russian in Spellbound) / Phelim’s hero / To the Actor / the Charles Morovitz Biography / Spiritual / Jungian

Jeremy Whelan

Instant Acting / working w. text: the actors record the text then, while listening to it, move in the space. This is repeated but with completely different movement. After the fourth repetition, the actors try to speak it without the sound (and almost always manage with amazing success) / alternative to ‘dubbing’ exercise / the effect is almost like improvising a text / On the first day you should do the whole play(!) / Bypasses the intellectualising of the parts, lines / Dictionary of Emotions.

Joan Littlewood

1960s / UK / Radical / Socialist / Impro / ‘Oh what a lovely war’ / Devising / Working class / that theatre should be like boxing, should be a struggle / wanted to form the “Pleasure Palace’, a home for art and theatre, on the Southbank but was denied and ended up moving to Paris.

Uta Hagen

1960s-90s / Respect for Acting / sense memory / 6 questions / things like ‘who am I?’, ‘where am I?’, ‘How do I get what I want’.

Augusto Boal

1960s – 90s / Brazil / Forum theatre / Theatre of the Oppressed / Political / The audience became actively involved in the experience, performance / later became a politician / ‘rainbow of desire’ added a psychological aspect.

Joan Skinner

Dance / Dance improvisation pioneer / Similar to Chekhov’s ideas about externalising internal images physically / ‘Slinner Release / Feldenkreis / How internal images effect movement.

Wesley Balk

1970s-2003 / USA / Director of the Minnesota Opera / Created a system for actor singers / wrote a famous article called the ‘Disappearing Diva’, which argued that singing compromised acting (and vice versa) and, in the effort to do both, things became tangled and the result was unsatisfactory. He developed techniques to separate the two processes than bring them back together (eg. holding up emotion cards while they were singing) / The Complete Singer actor / Radiant Performer.

Dell Close

Improv teacher and comedy writer / ‘the truth in comedy’

MISSING:

Brook

Humphries

Craig

Duncan

Barker

Graham

Meisner

Rughe by Paco Roca

2011-01-11T14:21:00.001-08:00

Following our inspiring conversation with Prof Sergio della Sala this morning, we found this:

Arrugas from vixel on Vimeo.

...Captain Ko and the Planet of Rice is in development.

ALICE snippet

2011-01-05T07:10:00.000-08:00

Better late than never: a new year's snippet of ALICE filmed last summer at BAC, featuring some of Caroline's amazing music. Can't wait to start working with her again on Ko...

We're Jammin'....

2010-11-08T08:47:00.000-08:00

We are thrilled to be performing next week at the Jam, an evening of work-in-progress performances at the Junction, in Cambridge.

Nest Wednesday, 17th of November, we'll be scratching some ideas of our latest work Captain Ko and the Planet of Rice. We are very excited about the piece, and have been doing some brainstorming about what the difference between memory (a remembered thing) and fiction is. We also found some exceptional old footage of our family's life, taken a very long time ago. In black and white and brilliant technicolor. All beautifully silent still, of course.

Set in Space, in an imagined future, on a planet of rice, the play follows two astronauts as they are attacked by a mysterious force. The piece is inspired by 1960s Science Fiction, using the genre and breaking out of it, to talk about memory and our fear of forgetting, it reflects our anxiety towards aging and a nostalgic longing for a generation that is currently disappearing.

For more information about the Jam event, please visit: http://junction.co.uk/artist/257

We hope you can make it and give us lots of useful feedback!!

'...Ko' concerns

2010-10-11T07:45:00.000-07:00

Today we had a meeting about the development process of our most recent project "Captain Ko and the Planet of Rice". Originally conceived during a SITE Residency at Tobacco Factory and Theatre Bristol this summer, the piece wants to tackle the themes of ageing, memory (and in particular memory loss) and identity. The piece is set in outer space, in a distant future, on an austere planet of rice, and we follow two characters, as they discover what the mysterious planet beholds.

In the last month, however, we've found many other companies and projects dealing with these themes,(in very, very similar ways!) and are struggling to work out how to reconcile our belief in our authenticity with the inevitable likeness to these other works. After all, we all know the fear of the artist, the utter frustration at, and ultimate need of, Comparison (to quote Taylor Mac!).

How to know what to do with an original idea, after you've seen it perfectly executed by someone else? Remarkably Fevered Sleep's On Ageing (http://www.feveredsleep.co.uk/current-projects/on-ageing/) at the Young Vic, which we thought was an extraordinary, and beautifully formed, contemplative piece on the subject. The use of mics, the simplicity in design, the delicate treatment of transcript and/ as text, the gaps between speaker, text and memory, the use of objects (accumulation on stage), object in a jar, are all elements present in the material we've already created for Ko.

Similarly Unlimited Theatre's latest piece "Mission to Mars" a co-production with Polka Theatre (http://www.unlimited.org.uk/shows/mars.php) is set - obviously - in space, and seems to be inspired, even indirectly by classic Science Fiction stories. Not to mention Stan's Cafe's touching and evocative use of rice by the tonne, in their durational piece http://www.stanscafe.co.uk/ofallthepeople/.

Can we, in all seriousness, present our story of two spacemen (surrounded by bucket-fulls of rice, uncovering the objects of memory-past, whilst speaking transcripts of interviews through microphones around the stage), to a knowing audience without them reading 'pastiche' - or indeed plagiarism ! - in our every move?

Where can we take our material now? How can we move forward knowing that what we've got has just been tried and tested, successfully, by others? How can we re-invent it, so that when people see the finished product they're struck by its originality?

...

for more thoughts on this see Richard Dedomenici's clever and witty piece titled 'Plagiarismo' (http://dedomenicitemporarywebsite.blogspot.com/)

Finding time for meetings whilst on tour...

2010-09-28T12:21:00.000-07:00

Today we had a very successful summit meeting, during which plans for the next 10 months were broadly outlined. So expect 'Ko to develop further, with a scratch performance at The Junction on November 17th (http://www.junction.co.uk/), discussions for ALICE under way, plans for Heap and Pebble in the Spring and lots more!

In the meantime we're going to see On Ageing this Saturday. It's a Young Vic co-Production with Fevered Sleep, in association with our old favourites, FUEL!

(http://www.youngvic.org/whats-on/on-ageing).

We're hoping it might serve as inspiration for Captain Ko - who knows?

