a smith - blog

where I am

Where I am

Been back for a week or so now but still good to post about and reflect on a tour to the UK with a week of performances in and around BAC for the young people of Wandsworth of "hvor er du?", or "where are you?" as it became in English. The classes and responses to the work were great, and it was great to be on a very different territory with the show and see it play out in pretty much the same way for 9, 10 and 11 year olds as it does for kids of those ages in Norway and in Russia. The main difference, as Amund pointed out, was that he was the person from another country in the mix there, whereas it's usually me.

We did our "all ages" performance of the show at BAC on Tuesday the 9th to a great response. Thanks to everyone who was there. A nice mention and reflection on some of the work from Chris Goode on his blog here. Thanks for that, Chris.

On the Thursday we played a faith school. The head teacher had looked at the script and asked us to amend a bit of it as there is a section in the performance that thinks about creationism, and he wanted us to acknowledge and mention what the muslim faith believes. Rather than be difficult or refuse to compromise our artistic integrity we entered into a dialogue with him about how we could do this which resulted in an addition to the script which felt big but when we actually got to the classroom and made the performance didn't seem to impact on it too much at all. I am so glad that we did it. Performing the work in that school, as well as all the others, was a really good experience and I'd much rather we did do it than we didn't. The dialogue around our origins is something that the head teacher of the school freely admitted that he had to teach as a publicly funded school, and it was a lesson in understanding difference and the sort of experience of working with people that the project looks to and that you wish for. So thanks to him and all of the teachers and pupils and members of staff at BAC for a great week.

I returned to Oslo via Cumbria and my parents, took a couple of days to recover and then got back to work. Lots to do and prepare for. A new show to be thinking about writing for the start of 2011, more "hvor er du?" here in Norway coming up this spring and summer, and a host of other life and art stuff to consider and organise. The treat of the week was a trip to see the rather wonderful Nature Theater of Oklahoma present their work Romeo and Juliet at Black Box Teater. All these different ways to spell theatre...

Two or so years ago we went to see Nature Theater... do their show No Dice at Black Box. An epic of a performance that I still say and believe is one of the best 4 or so hours that I think I have ever spent in a theatre. It made me laugh, gasp, smile, grimace, and many other things, and somewhere near the end of the work made me cry and cry. Romeo and Juliet was a bit shorter but had pretty much the same effect. Why is this? There is simplicity and complexity in their work. There is the acknowledgment of us, here, together, in this room. There is fallibility and there is vulnerability and there is need and there is love. There is drama that doesn't feel external at all to me but drama that I, that I think we, can all relate to, that lies within us, even. And all of these things seem to blend and clash with them and us and me. Thank you Nature Theater! You did it again. And you leave me with things to consider and aspire to in my own work and life. Inspirational.

So as I sit here and finish this post, chiefly as a way of avoiding some more of the mundanities of the artists office life that I need to get done today, I'll take their work and the thoughts and laughs and dare I even say it, strength it gives me. Onward!

back to school

back to school

At the moment I'm going back to school. It's much more fun than I remember it...

I spent last week in the Sør-Trøndelag region touring schools with my show innnvander, a performance that tells stories about what happened to me when I moved to Norway. It was a great week. Thanks everyone in Sør-Trondelag who helped make it happen.

6 schools. 14 performances. About 990 kids. These spaces.

And this week I've been getting ready for a trip to London to perform where are you? for the young people of Wandsworth.

Back to school.

on form(s)

on form(s)

For the last couple of days there's been some welcome sun over Oslo. It makes the snow sparkle, and walking in its light it seems to blow away the darkness and greyness of previous days. It's still bloody cold here mind. I even got an email from a Norwegian colleague today saying how bored they were of winter.

After the initial rush of New Year, I've been quiet here over the last couple of weeks. I've been busy. Apart from what is the continual process of adjusting to life with a new life, what I seem to have mostly been doing in the first part of this year is filling in forms. I've still got a couple more to do in fact, each of these (in Norwegian) skjema (which must relate to schemes) containing a potential idea or proposal for the future. So I've been scheming. Getting on with my schemes.

