20th February 10
Nice bit of news this month, I will be directing five plays for Words Words Words at the Traverse Theatre on Monday 1st March.
For more information about Words Words Words, please visit the Traverse Theatre
8th February 10
It's not official yet, but it looks like I will be leaving Lung Ha's Theatre Company this summer to pursue my own creative interests. I've already been with LHTC for over two years and its time to move on. I'm currently trying to organise some freelance work, in directing, performing and education. It's already proved to be a good decision.
19th January 10
This March I will be taking part in the New Moves Winter School with Live Artist Ron Athey. This is possible thanks to the support of the Scottish Arts Council.
I'm a little bit apprehensive about it and it's only January, but still really looking forward to focusing on performance work again and of course working with Ron Athey! If your not sure who Ron Athey is, then have a look at this - click here
9th December 09
Currently keeping my head down and working with Lung Ha's, we have started development on the co-production with Grid Iron so lots of exciting times ahead. On the freelance side of things, Saturday 12th is my last Saturday with North Edinburgh Arts. The past 12 weeks culminates in a small performance by the kids on the theme of FEAST; including strange platters, a song about cooking, a machine that makes stories and lots of artwork. Other than that, I am mostly wrapping up Christmas presents.
Over and out.
12th October 09 - Response
I've had a good few days off from working with Lung Ha's following our production Dangerously, Yours... I realised recently how emotionally involved with this group of people I have become and how utterly in awe I am at what we can all achieve together. I was really frustrated by the press' response to the show and disappointed in the negative attitudes towards inclusive / disabled theatre that still exist. It may not be overtly expressed but its apparent in people's unwillingness to engage with this kind of work and their inability to talk about it in an objective and free way. After working with Lung Ha's for nearly two years you forget that you are working with a marginalised group of individuals and begin to understand what it is to be truely human and respond to people in an honest and uncoloured way. Dangerously, Yours... was undoubtedly a joyous theatrical experience, and truely married the performers abilities and wants with the artistic content. I just hope that with future productions, people can see past the inclusive / disablity label and acknowledge our status as a professional theatre company.
14th September 09
My goodness, my nephew is one year old which means its been a year since Little Vikings are Never Lost had its premier at Arches Live! in 2008. This year, rather than being in it, I have a few friends doing some good work, firstly Xana Maclean's Cable featuring my buddy Katy Wilson, and also Hitch by Kieran Hurley, really loved his installation at the Arches earlier this year.
My own creative work has currently come to a grinding halt. Lung Ha's Theatre Company have a show starting next week at the Queen's Hall and so that's using all my energy. I love them but my goodness you can become emotionally involved with that lot. - www.lunghas.co.uk
However, I have started a new contract with North Edinburgh Arts, running workshops for P1 - P7. Really excited about our theme for this term, FEAST! So hopefully we will have good attendances from the kids, they were awesome on Saturday.
Still sad, that creatively I have nothing to contribute apart form being a creative administrator for Lung Ha's, better than nothing.
18th August 09
Just a quick update, it's all a bit manic with the Fringe this month and I'm currently directing some Forum Presentations with Lung Ha's this week at the Thistle Foundation. I've been able to see lots of shows already, really enjoyed seeing Hugh Hughes at the Pleasance and have spent a lot of time at Dancebase, there's a really great atmosphere in Edinburgh at the moment despite the rain. I've already spotted Mark Thomas a few times in the Traverse Bar and a BBC Childrens magician off the telly, very exciting. Moving flat at the end of month as well, so its all go, no time for my own work I'm seeing enough of other people's work to make up for it.
6th June 09
Hmm, just watching some live streaming of Antony Gormely's Plinth, a lady is dancing to some repetitive Spanish sounding music. She keeps lifting her skirt like a salsa dancer and revealing her petticoat, she also still has her bag over her shoulder... doesn't she have anyone with her to hold it for her. She has just requested slower music from the band because she's exhausted...well if you insist on dancing on the plinth for an hour, your bound to be, most professional dance shows only last half and hour. The band have responded with a slow waltzy number, that wouldn't be out of a place in a hotel lobby.