Also looking forward to Black Watch at the Barbican and booking a trip to Paris for theatre festival in November (Peter Book's latest at the Bouffes du Nord is on the cards and Les Naufrages du Fol Espoir by Theatre du Soleil - not to be missed!).

Things are shaping up nicely!

Beginning of tour

2010-09-06T09:26:00.001-07:00

Back on the road for the much awaited tour of 6.0: How Heap and Pebble took on the World and Won. The full list is here:

http://www.dancingbrick.net/upcoming.html

The show has changed quite a bit since its edinburgh incarnation, with a new ending and a satisfying growth to the show. We're really looking forward to showing it to lots of people over the coming months.

See you there!

Notes for work-in-progress showing of Ko

2010-08-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

These are the notes we'll be giving out as a handout for the scratch of Ko tomorrow, which explains a bit what our process and thinking has been so far:

For this play, we set out to write something that grappled with the ideas of legacy, posterity and memory: ‘what’, we wanted to ask ‘would survive of our grandparents- or our memories of them- a thousand years in the future?’

From the outset we have seen this play as a science fiction. There’s something about the space you find in… space that we hoped would allow us to get a real distance from things that are very close to us in order to perhaps see them with fresh, or impartial eyes.

Beyond that, we love the naivety and bravery of classic science fiction astronauts and wanted to tell a story of two of these characters coming up against an enemy even more dangerous than a mutant spider or an atomic blob… memory. Those Sci-Fi films, we think, have always been about beautifully simplifying our most profound fears, in order to overcome them (or at least pretend for a while that you can) - so why not place our anxiety of forgetting into a malevolent planet that our intrepid explorers can overcome too?

What you are going to see today is the end of our very first explorations of these ideas (and a few more besides), and what will, we hope, form the basis of the rest of the development of the play.

Captain Ko

2010-08-16T12:12:00.001-07:00

Deep in rehearsals for (what's currently being called) 'Captain Ko and the Planet of Rice' at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol, as part of the SITE residency. SITE has been a fantastic way of getting started on the show, as we've been able to work with a dramaturge (Lu Kemp) and a designer (Katie Sykes) right from the beginning. We're doing a showing on friday at the brewery (not public though unfortunately) and hoping to pull together about 20 mins worth of ideas around the subjects of memory, amnesia, and deep space.

Vantastic

2010-08-11T11:36:00.000-07:00

Over the last six months we spent over a grand on van hire. A grand! That's basically more than we each got paid. So, in preparation for the autumn tour we've taken the plunge and bought a lovely little three-seat citroen dispatch. And spent basically a grand (a grand!) on insuring it.

Incidentally, if you are ever insuring a van, be advised that the word 'theatre' anywhere near the word 'profession' causes the insurance broker to hang up pretty much instantly.

Spinning Film

2010-07-31T03:57:00.001-07:00

Spinning pics

2010-07-28T11:36:00.001-07:00

Some more photos of Spinning at MKIF on our facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dancing-Brick/53419388545), but couldn't resist putting this one up here too, courtesy of chief Spinner Laura Power's iPhone...

Starting Ko

2010-07-28T11:13:00.000-07:00

We're in Bristol at the moment starting, just starting, work on a whole new show.

We arrived on Sunday and installed ourselves in an amazing flat (see pics) literally above the tobacco factory.

On monday we watched The Green Slime, Journey to the Seventh Planet, Rocketship X-M and The First Men in the Moon to get us in the mood. We want to try to use the style of b-movie science fiction to get us to a place where we can talk about 'big' things like memory and reality. By moving way into the future, or an imagined future, we hope to look back to the recent past, and give these events a real... space.

Standing at the start of a whole new show is overwhelming. There are so many ideas, so many grand ambitions that today we just had to take a deep breath and make some space suits (overalls, wellies and silver duck tape). In many ways though, this is the most exciting part of making a show: when it can still go anywhere, when everything is still possible. And we both agree that with this one...

We want to make something big.
Something complex
Something bold and beautiful and stark and austere
Something where one of us can say: "Nothing on this planet is real. Someone has brought them to life. Some alien being we don't yet understand"

Spinning at MKIF

2010-07-22T03:10:00.000-07:00

We've been performing Spinning at the Milton Keynes International Festival all week to lovely crowds. Here are some quick pictures. Hope to put some more up soon.

Kraftweek Day 4

2010-07-02T07:49:00.000-07:00

One, two, three. Spinning.

Kraftweek Day 3

2010-07-02T01:11:00.000-07:00

The mighty vulcano!

Kraftweek 2

2010-06-30T11:11:00.000-07:00

Day 1 Kraftweek

2010-06-29T12:08:00.000-07:00

The city...

We Begin to Spin - Design Week

2010-06-28T10:21:00.000-07:00

This week Dancing Brick will be working with illustrator Serge Seidlitz (http://www.sergeseidlitz.com/) on their new commission 'Spinning' for the International Festival MK. Canvas, felt loop, wood, paints, pens and brushes on the ready - Serge will draw, we shall paint and slowly the whole mechanism - with the help of Fred Rigby (http://fredrigby.com/) - will come to life. A magical landscape - a celebration of the beauty of the black line - an adventure around the world, a bicycle, a love-story perhaps. Watch this space and see the journey of the piece, the characters in it, and the artists behind it, unfold.

introducing the cast and crew of Alice

2010-04-30T15:02:00.001-07:00

Dancing Brick intro from BAC on Vimeo.

A L I C E @ BAC 5th and 6th of May 2010

2010-04-23T02:27:00.000-07:00

It's nearly time for A L I C E our latest work-in-progress, which we'll be sharing at BAC during their Scratch Festival in May.
http://www.bac.org.uk/whats-on/scratch-festival-may-2010/

A L I C E is a highly visual and aesthetic response to the demise of analogue technology; a nostalgic celebration of an era of expectation and potential, and a final goodbye to childhood as the future approaches.

Dancing Brick, in collaboration with Justin Beardsell (VJ Meno), Caroline Devine and Wig Industry are presenting a scratch performance of ALICE.