A quick look at wikipedia reveals that as well as being the "father of the computer", it was Charles Babbage who is also believed to be the originator of the form. So thanks to him it's been long days in front of this screen trying to knock these application and proposal forms into shape. Sometimes it has felt like the words on the screen have not been mine or related to me at all, sometimes I feel like like they are the essence of what I might be up to. The activity of typing, chopping, pasting, editing, moving and shaping words, reminding me of a section of a poem from Peter Jaeger, who taught me at Dartington, which goes:

"...'I do not know / which nail to bang', they say 'I / do not know how hard. But still I bang away / at nails and bend them / into shapes unskilled / And bang them so they're banged'"

The one act of making I have been involved with in January is a nice story. Out of the blue I got an email from someone who used to work at BAC, and who saw me try an idea out at a scratch night there 5 years ago. In this short performance I proposed that I would make a work in a number of different locations, and afterwards she suggested that I make something for her mum to put in her living room. I thought this was a great idea but (very unlike me) I never got around to doing it.

The idea that I was proposing that night back in 2004 only informed where I went after that. It never actually became a fully formed piece, so it was a pleasure and surprise to get this email out of the blue reminding me that I had still not made good on my promise. Anyway, thanks to it (and the patience of her mum) I was finally able to rectify it, and the small silver frames that you see in this photo are the result. Thank you to you both.

The rest of the time its just been forward planning. Even though I'm here in Oslo, Karl is in London and Tim is in LA we've managed to sort out a new (and very exciting) addition to The Author team in advance of its re-rehearsal for Edinburgh in the summer. More about that here soon. I've also been involved in the organisation of a few schools tours coming up (the first next week in Trondheim). Though I'm not relishing the idea of being away from my new-baked family for the first time, I'm looking forward to performing. It's the first time that I've done any since October.

So here we go. Out of January. On form.

repetition, repetition, repetition...

I really enjoyed this interview with Brian Eno in The Observer over the weekend. There were plenty of gems in it, but what made me smile the most was when he talked about how he found it both disappointing and reasurring that, on hearing some tapes of himself talking 35 years ago, he thought that he was pretty much talking about the same things today.

When working and thinking about something new, as I am trying to do at the moment, I can sometimes feel something similar to this arise in me. There is always something the same at it's core, and if you're not feeling positive it can be depressing to think that you're just repeating yourself. On the good days, though, it's all about deepening and strengthening something. Continuing your enquiry. I think it was Robert Wilson who said that "it was all one work."

Some hours after reading the interview, I wrote this down, which I think might be said to be a good summation of the form of anything I have made or tried to make since about 2001:

Here. There. Now.

You. Me. Us.

Thinking. Being. Together.

on knowledge

it's good to know

Been thinking a bit about sprituality, fate and destiny, that kind of thing. Complex and unclear thoughts. Just like what I posted here a couple of days ago about expertise (I think they are probably linked).

I met someone in the street yesterday and had a conversation and in the course of the conversation she said: "how great it is that we don't really know anything". I responded that I thought do know some things really, and how I thought that was a good thing.

And then later as I was walking home I thought more, and thought about how "not knowing" can sometimes seem to fulfil a spiritual and practical need. Create a solace and security in a world that can sometimes seem to overpower and overwhelm us. It made me think about another phrase that sometimes bothers me, which is "live for the moment".

It's difficult isn't it? I'm all for presentness, and I think I understand how "living for the moment" can be a good thing. I understand also how this, along with "not knowing" can comfort and console, and I think if we do that too much, if we are not robust, then we might not see beyond where we currently are. We need to keep moving forward, don't we?

thoughts on the expert

An expert in not being an expert

In the last couple of days I've been thinking a lot about notions of what it might be to be an expert. Most obviously this comes from some reading I've been doing around the work of Rimini Protokoll in preparation for a workshop that I'm participating in at the end of the week with Daniel Wetzel from the company. Though I have shared a couple of festival programmes with their shows, due to performances on different days (or in one instance, having to do a get in, which in my world doesn't amount to much), I've never been able to see what they actually do, just heard good things about it.

So after being invited to this workshop I'm excited about attending. Being in it rather than running it, meeting some other practitioners, looking at and participating in some other techniques and thinking about and around some of the question marks that they present. Whatever language you use to try to describe what they do will I think be met by some interesting philosophical question marks. Rimini Protokoll don't use trained actors in their performances (there's one), instead they take people from real life (there's another) and construct the work from the experiences of these experts, which is the term they use for their performers.