The internet is amazing, I was just talking to people on twitter about the plinth and we are all watching and commenting on the live stream. The dancing lady has run out of water, but she carries on regardless.
If i was on the plinth i would.... try and finish knitting my scarf or perhaps write the declaration of human rights all over my body or dress up as a captain and plan a take over of London adhering to the declaration of human rights whilst wearing my scarf.
21st May 09
I have finally completed all the responses to the Philly correspondence project and am rather pleased with the results. I've managed to send some strange things to USA declared as gifts, very odd gifts. Hopefully they have all been received safely and not destroyed at customs. See below for some of my favourites. So what am I up to now? Well I was part of a Scratch night in April, which was a challenge, we agreed not to take that piece of work any further which I think was the right thing to do. At the moment I'm focussing more on my own practice and creating opportunities in future especially in Edinburgh.
Last week I went to a really great event at Analogue Bookshop, Edinburgh, 7vwwvw were improvising live to a series of projected images produced by Artist Matt Pattinson called Remnants of Joona. There was a real cohesion between the images, narrative and the synth sounds of 7vwwvw. If it is ever to happen again, which is it should, I recommend you are there. Have a look at some of the images HERE
4th April 09
Whoops it's been a while, currently have a couple of projects on the go, the newest of which is exploring the idea of correspondence. Director Rachel Moffat and I are currently working together across the Atlantic to send each other stimulus and other such fodder. I received an amazing package this morning from a group of artists in Philly that Rachel has been working with. Lots interesting forms of correspondence for me to respond to, better get started. Thank you guys!
8th December 08
Hello, just checking in to let you know that I am currently preparing for the National Review of Live Art where Little Vikings has been programmed. All the festival details are online at www.newmoves.co.uk xx
20th November 08
For the past few weeks a group of us have been busy in the Arches exploring different ways of playing and finding out when it's ok to be a little bit ridiculous. The work in progress showing is running for three nights over this weekend, see the Arches website for more details...
PLaY Part Four: A Time and A Place
Part of a series of performances created by Jamie Fletcher and Dick Bonham, Play Part 4 is about when and where we're allowed to let ourselves be a little bit ridiculous.
Devised and Directed by Dick Bonham and Jamie Fletcher
Devised and Performed by Helen Cuinn, Kieran Hurley, Julia Taudevin and Jenna Watt
The Arches, Glasgow,
Friday 21st November, 7.30pm
Saturday 22nd November, 7.30pm
Sunday 23rd November, 7.30pm
£6 / £4
7th August 08 - Development
This is my 7th day in development for Little Vikings Are Never Lost. I've been hiding in the basement of the Arches trying to piece together and drag out all the ideas that have been swimming around in my head for the past couple of years. Commuting to Glasgow has been a bit of a nightmare and absolutely knackering but its worth it. Last week I worked with my designer and sound designer which has been a welcomed relief from my isolation. I'm really excited about the music and sound of the piece, its turned into a really organic process, marrying text and sound. As some may know I am not a fan of using text but its actually been very important in terms of developing the scenes. Who'd have thought it. I am really enjoying writing each scene and translating what I visualise into stage directions. The most frustrating thing is accepting that not every scene is ready to write itself yet and I have to wait for those to reveal themselves to me. The other big issue that I've been dealing with is learning not to compromise and remember what it is that gets me excited about the whole piece. Advise can spring up from the most surprising of places. As well as all this, I'm still with Lung Ha's Theatre Company, who have been so supportive of me and havent grumbled once about me running away to Glasgow to make my own show, thanks guys. Also the festival is upon us and Im looking forward to viewing it all as an audience member rather than tearing all your tickets at the Traverse. Lets hope everyone can bear to face another show at the end of it all.
Jenna Watt, Bench
9 February 2008
Sometimes it happens at NRLA. You're shuttling from one performance to another, diving in and out of queues, not having time to eat and being caught up in the madness. Then you stumble across something perfect, something just for you and just at the right moment. For me, Elevator Artist Jenna Watt's Bench was just such a work.