Please check out our invited artists below:

Justin Beardsell
http://www.meno.tv/

Caroline Devine
http://www.devine.co.uk/linernotes/

Wig Industry
http://wigindustry.net/

ALICE is also the first time we've used other performers so if you've ever wondered what a DB play would be like with better actors now's your chance to see. To book go to the BAC website:

http://www.bac.org.uk/whats-on/l-i-c-e/

Spinning at Milton Keynes International Festival

2010-04-22T10:00:00.001-07:00

Great news. Dancing Brick have been commissioned to make a piece for the Milton Keynes International Festival in July. It's going to be a 10 minute play inspired by the festival's theme of 'bicycles'. We're yet to really start work on it but the initial premise is that age old trick of a stationary actor in front of a moving backdrop. But we've got a trick up our sleeve: our backdrop is going to be designed by internationally acclaimed illustrator Serge Seidlitz. We're so excited about this collaboration, and hopefully will make something bold and touching along the lines of Hanna and Ike.

For a little taster of how it might work (imagine a backdrop not drawn by a five year old) see below...

Sports Relief Grant

2010-04-21T11:34:00.000-07:00

We're delighted to have been awarded a Sports Relief grant to help us provide a mask workshop to children in Milton Keynes. Thanks Sports Relief!

Heap and Pebble Spring Tour...2010!

2010-03-05T11:04:00.000-08:00

What better season for a come back, for our ice-less ice dancers, than Spring! That's right, your favourite ice-couple are sharpening their blades and polishing their smiles for performances throughout the coming months. Starting with...

25th & 26th March, Ustinov @ Theatre Royal Bath
http://www.theatreroyal.org.uk/how-to-book/

10th - 13th May, May Fest Bristol
http://tobaccofactorytheatre.com/book/

18th & 19th May, Arches Glasgow
http://www.thearches.co.uk/

11th June, PULSE Fringe Festival, New Wolsey Theatre
Ipswich
http://www.pulsefringe.com/47/book-tickets/book-tickets.html

and finishing in Dorset for the Devizes Festival 2010!

We've re-worked the show, making it even better, with the help of our lovely dramaturge Lu Kemp ("If that' all there is" - Inspector Sands) and our fantastic New York set designer Adrian Jones (http://www.adrianwjones.com).
We are very excited about the new version, and are sure you'll love it too!!
H&P

A L I C E

2010-03-01T11:33:00.000-08:00

Hold tight! Dancing brick are working on a new project....

Everyone remembers, in some way or another, waking up as a child at six o'clock in the morning, to go downstairs while everyone else is sleeping, to switch the TV on to watch their favourite cartoon and....Bam! There she was. The little girl playing naughts and crosses with her somewhat scary doll. Did she ever move? Was she trapped in the TV? How long had she been there ?

The project, so far, is called A L I C E and is a creative response to the demise of analogue technology, a nostalgic celebration of an era of expectation and potential, and a cheerful goodbye to childhood. We want to explore video, test cards, 1980s technology, betamax, cassettes, synths and 8-bit computer graphics, and much much more!

We spent two weeks last month workshopping initial ideas at BAC with a group of actors and are now looking to collaborate with a video artist / video technician and composer for the next stages of the process.

We are very please to announce that the project has been commissioned by BAC for a Scratch performance in May 2010.

So watch this space....!

Scratch performances 5th and 6th of May

Hanna and Ike at Shunt

2009-11-16T08:50:00.001-08:00

Last week we had the honour of performing Hanna and Ike at the LAST EVER Shunt lounge at London Bridge. Hanna and Ike is the play we wrote for the Napoli Teatro Festival last summer. Although it was originally designed for a large open space, it worked out even better at Shunt than we'd hoped; although a bit of the scale of the piece was lost, I think confining the image more meant the comedy of the reveals came across clearer.

There's a video coming of the Nasreen Mohamedi performance. One of these films was filmed at a gallery in the afternoon, the other was filmed at a nightclub at midnight. See if you can guess which is which...

Nasreen Mohamedi

2009-11-10T08:35:00.001-08:00

Dancing Brick have been invited to do an installation performance at the Milton Keynes Gallery this weekend, in response to the works by artist Nasreen Mohamedi in the exhibition

Nasreen Mohamedi: Notes
"Reflections on Indian Modernism"

Indian artist Nasreen Mohamedi produced a highly personalised language through drawings, photographs and diaries from the 1950s to the 1980s. The works Dancing Brick will focus on in the perfromance are what some consider her classic works, from the 1970s and 1980s: small scale geometric drawings, devised around the grid. These works, drawings so intricate and technical they remind us of an architect's blueprints correspond to the utopian planning of Milton Keyens and are strong emblems of modernist art and design. The drawings are highly technical but delicate, evocative at once of complex musical scores and intricate stitchwork and soft textile weaving.

For our performance we have also drawn our inspiration from Michelangelo Antonioni's 1962 film L'Eclisse, which tells the story of a man and a woman who attempt to fall in love in the estranged utopian landscape of the artificial urban space of the Eur, on the outskirts of Rome in the 1960s. We feel that the visual themes and the strong architecural elements used in the film are very present in Mohamedi's wrok, where the human presence is felt like a shadow, a whisper fading into the depths of the blueprint-like drawings.

Next week

2009-09-15T10:04:00.001-07:00

Come and see us back at CPT by popular demand. 21:13 is on tuesday-sunday at 8:00pm. Last time we sold out the CPT so maybe book early to avoid disappointment. Full (UK) tour dates are:

22nd-27th September: Camden People's Theatre, London
30th September-11th October: Tobacco Factory, Bristol
14th-16th October: South Hill Park, Canterbury
19th-21st October: Artsreach Dorset
22nd-24th October: Madcap Performing Arts Centre, Milton Keynes

Getting ready to go on tour...

2009-09-15T07:16:00.000-07:00

We're re-re-rehearsing 21:13 in preparation for packing it all up and going on our first tour...

Awards

2009-09-02T07:23:00.000-07:00

Great news from the fringe is that 6.0: How Heap and Pebble took on the World and Won was

Nominated and Shortlisted for the Total Theatre Award for an Emerging Company

and

Won the Arches Brick Award.

As part of the latter the prize is a thousand pounds and a run at the prestigious Arches Theatre in Glasgow. Better than that, the trophy is an actual brick.

Valentina collected the prize (while Thomas and Panda were busy not winning Total Theatre) at the assembly rooms at a big ceremony, where Joyce Macmillan made the big Dancing-Brick-win-the-Brick joke. It brought the house down.