Reading about the work of others always allows you to locate yourself and think about your own practice in relation to them. It's made me think about notions of expertise in the work of a smith. I was reminded that some time ago I would often say that my aim was not to be an expert of anything (due to the response of anger or bafflement that it would sometimes get I haven't done it for a while). I would say that I just wanted stand onstage and just be someone in relation to something: someone thinking about something that might be bigger or far away from me but certainly had something to do with me. That concerned me. And hopefully through the performance and my being there thinking about it the audience would have a chance to think about it too, and think about what their relation to whatever that thing was, so: Ibsen in The Ibsen Hut, immigration in innvandrer, oil and the environment in the next two days of everything.

This thought came from a desire to be in a position that didn't want to appear an authority or someone attempting authority, or at least be a person that was questioning something, including the stage as a place of authority. I don't want the stage to be a place where the true and final facts of that matter eminate out into the audience and attempt to educate them through telling, or be dazzled by something that appears impossible, but a place where the audience can see and hear and feel and think along with those that are on the stage and perhaps be invited or allowed to locate themselves in relation to the ideas and questions coming from it too.

Anyway take a look at Rimini Protokoll. Their work, or at least the writing around it, seems to (amongst other things) dealing with some good and chunky notions of professionalism and perfectionism in the theatre and in life. And as well as trying to refine my thoughts on this I'll try and report more from the workshop at the end of the week.

the great return

back to school

Today is what Evan Davies referred to on the Today programme this morning as "the great return". Though many (including Evan) have been working their way through the festive season to (amongst other things) keep everyone fed and watered, entertained, in presents, and be able to drive on roads mostly free from snow, there is a feeling in the air today that a lot more people are returning to their posts, and that everything is getting back to something we might call normal.

Though I know there are some who don't, I absolutely love the feeling it gives. I've had a great festive season, but the sound of kids at the school at the back of our flat is back and I'm happy about it. I've sent and received some work emails. I've spent a couple of hours looking over notes and thoughts for a new piece of work, and as a result had a fantastically inspiring conversation with Maja.

I've had a good day and I hope you have too. Here's to 2010 really beginning.

thinking big

thinking big
Been thinking a lot about Tim, who is currently in Los Angeles where he's about to do a run of An Oak Tree. You can find the website for the run here, where there's also a blog so we can follow how it's all going.
I have very fond memories of making An Oak Tree. This was the first time we worked together, and we spent our days in the upstairs room of The White Hart pub in Barnes. I always think that our work together has a big effect on the stuff I do solo, and I think of those days as being particularly instrumental in shaping where I am now.
Back then, a huge part of the working model we set or stumbled upon was to seemingly ask each other questions of everything. In some sense we have followed this model ever since, re-addressing, re-interrogating, and re-shaping it to suit each new play that Tim has come up with. They are gentle questions, fun questions, and sometimes pretty hard questions. It's from those questions we discuss, and if we end up thinking that we don't need something in the play then we take it away. Reduce, reduce, reduce was the mantra we developed, like some bad TV chef talking about how to get the most flavour out of your sauce.
Things I remember that never made it: a strip of wallpaper as a set. Markers on the wall to tell the performer where to look (the show has a new performer every night who has neither seen or read the script). All sorts of "taking care" of the performer that we eventually realised was unnecessary because, we realised, they were more than capable of taking care of themselves.
I'm sure there were many others. But often - and this has become more clear to me the more we have worked together - whatever they were, somewhere in there was probably something important.
Thinking about it, I think it's sometimes good to just say something, even when at the moment it's leaving your mouth you're thinking its ridiculous. Because we know that somewhere in it there might be something really exciting to think about. Plus you're amongst friends. Who want to ask questions, examine that thought, and sometimes through that amazing things get found. Things that would have never appeared had you or someone else not said it.
This may be obvious to some, but its something like this that I find myself having to remind myself all the time.
It's because of this that I think that An Oak Tree has what exactly we wanted in it. Much more space is there for the performer and the audience because of what is not there. What we took away or suggested, what we left a trace of, even if it was just a thought, perhaps remains somewhere in it. It was around then that we first talked about the idea of a theatre that we said was de-materialised. Inspired by a book on conceptual art by Lucy Lippard. It's a phrase that I still use a lot.
***
Here, one of the most often heard quotes from Ibsen is this (its in translation of course):
"I want to awaken the people of Norway and encourage them to think big"
These days it seems all too easy for a theatre maker to take this and make something massive or technologically impressive. For me, more and more it becomes the thinking part of that sentence that seems to be the most important. I'm interested in being with an audience in a theatre or just a room, thinking together about things big or small.
This week I'm getting round to looking through some notes that I've been making sporadically over last half year that will hopefully become something new. It's too early to say anything at length about it here yet (I don't know a lot myself), but in light of the above more than ever I find myself wanting to try and reduce even further the "beautifully spare" (says Tim) solo pieces that I have worked to make in the last few years.
I want to try and do what I spent a lot of last year encouraging other performers to do, and just want to walk onto a stage or perhaps any space that we can say is that of the performance and for an hour or so just talk and be there with who is there to watch and listen. In my last two shows I've had the technological business of an iPod and speakers (innvandrer) and glockenspiel (the next two days of everything) to deal with, but my starting point for whatever this new thing is just me and the audience. Thinking together.
I'm hoping that might be enough.

