faster than sound
Dazz performs emergency surgery on our stuttering FancyCam, between rehearsal and show at Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh, 17th Nov 2012. Brian and the Modified Toy Orchestra were performing a selection of pieces under the title of GAME, including new compositions scored in collaboration with composer Richard Baker. GAME was the culmination of a week’s residency at Snape for the ‘Faster Than Sound’ /AldeburghMusic programme. For Jana Chiellino’s photographic record of the final day, click on her atherton-chiellino Flickr site
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piloted
Do I envy those jacks, that nimble leap
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand
Whilst my poor lips which would thy harvest reap
At the wood’s boldness by thee blushing stand
A bliss in proof and proved a very woe
Before a joy proposed behind a dream
All this the world well knows yet none knows well
To shun the Heav’n that leads men to this Hell
Some documentation from ‘A Dark Lady’ – piloted at The Courtyard, RSC, Stratford-upon-Avon on 12th July ’12 (Photos by Stewart Hemley).
A RSC / Pilotnight collaboration, presented as part of the World Shakespeare Festival 2012. ‘A Dark Lady’ is a music-theatre duet for voice and bassoon, and a setting of Sonnets 128/129. Devised and performed by Graeme Rose and Gretha Tuls, with musical consultation from Luke-Matthew Iveson.
Pilot will celebrate its 10th birthday next week with an evening of performance extracts at Warwick Arts Centre. (see LINK…) The programme includes presentations of new works from local favourites Kindle Theatre, Chris Dugrenier and Untied Artists.
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Tags: Bassoon, duet, RSC, Shakespeare, sonnets
mto@supersonic’12
photo by abrinsky (via Flickr)
Friday’s performance at Supersonic introduced the band’s new singstress, Barbie Island Princess, seen above on the right side of Brian’s table. She is, by my own admission, exciting and scary and her startling presence at the gig left some of the audience open-mouthed. One punter was reported saying she would leave him with nightmares, and he wasn’t the only one affected. The feathers of band-diva Hula Barbie have been well-and-truly ruffled by the arrival of this new girl on the block. Hula Barbie wasn’t entirely compliant at the beginning of the Supersonic set and neither was my trusty FancyCam, which spat and wheezed its unpredictable, stoccato refrain in Black Star. Such is the susceptibility of the Toys to atmospheric changes that it’s rare for a performance to take place without one or more of the instruments behaving against expectation. But then it is a series of beautiful accidents which are at the root of the MTO concept; in which latent musicality is channelled and liberated through a process of circuit bending and the subsequent organisation of sounds. To be a player is to marshall the Toys through their symphonic paces, whilst being all-the-while prepared for the unexpected.
Here is a short extract of Freeno & Olaf, recorded by MrNoImSpartacus at Supersonic
There are two further MTO appearances in the diary before Christmas;
Saturday 17th November 2012 – FASTER THAN SOUND: GAME Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh, Suffolk
Modified Toy Orchestra appear on a programme that includes GAME, a new-commissioned collaboration between composer Richard Baker and Brian Duffy.
Friday 21st December, Peek & Poke Museum, Rijeka, Croatia
The MTO have been invited to perform at this Museum dedicated to the history of computing and IT technology.
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in the midlands today
http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01ndbjk/
clip starts at approx 18:00
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supersonic
A few hours ago, Austrian daredevil-skydiver Felix Baumgartner broke the speed of sound and in the process broke a 50 year-old altitude record by freefalling 24 miles from a stratospheric balloon high above Roswell, New Mexico. Next Friday I’ll attempt my own slip across a sound barrier by flitting direct from a performance of EAT! at The Roundhouse (off Broad St.) across town to the Custard Factory for the opening of Supersonic Festival (this year celebrating a decade of promoting Adventurous music in the City) – all without the aid of oxygen or protective suit.
The Modified Toy Orchestra return to Supersonic with a set that will include fan favourites alongside some newly-worked material. Efficionados of the Toys also note that the latest kid on the block will be revealed on the night. It will be special (MTO details).
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the war caravan
The magnificently decorated ‘War Caravan’, my temporary home for the duration of EAT!, this month’s site-specific theatre collaboration between Black Country Touring and the Birmingham Rep. Here is a link to designer Purvin, talking about his involvement with the project. Photo by John James.
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in repertoire
I’m in the Production wing of Birmingham Rep’s temporary HQ in the Jewellery Qtr., waiting for a wardrobe fitting session, when I notice an old poster on the wall. Actually it comes as no surprise to me, because I’ve been willing this thing to appear – so determined was I to find some evidence of it.
Though no year is mentioned on it I know it to be either ’71 or ’72. Head of Costume Sue confirms it as the latter, as Ronnie Barker was performing the Christmas show for the new building’s opening season in 1971. For me it’s relevant because the Christmas show of this particular season, Treasure Island, was my first recalled visit to a theatre performance. Such was the occasion that I vividly remember us finding our seats and the curtains opening, I remember the sensation of holding the interval ice cream tub and I remember the strangeness of the fake parrot. I was taken that day by my grandad, Bill Gordon, and (somewhere or other) I still possess the Young Rep member card that I acquired on that day.