Both of those things have put a lovely gloss on a great festival for us. Can't wait to do the show again.

http://www.thearches.co.uk/theatre.htm

http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/news/archesbrick09.htm

Guardian review

2009-09-02T07:20:00.000-07:00

We had a review from Lyn Gardner today. It was really positive and encouraging - plus just good to be in a Big Paper - but can't help feeling frustrated at being a 'lovely little show'. When will we be an epic, generation-defining, spectacular?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/aug/23/heap-and-pebble-theatre-review

5 Star Fringe Review Review

2009-09-02T07:19:00.000-07:00

The world is warming up. Two ice dancers are forced to perform on a wooden floor: They are Heap and Pebble. Eccentric and endearing, they have a beautiful on stage chemistry that makes them totally watchable. This also easily allows them to perform some scenes in silence for minutes on end. They manage a light, quirky tone with an underlying dread at the reality of their situation.
The two actors and writers Thomas Eccleshare (Heap) and Valentina Ceschi (Pebble) are lovely. Handsome Heap does all the talking and the shy and beautiful Pebble the smiling. They present themselves to the audience in surreal bursts of enthusiasm and quiet grace; the timing of their delivery and the way they have structured the oddly connecting scenes: Silent, observational ones and scenes when they address the audience are held together by their lovable demeanour. The audience are drawn into the character's plight because the threat is ours as well - and we aren't passive observers - the fourth wall is broken several times and audience members invited on stage.
This is certainly a devised production and very much to its credit. It is an excellent example of unconventionally structured storytelling. It wouldn't work on paper, not only because there is so little dialogue but because it is about physical mood and style that couldn't be conveyed in a text. It doesn't rely on any theatrical conventions, in fact it throws them out and starts afresh. It even makes text based theatre look archaic and dull in comparison.
Its structure is based on the juxtaposition of a mega and a micro-theme: Global Warming and the desperate need of two people. it starts off with the audience laughing at two clownish characters, and if this had continued it would have stayed as rather odd, physical slapstick theatre, and we wouldn't have taken the message (of global warming) seriously. What raises it above other shows of its nature is its clarity in defining a threat so abstractedly.
Increasing throughout, the threatening sense of a melting world is conveyed through poignant mime scenes and wonderful sound effects. One, for example, is an image of plastic chairs sinking to the bottom of the sea performed with the actor's backs turned to us which alludes to their, and our, drowning and therefore our extinction because of rising sea levels. Radio addresses of them on the ice are merged with news of the melting ice. They desperately try to be positive about their plight but the reality is ever present.
This gets five stars because of its innovation in style, it strikes just the right note between humour and pathos. This is a highly original and offbeat way to warn us, through art, of the reality of global warming. It hails to the power of theatre as a message carrier, and deserves all the praise it gets.

Congratulations Matt

2009-09-02T07:17:00.001-07:00

Congratulations to Matt Trueman, who won the Allen Wright Award for a young critic, with his review of 6.0. It's not often you inspire a review this well-written; we were really touched when we first read it, and are now trying to steal some reflected glory... Here it is:

With summers hotting up and polar ice-caps melting down, Dancing Brick ask us to spare a thought for the world’s figure skaters in this surprisingly poignant and cerebral clown show. It’s been five years since Heap Cruziack and Pebble Adverati last laced up their skates and danced competitively, but now, in spite of the extinction of ice-rinks, the world champions are intent on a glorious comeback. Thus, dressed in glacial-grey chiffon, they take to the wooden floor and skate with polished smiles and clumsy feet. It’s a stunningly simple idea that captures the clown’s essential conflict of optimism and futility.

Admittedly, Thomas Eccleshare and Valentina Ceschi fail to wring this premise for every last drop of comic potential, but in return they forge an unexpected tragedy out of the iceless-dancers. On the surface, Heap and Pebble are shrewdly observed caricatures of sporting professionals. Eccleshare, in particular, revels in the absurd inanities of media-speak and the faux-humility of their podium routine is spot on. However, by the time they come to actually perform their faltering free dance, Heap and Pebble seem utterly hopeless. They are broken and empty, entirely stripped of purpose like two masterful marionettes come unstrung.

In order to achieve this, Eccleshare and Ceschi sacrifice a rounded, satisfying structure in favour of something more stuttering. They sag as often as they hit hilarity – their icy recreation of the Apollo moon landings being a particular comic peak – but there are also moments of delicate beauty. All it takes to suggest Heap and Pebble’s former glories, for example, is two fingers gliding around the miniature ice-rink of a plastic garden chair.

Though 6.0... is not the most immediately gratifying theatrical experience, it has the intelligence, depth and imagery to linger with you through the Fringe. In fact, the more you think about Heap and Pebble’s plight, the more they’ll melt your heart.

thoughts in ed

2009-08-24T16:46:00.000-07:00

There is a sense in which Free work is unreal. Unreal in the sense that real estate is real. It is sellable, buyable, valuable. By pricing art as free, it makes it profoundly difficult to defend and, by inference, to judge. When nothing is finished, nothing valued, it is impossible to attack, which is why, in a very real sense, there is more risk in a Work, than there is in a Work-In-Progress.

Review From Edinburgh Guide

2009-08-10T03:34:00.001-07:00

6.0: How Heap and Pebble Took on the World and Won Review
By Garry Platt - Posted on 09 August 2009
5
Venue: Pleasance Dome
Company: Dancing Brick, developed at BAC
Running time: 60mins
Production: Thomas Eccleshare (Actor & Writer) Valentina Ceschi (Actor & Writer)
Performers: Thomas Eccleshare (Heap), Valentina Ceschi (Pebble)
Here’s the idea: global warming has led to the extinction of the Winter Olympics. But the two unbeaten World Ice Figure Skating champions Heap and Pebble decide this is not going to stop them bringing their art and their entertainment to the masses.
And so they prepare for the world’s first no ice ice dance. It’s an engaging idea to begin with but the execution is sublime.

The two actors, Thomas Eccleshare and Valentina Ceschi, have created something which I predict will win a lot of awards. It achieves something that so many comic inventions fail to reach, poignancy and pathos.
The audience (including myself) start by laughing at these two painfully dedicated ice skaters desperately trying to overcome these impossible obstacles but as the scenes play out and their undaunted efforts and focussed energy are revealed the audience begins to feel uneasy about mocking the genuine efforts of these two extraordinary characters. The audience’s laughter becomes nervous as disdain and derision mutates into admiration and respect.