start somewhere

Why Now?

It feels about 3 years later than everyone else but I've decided to start a blog. I'm not usually one for resolutions round this time of year but hey, new decade, new family, new blog.

So here it is. And what is its intention? Well I suppose that remains to be seen exactly. I want to write a bit about some thoughts on theatre and performance, on my work, and so a little about life. Don't think, though, I'm going to be telling you about what's happening round my flat or in my local co-op unless I feel its relevant. Though actually, typing that, I think that those that know me know that sometimes it's exactly these things that for me become relevant. So maybe a little about my flat and the co-op.

Anyway, some context. The end of the last year, in fact the whole of last year, was a big one for me. In work and in life. I managed to make another solo piece (the next two days of everything) which I am very proud of and that some of you might get a chance to see in 2010. I continued my collaboration with Tim Crouch and Karl James with The Author at The Royal Court and it was an amazing time. And as well as all that I became a father. I am a father. Blimey. How fantastic.

In the cloud of parenthood and the everything has slowed down and we are reflecting, waiting zone of the festive season many thoughts and conversations have occurred. One of the biggest things that occurred to me is that here in Oslo, Norway, one thing that I feel I don't have that often is a forum in which to express ideas with others, perhaps share them (though I love living here). What I miss is perhaps a chance to have some conversation around them. Conversations that I have with some, that love to think about and would love to have more, conversations about theatre and performance and about life and thinking and ideas in general. So I am going to attempt to have some of them here. If only with myself. At least then I could say that I have put them somewhere and that would have been a start.

In this large of land but small of population country, there's a theatre scene, yes, and I am grateful and it is great to be part of it. There's some great work that gets produced and seen here (both homegrown and shipped in). But like I say I do sometimes feel - and this is in part, though not all to do with my language skills - that there isn't much of a forum in which to discuss what's happening. Talk about it. Not critique it necessarily but to do some critical thinking around it. Just to think together. The Norwegian reserve! So I suppose what this blog might be (amongst other things) is in some way an attempt to do something about it myself rather than complain. I also want to add that if there is anyone out there who wants to get in touch, correct me and tell me where I might find some of what I am missing her i Norge then you are welcome to. Who knows. You may be right around the corner. That would be great.

Thanks to the internet, various newspapers, dedicated theatre websites and other blogs in my life I feel I can and do follow what is happening much further away, and I'm thankful for it. It plugs me in, and I suppose I wanted to try and contribute to that and join in with it in some small way. And I figured that one way to do that would be to start a blog. So here it is.

Though I'm sure my own posts will be nothing like them I have been particularly inspired by one or two others, mainly the blog which my good friend and colleague Karl James began last year (and I think if he has time to blog, then surely I do too), and one of my absolute favourite sites in the world, the blog of Chris Goode, who it was a pleasure to regain some contact with at the end of 2009 and have the honour to appear in conversation on said site with Chris and Tim Crouch at the end of the run of The Author. It was a treat. Thanks, Chris.

So that's the very vague intention. That's the resolution. I don't know how regularly I'll post but I'll make a promise to you and myself right now that I will post. And I hope some of you might occasionally drop by, leave a message or just read and have a think together with me. We'll see how it goes.

Happy New Year.