Interesting to note that 40 years ago local-boy David Edgar was on the Studio Theatre billing, presenting (the never published) Death Story – a Romeo & Juliet transplanted to a sectarian society – resonant with the contemporaneous ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland, perhaps.
Ticket prices that year ranged from 40 new pence to a hefty £1.20 for the best seats.
With himself a long-line of family connections to The Rep, David Edgar is helping to front a current archiving project, REP100 which celebrates a century of theatre-making at The Birmingham’s Repertory Theatre. You can visit the dedicated website at www.rep100.org
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Tags: 1972, Birmingham Rep, David Edgar, Rep100
food for thought
EAT!
Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Black Country Touring in association with Foursight Theatre
18th – 27th October 2012
Rep@The Roundhouse, Sheepcote St., Birmingham
FEASTING, FASTING, FAMINE and FOOD FOR THOUGHT
We take food for granted; we diet, overindulge, grab it on the go, but rarely do we delve into its stories. From famine to hunger strike, persecution to celebration, anorexia to obesity, food and eating has an important place in historical events, the present news and our own emotional memories.
This year a team of researchers, writers, actors and designers, The REP, and Black Country Touring will cook up a new piece of drama based on personal accounts of what, when and how we eat and why it matters. We don’t know where the stories will take us, but if you sawBehna or The Cornershop you’ll know to expect a unique, intimate and tasty theatre experience.
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EAT! some
EAT! is a show developed from dozens of interviews with residents of Birmingham and the Black Country. The task of the interviews was to collect a body of material that reveals something of the myriad significance of food in our culture. From its fundamental capacity to sustain us, to examples of the weird and wonderful ways that food charts our lives and enriches the everyday: From its symbolic function in ritual or celebration to our need to control its command of our lives: From the devastating effects of food deprivation to the temptations and indulgencies of excessive times.
EAT! is a collaboration between Black Country Touring and Birmingham Rep. Following the interview/research period at the start of this year, a fortnight’s development in July resulted in a draft script from the edited materials. In the interim weeks, script editor Rochi worked with BCT directors Steve and Frances to refine and shape a rehearsal script, which is now finding its feet in advance of the show’s premiere on the 18th October.
After months of imagining, we arrived on site yesterday at The Roundhouse – formerly the Fiddle & Bone pub, on Sheepcote St., Birmingham. The show takes place in and around four caravans – each tailored to the specific stories retold by the inhabitants. Thus the ‘War Caravan’ becomes my home for the coming month;
The Roundhouse is a magnificent location. The building itself is a former stables and yard for canal ponies but for many years The Fiddle & Bone (so called because it was owned and run by a violinist/trombonist duo from the CBSO) was a magic oasis of independent culture in a deprived and derelict corner of post-industrial Brum. The F&B hosted quality live music every night of the week and was part responsible, I believe, for attracting regeneration to the canalside around the Icknield loop. But no sooner had glitzy new canalside apartments been built and occupied but some residents started complaining about the noise from the pub. The City Council capitulated – revoked the F&B’s performing licence following a Noise Abatement Order and the place therefore lost its raison d’etre. Sadly this ‘goose and golden egg’ story is not unfamiliar in these parts, as the exceptional Spotted Dog in Digbeth can also testify. I think it also speaks volumes of the voraciousness of the Sheepcote St. residents that within a couple of hours of us arriving on site with the caravans, we were visited upon by the West Mids Constabulary. There had been complaints, apparently, from the neighbours. It appeared that Travellers had arrived to pollute their canal-side views.
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Tags: EAT! Fiddle&Bone Roundhouse
#3weekwindow
Via the Make Shift project, theatre companies Tin Box and Little Earthquake (with thanks to Point Blank) have taken charge of the prime-site empty shop at no.99 New Street, Birmingham, filling it with a dizzying programme of eye-catching, day-long performances/installations/artworks over the course of the last three weeks.
Later today is the turn of Kindle Theatre and myself. The Furies will use the shopfront as the location for the attempted filming of a pop video for the band’s dystopian anthem, “Are You Angry Yet?”. It looks like it will get messy, however. We’re under strict instructions to protect the street innocents against unnecessary exposure to flesh, but deviant Fury Bobbi-Rage sees nought but Red when a rule-book is brandished. She refuses to stay in her cage. With her unsettling brand of anarcho-feminism she makes provokation by requesting public consultation on her sous-dressage. [link to images]
Dave the Roadie thinks it might be a cheap stunt. He’s been there and done some, yes, but he didn’t endure years of ideological reconstruction in the late 80’s in order to rubberstamp mere flauntage. We’re not filming “Wet T-shirt nite” here; the soundtrack is “Are You Angry Yet?”. It’s asking questions/ pushing the awkward buttons. Girl Power has skewed the feminist landscape and now contemporary poster girls are highly sexualised in appearance. Is this supposed to empower them? Meanwhile PussyRiot are in jail for creating an articulate resistance to what they see as an unjust and corrupt regime of governance. And Femen continue to rattle the Ukrainian authorities with topless protests which court the world’s social media, highlight anti-corruption women’s rights issues in their home country.
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