The play, the acting, the whole performance is a remarkable invention, a collection of dualisms; a tower of whimsy but also a beacon of hope, a funny story and a desperate tale, a story of obsession and freedom.

I strongly urge anyone who has not seen this play to go and see it now, it will begin selling out and I predict it will become one of the big hits of this years Fringe. Run, run now to the booking office.

Hanna and Ike

2009-06-23T08:17:00.001-07:00

We performed Hanna and Ike for the first time in Napoli and we were really pleased with how it turned out. We struggled at first with the difficulty of trying to get such an engagement of the imagination from an outdoor audience. The courtyard we were in was so spectacular that we found that a huge amount of space was needed for each action to resonate. And people just needed to look around for a bit.

We're not sure yet whether it's going to be possible to do the piece in England, but we're hoping that we might be able to in the not too distant future. Keep your eyes peeled for news...

Hanna and Ike in Napoli

2009-06-23T08:09:00.000-07:00

We've just got back from Napoli. What an amazing experience, and what a fantastic festival. We didn't get a chance to see that much of the other stuff as our performances clashed with pretty much everything (Valentina managed to get underground to see Monicello directed by Andy Arnold), but it was great to be involved in such a large-scale festival. A step up.

As we sat in the PAN sipping our complimentary artists' prosecco we couldn't help looking forward to the edinburgh fringe... no more commission, no more publicity department, no more sun. Then again, we do get 10% discount beer at the Brooks Bar.

Valentina interviewed

2009-05-01T03:45:00.000-07:00

2009-03-25T14:28:00.000-07:00

Emma Rice, director of Kneehigh, in the Guardian'd G2 March 25th 2009, on art and sport, in view of the Cultural Olympiad:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/25/cultural-olympiad-artists

To which i feel compelled to reply:

If Emma Rice can’t understand why people see any link between the arts and sport, it seems obvious to me that a) she has never played or competed in any sport, and b) that her engagement in her own art is clearly lacking the excitement she could feel each night her actors step on stage and perform in front of hundreds of people.

It is especially sad not to be able to see the similarities between sport and theatre; not to be able to see that the excitement of one can be found in the other; the drama, the passion, the event unfolding in front of an audience cheering and spurring you along. It is no coincidence that the word play applies so naturally to both disciplines.

Art, like sport is the response to a human impulse to pursue perfection, beauty and truth, and to constantly challenge oneself. Theatre is the art of the present moment, a space, an arena for the body to be physically engaged in performance.

Ms Rice’s view of sport being based on the notion of ‘body beautiful, body perfect’ is belittling if not offensive to sportspeople. One can only assume she is thinking of the protein-pumped ‘body-building’ culture, although – last time I checked – this was not even a sport. To think that a real sportsman trains 10 hours a day, 6 days a week, endures unimaginable pains and strains to body and soul, all for vanity, shows a complete lack of respect. If theatre actors had even a fraction of the physical discipline and training of a sportsperson, then theatre would feel much more alive, visceral, engaging and it might even begin to attract more than just your usual middle class audience.

Moreover, if Ms Rice’s work is based so profoundly on the ‘poetry of failure’, then it can only benefit by her watching Federer loose to Nadal, for example, at Wimbledon, last year. To understand sport as a series of victories is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of sport. A perfect score doesn’t exist; records are, after all, there to be broken. Sportspeople should be held up as role-models not because they win, but because they fail; and then (to quote Beckett) they try again, only to fail better.

I am the co-director of a theatre company currently in the midst of developing a play with sport as its central theme (being developed in fact, at the same theatre Rice’s company are being hosted from next month) and have found it a rich and stimulating theme, full of challenges and promise for the actor.

The Cultural Olympiad at this present moment, may appear poor in substance, but if it can incite artists to learn something from sport, to be inspired and enriched by the Olympic values, the challenges, the physical discipline, the immediacy of the action, the stories, the victories, and the failures, then it may not be a lost cause after all.

6.0 to the Fringe

2009-03-20T15:52:00.001-07:00

We're delighted to be able to confirm that 6.0: How Heap and Pebble Took on the World and Won will be going to the Edinburgh Fringe, we've got a great slot at the Pleasance King Dome. A venue of this size is a real step up for us and is a great challenge. We'll publish the exact details here soon but it looks like we'll be performing around about 7pm. Have a peek at the space here:

Scratch Performance

2009-03-20T15:48:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who came last week to see us at the BAC.

It was fascinating to perform the show in front of an audience and we certainly learnt a lot. We were really encouraged by the response to the show - I think there's definitely something really interesting there and we're on the way to teasing it out.

Over the next few months, as we try to complete the show, we want to tighten up the transition between comedy and poignancy and really nail down the context.

2009-02-02T15:52:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we performed extracts from our new work in progress 6.0 : How Heap and Pebble Took on the World and Won. We would like to thank the BAC for inviting us to work there for the three weeks leading up to their open weekend. It was a very productive period and we achieved a great deal. The space in particular was very special. We worked intensely on the choreography and the movement. Thanks for everyone who came to see it and for the interesting feedback you gave. We'll be back in March so watch this space !

We have a title...

2009-01-16T02:33:00.000-08:00

6.0

THE DAY HEAP AND PEBBLE TOOK ON THE WORLD AND WON

First day at the BAC

2009-01-12T12:01:00.000-08:00

We started our work on Ice Skates at the BAC today.

We are working in two rooms, the Members' Bar and an adjoining room which are turning into an office so we can write stuff down and have cups of tea and do proper business.

Today was the first day of getting back into a show that we started starting three months ago and are now starting starting for real, having had the time in between to get really excited and stew over ideas.

If you want to come and see how the play is progressing, please come and see us on the open weekend (30th, 31st January), where we will be doing something. Though what that something is we don't know yet.

moving on...

2008-12-08T02:44:00.000-08:00

Last night was the final night of our run at the Camden People's Theatre. We would like to thank everyone who came, and even more those who told people about it afterwards. We sold way beyond our expectations, which has encouraged us to try and tour the play around the UK and beyond...! Dancing Brick is returning in the new year with a new show Ice Skates (working title) which she will be developing at the Battersea Arts Centre in January as part of the New Year, New Spaces festival. She hopes to see you all there.

Sold out

2008-12-05T03:23:00.001-08:00

Just a warning to say that the first three nights of 21:13 hve all sold out, without any tickets left to buy on the door, so if you are still thinking of coming, try to book ahead.