Bench is a quiet, simple, low-fi live installation in which Jenna sits on a wooden bench on the upper floor of Tramway waiting, taking time out from the NRLA crowds and queues, enjoying an in-between moment and taking the occasional polaroid to record relatively nothing for the purpose of posterity. Jenna doesn't take many polaroids- mostly she sits, wonders around to chat with her friends or goes off to the toilet- but when she does take a shot she writes on it then hangs it on a string stretching across the bench area. Photographic highlights of Bench include a shot of the bench itself, one of the adjacent Tramway staircase, a picture of a family friend who came to visit the installation and a partial pic of Jenna's legs and feet. The writing on the polaroid of the bench says 'You don't have to queue for this one!'. 'I'm not going to take my clothes off' reads another. And on the far side of the string I pick up a sparse looking installation shot of Bench that says 'Eventually, you get into a state where you appreciate the crap you talk'. Quite.
The meagre installation, the humble photographic subjects and throwaway polaroid form, not to mention the artist's flippant approach to her own art, all combine to choreograph the specific in-between moment or deliberate non-event that is Bench. The tender, self-reflexive and deprecating statements the work displays about itself make me smile and I chat to Jenna a bit about the installation then carry on looking. Two minutes later Jenna takes a polaroid shot of the wall next to the Tramway upper floor toilets and writes on it 'And I'm wondering why you're even up here- it just confirms to me that you're a dickhead' .
This comment completes my perfect moment with Bench. Jenna is right to question my festival fervour, my motives in coming up here specifically to seek out a woman quietly trying to remain undetermined and waste time in the name of live art. In coming here to witness I have transformed Bench into something entirely more definite and spectacular than the productive in-between Jenna is trying to articulate and in the process I have been called a dickhead. It serves me right. It's a long time since anyone called me a dickhead so directly - and no-one ever did it in a piece of live art - because of this I smile all the more. Such an antagonistic response to audience is a beautiful and all too rare thing in live art.
The carefully constructed low profile of Bench, with its bold questioning of its audience and acute sense of self awareness, represents a brave move for a young artist caught in the headlights of NRLA. Bench is also one of the only live works this year that has responded overtly to the specificity of its NRLA context in form, content and concept; Bench is a deliberately in-between work by a not-quite-yet-arrived Elevator artist, it acts as NRLA programme down-time or filler to Kris Verdonck's Duet and it is installed in an architectural space specifically designed for lingering or waiting. Bench was a much needed antidote to other more sincere and overtly staged live works at NRLA and the scripted 'looking away' Jenna achieved in the work perfectly harnessed the notion of waiting, killing time or purposeful lingering to which audiences and artists at NRLA are so accustomed. Jenna says she is at her most productive in these in-between moments, and I believe her.
Written by Rachel Lois Clapham, Co-Director of Open Dialogues
20/01/08
Happy New Year! Better late than never.
And what a Happy New Year it is.
The Scottish Arts Council will be supporting Little Vikings Are Never Lost at the Arches Live Festival, September 08. I would like to thank the SAC and the Arches for their support so far and I'm looking forward to working on this project with them.
I will be performing my live installation,Bench, at next years National Review of Live Art. The installation will be taking place on the 9th February 08 between 3pm and 7pm at the Tramway, Glasgow.
newmoves.co.uk
30/10/07
I am delighted to announce that I am working as administrator for Lung Ha's Theatre Company. I look forward to working with the company and its members - Lung Ha's
28/10/07
I'm hoping to announce some news in the next few weeks, so keep stopping by, join my mailing list if you want spam free updates direct to your inbox.
Arches Scratch Night
I will be performing a 10 minute preview of my latest work in development Little Vikings Are Never Lost at the the Arches' Scratch night this month. Not only are you given the chance to see some exciting new work by a range of different artists but you can also give them feedback after the previews. Brilliant.
The Arches
Scratch Night
Tuesday 25th September 07
7.30pm