21:13 at CPT

2008-12-05T03:19:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone who's already come to see 21:13 this week. We've been really enjoying performing the show again, having tried to rework bits of it, and tighten up the ending. We've been rehearsing over the last two weeks with Tamsin Clarke giving us the external eye and we think we've definitely got somewhere. Even if it's not 100% successful, we feel that we're at least trying to push the chaos, the haphazard style that was there in the original run to a more climactic conclusion.

At the November Fletton Shuffle...

2008-11-25T07:49:00.000-08:00

Little Bulb Theatre performed their latest piece, Help; Sasha Milavic Davies and Lucy Railton played and moved 2 pieces to cello, by Matt Shlomowitz; Luke and Nadia were The Behemoth; Remote Control got badly Burnt; Aitherios ran their Rat Race; Tiani Ghosh and Raph Shirley performed Stockbroker; Wig Industry went Back to Old Kent Road, and Theo Bard sang.

Dancing Brick would like to thank all the artist who participated. She hopes to give you more Fletton Shuffles, more opportunities to show-off your latest work, and be inspired to do more. The first shuffle at the Museum in Docklands was a lovely evening of entertainment which perhaps started too late and ended too soon. But there will be more, so watch this space!

Thursday 'Late' at the Museum in Docklands

2008-10-16T03:32:00.000-07:00

Dancing Brick are curating the first of our Fletton Shuffles, an evening of haphazard gatherings of sketchy theatre, theatrical sketches, music and comedy. The Fletton Shuffles will provide a platform for young theatre makers to try out new work in front of an informed, informal audience.

Each night will be loosely themed around something that's interesting us at that moment and seeing as how the first is at the Museum in Docklands, in the heart of the city, we're putting on work that deals with commerce, crashes and the city. It's on the 6th November from 6-9pm at the Museum in Docklands, part of the Museum of London, right by Canary Wharf DLR.

Blurb:

Dancing Brick and her Friends present an evening of theatrical upstarts crunching the problems of the city in the jaws of the Docklands. Enjoy some sketchy theatre, some theatrical sketches, some music and some comedy from the best of London’s new theatre makers.

21:13 in London

2008-10-08T09:34:00.001-07:00

Good news for those of you who missed 21:13 in Edinburgh (or for those who saw 21:13 in Edinburgh but want even more): we will be performing the show for six nights in London, from 2nd - 7th December at the Camden People's Theatre. We'll put up more details soon. We're really looking forward to performing it again and hope that lots of you can make it down.

Website

2008-10-05T11:36:00.000-07:00

Our website is now up and running. The design is temporary until the proper site is finalised but all the information about the company, our shows and what we're working on is up there. We will be updating the website regularly leaving the blog free for comments, notes and thoughts on what we've been up to. Have a look:

www.dancingbrick.net

Last Night's Scratch

2008-09-26T05:01:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who came yesterday and especially for any feedback given. It was really interesting to perform some ideas at such an early stage of development. If you do have any other thoughts on last night's Scratch please do email us or message the blog, we'd love to hear them.

We now plan to develop the piece further around the central ideas we tried out last night:

The idea is an image: two people in ice skates trying to perform a graceful number in a space but failing on account of the skates. Eventually we realise that, in fact, they are failing not because they are wearing skates but because the room has no ice. We like the ridiculousness of this image and the pathos that might come afterwards. We are interested by the immediacy of the performers’ need for ice and the inability of the room, the theatre, they are in to provide it at that moment. How can the ‘show go on’ and what might this say about the environment on a bigger scale and of people’s ability to adapt, to create, to continue?

We are interested in the double act – in sport, in performance, in life – and the dynamics of dependency inherent in them. A figure skater depends on their partner and both depend wholly on their environment. The image of the skaters without ice inspires themes of loss, of endings (global warming, melting ice), of grace and beauty, of enormous spaces and of triumph in the face of adversity.

We feel that theatre, as an art form of the immediate, is an ideal forum for debate about environmental change and are interested by the three-pronged approach our central moment inspires:

Nostalgia and the past: Ice dancing, the music, Torvill and Dean and the 80s, the kitch-ness, the changing of the sport over the years, reflection, the interviews and analysis of the past performances.

The Present moment: The struggle the skaters have to perform for the audience they have now, in the room they are in now, in the environmental circumstances they find themselves in now.

The future and how to adapt: How do the skaters cope? Do they cope?

Freshly Scratched at BAC

2008-09-07T07:15:00.001-07:00

Dancing Brick’s newest show will be ‘Scratched’ at the BAC on the 25th September. It will be a ten-minute try out of the initial ideas we have for the show. At the moment those ideas amount to an image: two figure skaters in a room without ice.

http://www.bac.org.uk/whatson.php?view=current

Workshop

2008-09-07T07:13:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who came to our workshops at C Venues. For those that didn’t we gave two (due to popular demand an extra one was added) workshops entitled ‘Meaning from Movement’ which explored the themes in 21:13. The workshop highlights the partitions of the body and how the actor can use the isolation of these partitions as a starting point for developing characters and stories. We have since been asked by a number of Universities to come and run workshops.

If you’d like more information about the workshops or would like to inquire about the kinds of workshops Dancing Brick runs please write to thomaseccleshare@gmail.com

A taster of the workshop is here:

Some sketchy highlights of the last night

2008-09-07T07:10:00.000-07:00

Here is an edit of some moments from the last night of the Edinburgh run. If you would like to get hold of a DVD of the full play (it runs just short of an hour) please email thomaseccleshare@gmail.com. The full edit was filmed halfway through the run on two cameras and is of higher quality than these homemade highlights.

End of Edinburgh and the future of 21:13

2008-09-07T07:04:00.000-07:00

The Fringe has been a really positive experience for Dancing Brick this year. What Edinburgh gives, which is invaluable, is a space to perform and a huge public (when they can buy tickets) who are there to see shows. Of course it can be hard to get any of this public in but that is true anywhere not just Edinburgh and we have felt that it has given us a good opportunity this year to bring up a show which, still unfinished in many ways, has found an audience and been given a chance to be seen by people who can help it continue. Valentina and I now plan to go back to the rehearsal room to rework parts of the show in anticipation of performing it again in the future; we have been offered a place at next years Arena festival in Germany and have been in contact with a number of theatres in Italy about the possibility of a tour there. We are also hoping to arrange a London run in the near future.

Total Theatre Award

2008-09-07T07:03:00.000-07:00

We have been nominated for a Total Theatre Award. Only about 15 shows from the whole of the fringe have been nominated and we are obviously delighted to have made it onto the list. To be recognised by Total Theatre Magazine seems to us a real achievement as it has been judged by people with a great deal of experience actually in the industry, moreover for 21:13, which has been pretty hastily put together and is still very much a work in progress, to get nominated is a real compliment. We have been nominated in the ‘Graduate Company’ category.

Reviews etc.

2008-09-07T07:00:00.000-07:00

The reviews of the show have been really positive, both from the press

http://ed.thestage.co.uk/reviews/297

http://www.broadwaybaby.com/edinburgh/fringe/reviews/10

http://www.fringereview.co.uk/fringeReview.php?showName=21:13

and more importantly individuals who have come and spoken to us afterwards. Both Valentina and I have been really touched by the personal responses people have had about the show. In fact, this is the first year I’ve ever enjoyed flyering on the Mile because of the amount of people who have come up and spoken to me about the show.

Up at the Fringe

2008-09-07T06:27:00.000-07:00

We have now started at the Edinburgh Fringe and the audiences have already started to build. There’s no doubt that the major reason for this is word of mouth running through C Venues and we’d like to thank all the hard working volunteers at C who are supporting the show. Some pictures of the show are viewable at

http://picasaweb.google.com/Quixoticfruit/2113?authkey=7qUj4WjL2PA&pli=1&gsessionid=AOty7U_P2-15o9c1L9reoQ

And below:

Thanks

2008-09-07T06:18:00.000-07:00

Dancing Brick would like to thank all the people who worked so hard on 21:13. Most importantly, Jane Gauntlett, Andrew Sommerville, Chloe Courtney and Natalie Jones.

The Sound and Soundtrack

2008-09-07T06:12:00.000-07:00

We knew from an early stage that we wanted sound to play a really important part in the show, not just as a filler between scenes but to take on a space of its own and to really give the audience a taste of how richly diverse the sound of different languages can be. For the initial material we recorded our friends at school, and compiled a library of languages including Spanish, French, Persian, Ivrit, Portuguese, German, Finnish, Mandarin and Russian. Our composer, Ross Blake used these recordings (and many more of his own) to concoct the different sounds we used in the show itself. Ross created the soundtrack completely from samples of the human voice, the idea being that everything heard in the show was, in some form, a human attempt at communication.

If you liked the soundtrack and want to know more about Ross’ work visit
http://www.myspace.com/buttonhead
or email him directly at polojunky2000@gmail.com

Rehearsals for 21:13

2008-09-07T06:10:00.000-07:00

After the end of term in Paris Valentina and I threw ourselves into rehearsals for 21:13 almost without a pause. Because we had been thinking about the subject for such a long time and knew that we had our first performance in little over a month we made quick progress, writing and rehearsing the whole show in about four weeks. We started with images, both ones that we imagined and ones we found; in magazines, museums, on the street. It was from these images that we started to construct the feel of the play and from there we improvised ways of transposing the images onto the stage. At no point did either of us say ‘here we need a mask piece’ or ‘here we need something with geste’ but we found that each idea quite quickly proposed a style of transposition. We didn’t have a director or an ‘exterior eye’ on 21:13 but found that we could tell quite quickly (and usually agreed) on what was working, or could work, and what wasn’t. Importantly, both of us trusted the other with ideas and images, and had confidence that, with time, all of the separate components would come together to make something richer precisely because we didn’t always stop to think about how, for instance, swimming linked to two mobiles moving in space.

Animation Trailer for C Venues Press Launch

2008-05-24T10:57:00.000-07:00

21:13 production photos

2008-04-20T09:59:00.000-07:00

21:13 rehearsal video

2008-04-20T09:35:00.000-07:00

Here is some footage of an early 21:13 rehearsal. The ideas in this film are preliminary attempts at finding physical transpositions of the struggle we have to connect with others when we don't share the same language.

The beginning of 21:13

2008-04-20T09:10:00.000-07:00

Valentina Ceschi and Thomas Eccleshare, the co-writers and performers of 21:13 are Italian and English, living in Paris, and have spent the last two years at the Jacques Lecoq school, training with people from France, Spain, Japan, Finland and Taiwan (to name just a few). Bubbling in this cauldron of internationality was the question that forms the basis of 21:13:

How do you communicate without a common language?

The writing of the show itself is ultimately an exploration into ways of answering this question. Experimenting with mime, gesture, music, masks, gobbledygook, dance, puppetry and languages from Norwegian to Japanese, 21:13 in its final form will be a distillation of a sea of research into how people communicate with one another.

/

Valentina Ceschi e Thomas Eccleshare, attori e autori di 21:13 sono rispettivamente di nazionalità Italiana e Inglese. Vivono a Parigi e hanno appena finito i due anni di studio alla scuola Internazionale di Teatro Jacques Lecoq. Lavorando con artisti provenienti da paesi diversi come Francia, Spagna, Portogallo, Israele, Giappone, Finlandia, Norvegia, Taiwan (per nominarne alcuni), l'impegno per farsi capire non parlando la stessa lingua è per gli studenti della scuola, una sfida quotidiana.
Da quest' esperienza unica risulta il lavoro che Valentina e Thomas hanno intrapreso scrivendo insieme lo spettacolo 21:13, chiedendosi appunto: “come fai a comunicare se non parli la stessa lingua?”

Il risultato e’ un'esplorazione dei vari modi di rispondere a questa domanda.

Sperimentando con il mimo, la gestualità, il linguaggio dei segni, le marionette, oggetti, parole in lingue diverse (dal Norvegese al Giapponese!), e trasposizioni nello spazio, 21:13 condensa in attimi concreti, il mare immenso e complesso della comunicazione umana.

La Commedia Dell’Arte e Dario Fo

2008-04-19T12:06:00.000-07:00

Lezioni di sesso… 
In un caffe’ cittadino, Meredith e Mme Spencer, sono due signore di una certa classe, tutte e due pazzamente innamorate del giovane e ingenuo cameriere Bernard. Cosa non farebbero per la sua attenzione ?

Queste due signore 'Pantalone' si confrontano in una cruenta battaglia per l’oggetto della loro ossessione sessuale; un tiro alla fune che finisce per spogliarle dei loro beni e della loro dignità.

"Ladies" è un corto sketch con maschere (fabbricate dagli attori stessi) che mette i personaggi - tratti direttamente dalla Commedia dell’Arte, in posizioni ridicole, comiche, oscene. Spinti dalle passioni umane, i personaggi si ritrovano vittime di tic violenti, lazzi, e scurrilità. 
Questo piccolo spettacolo di maschere tratta i temi di possessione, amore e sesso, e si lega dunque con facilità al discorso sul sesso di Franca Rame e Dario Fo, "Un peu de Sexe? Merci, juste pour vous etre agreable", recitato da Félicie Fabre sotto la regia di Luciano Travaglino, al piccolo e adorabile Théâtre de la Girandole.

"Un peu de sexe..." è una tenera e divertente conferenza sull’amore che sembra quasi perdonare le due strampalate signore assetate di sesso, quali Meredith e Madame Spencer, rendendo loro l’umanità e la simpatia che meritano tutti i personaggi della Commedie Humaine.

L’espace tragique et Francis Bacon

2008-04-19T12:00:00.000-07:00

En travaillant sur les chœurs tragiques en deuxième année, je me souviens du travail, sur la peinture, effectué l’an précédent. Ce travail apprivoisait déjà notre sensibilité au drame des couleurs, des tensions dans l’espace; l’effet dramatique de la ligne, du point, de la surface. Mon group en particulier se concentrait sur l’œuvre de Francis Bacon, et sans tout à fait s’en apercevoir, nous habitions déjà un espace tragique. Souvent dans sa peinture, Bacon nous présente des paysages intérieurs, des espaces clos, pour la plupart démarqués par des chapiteaux sinistres, ou par des hauts murs aux couleurs foncées, angoissants. Jamais équilibrés, ces espaces nous déstabilisent encore plus que les personnages déformes qui les habitent, et au fur et à mesure, ce déséquilibre, comme sur le plateau, nous pousse à la folie du cri vertical, tendu, tragique, tel le cri baconien.

Les Jeudis

2008-04-12T04:37:00.000-07:00

In February 2008, we performed as part of the Pompidou Centre's 'Les Jeudis', in the Musee D'Art Moderne. The idea behind the project was to try to take something from the works, be it the colours, the dynamic, the themes, the space, and transpose them into a short passage of movement. We then performed them in the rooms of the museum, in front of the works themselves.

The first is 'Punctuation', based on the works of Christian Boltanksi. It is concerned with memory, loss and the effort to pin down a 'true' self.

The second is a rehearsal of our work 'Court Metrage', based on 60s French Pop-Art. The room is filled with images of espionage, bright colours and grand attitudes, all of which we took as inspiration.

The LEM

2008-04-12T04:31:00.000-07:00

Here is a sample of some experiments we did while working on the LEM end of term show. This is Valentina Ceschi a Santa Croce and Thomas Eccleshare with a work-in-progress of Trimalchio, a character from Petron's Satiricon. The idea was to reflect the character's pride and vanity by reacting lines in space, as well as a touch of the 'personage' with the mask-like structures.

Since Brick Walls

2008-04-12T04:12:00.000-07:00

Since 'Brick Walls' Dan Mansell and Thomas Eccleshare, the original Dancing Brick team, have been split by the channel, so work on a follow up has had to wait. Thomas has been training at L'École Internationale De Théatre Jacques Lecoq and Dan has been studying and performing in London.

Brick Walls Highlights

2008-04-12T03:56:00.000-07:00

Brick Walls was met with a fantastic reception at the Fringe and by the end had turned a significant profit - a testament to the quality and hard work of all the Brick Walls team, Thomas Eccleshare, Dan Mansell and Tom Powell.

Brick Walls Reviews

2008-04-12T03:48:00.000-07:00

At the Edinburgh Fringe 2006, 'Brick Walls' was met with unanimously fantastic reviews. Here are some selections:

Scotsman (Zoe Green) **** 'Pick of the Week'
Although this is the first show they've written and performed together, Dan Mansell and Thomas Eccleshare could be destined to become one of those legendary comic duos. Mansell and Eccleshare have faces designed for comedy: a flicker of Eccleshare's eyebrow and the audience is reduced to helpless laughter. A mixture of artful dialogue, impeccable choreography and exquisite comic timing make it a pleasure to spend an hour with these guys. The script is a thing of beauty, vacillating between fantastical dream images and surreal, Pinteresque dialogue...The silences are as powerful and eloquent as the dialogue - full of movement, mime and clowning. So impeccable is their choreography that they can do joint routines with buckets over their heads. For two actors who haven't been to drama school (yet), the show is incredibly professional. Tom and Dan have only just graduated from Cambridge: let's hope they forget the milk round and collaborate with each other instead.

Broadwaybaby.com (Pete Shaw) ****
Mansell and Eccleshare together give a perfectly synchronised performance, flowing between powerful drama and physical theatre with the fluidity of mercury...With clever writing and strong performances, this makes for a definitive Fringe show.

Writers Guild (Eiriona Jackson)
The exchanges between the characters are witty, carefully constructed and illuminate the writers’ ability to demark differences in character with enough subtlety to avoid presenting them as polarised archetypes...This piece is engaging, well structured and displays signs of genuine originality.

Edinburgh Evening News (Simon Neville)
Slightly bizarre, and the acting was fantastic and I left feeling content.

ThreeWeeks ****
Possibly one of the most wonderful descents into madness in a confined space ever.

Compelling bouts of silence and slapstick paranoia lead the two into their own stories, and before long the tiny space is jam packed with fictitious characters. Beautifully inspiring the audience’s imagination, the duo’s madness escalates until their delusions become as real to the watchers as they are to the trapped comrades. Both clever and engrossing, it makes incarceration look like a whole world of fun.

The Stage
Funny and poignant.

Festival Radio ****
Innovative and imaginative.

Brick Walls Trailers

2008-04-12T03:44:00.000-07:00

In 2006, Dancing Brick took our first show, 'Brick Walls' up to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Before the Fringe started we began our publicity campaign by putting teaser trailers and a full trailer on Myspace and Youtube. By the time we arrived in Edinburgh, there was already talk about the show on the Edfringe website.

Teaser:

Full Trailer:

Introduction

2008-04-08T02:45:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Dancing Brick blog. Check here for news of shows, rehearsals and videos from your old chum, the Dancing Brick.