Before I begin writing this I already am not 100% sure that
I know what I am writing. I am actually hoping that writing this blog will help
me decide upon a few things about performance that I have been thinking about.
I am a Leeds based artist. I keep being told to think more
regionally, which I should, I also keep being told to think more nationally,
which of course I should but when it comes right down to it I am a Leeds based
artists. I live here. I work here (day job). I study here. I am an associate
artist at Stage @ Leeds. Most of my work has been made in Leeds and almost all
the support I get is from the venues, programmers, spaces and people who live
in Leeds. But I’m still not completely happy with what’s available in Leeds.
(Maybe I never will be.)
Leeds is an amazing place for creative to work in. There are two supportive
Universities, various networks and resources and overall it is a city bursting
with creative energy. Every August around 75 thousand music fans descend onto
the city for a huge festival which follows a music fringe festival running
across the city. In November twelve venues will host the 26th Leeds
International Film Festival which runs for eighteen days alongside an eight day
comic book festival. Leeds has dozens of performance venues including massive
venues such Leeds Town Hall’s Victorian Hall which is a hireable 1200 seat
venue and great venues as small as Melbourne Street Studios. This is not a
welcome to Leeds guide. This is a reminder of the city we are working in,
studying in and performing in or living in. This is a taste of a very small
fraction of the stuff that I usually forget is happening in the city I live in.
Leeds is a city full of performance venues, with numerous
performance festivals and a range of great events making up a diverse and interesting
cultural program of work. I am interested in the connectivity of the
performance landscape of Leeds.
There’s this thing we run called NEWK. It’s a showcase for new and
unfinished performances. It’s pretty great (I think) it connects artists with
emerging artists and connects them all to an audience on a regular basis. I
hope it’s a place where people can go and see what type of work is being made
in the city. We also have programmed at a few artist led venues and hosted a
few events in empty spaces. When I started NEWK it was because there wasn’t a
regular scratch night in Leeds for people to test work and I thought if I want
that then other people probably want that too. They did. It runs three to four
times a year now. There is now however more opportunities to get work out in
the city. I couldn’t be happier about this. It means that I can either run NEWK
alongside these events, working with others to provide more or I can stop
running NEWK and decide what else I think is missing and do that for a bit.
I don’t know which of those two things I am going to do yet.
The type of work I am interested in currently interested in
is devised performances, with a text narrative, that is autobiographical to a
certain degree and is hopefully funny, thought-provoking and / or moving.
Hopefully, at times, all three of those things. This is the work I am making,
or at least, this is what I aim to make whenever I sit and type script or
devise work in a studio. This isn’t to say this is the only type of work I am
interested in watching. Far from it. This is also not the only type of work I’m
interested in programming.
There’s is currently much talk about an artist led space in
Leeds and the lack of a studio space in Leeds. I am not sure if these two
things should be the same thing. There are few spaces in Leeds that are 50-100
seats but as far as I am aware there are none that are dedicated to programming
just in a studio theatre. I’d really like that to change. It has been suggested
to me that I do this and frankly thinking of the space as an extension of NEWK
(bit of a leap from a scratch night but go with me on this for at least a
paragraph) I’d like a place to see new performance, to connects audiences with
emerging talent and for a place for a new generation of theatre and performance
makers to be inspired and to learn from the established performance makers
working in the city or wanting to bring exciting work to this city. In a nut
shell that is what I’d like to make and it has the same ethos as NEWK.
I feel like I almost got to the point of what I wanted to
say with this blog, an announcement of intent almost and to say I am going to
run a studio theatre, however I have a screaming voice in the back of my head
saying,
“DON’T DO IT!”
I’m sure I’m not the only person in the region to have put on a night or put a huge amount of time and effort into curating an event or running an evening of theatre only to have 5 to 10 people come who come out of a sense of duty because they are at the same (or a bit further) career stage as you. The audience for new performance work in Leeds cannot be the people who are making it – not alone anyway.
So I start to think of the alternatives to doing what I want
to do while trying to completely change how people engage with it. I’ve thought
about it, and talked about it and been asked about it and been told what I
should think about it and essentially it goes back to what I said in the third
paragraph.
“Leeds has dozens of performance venues.”
This is not all theatres. These are mainly bars, cafes,
cinemas, gallery’s, streets and yes of course theatres. All places that are
programming some kind of performance, not necessarily theatre.
So my real point I guess is just to tell you where I’m up
to. I’m almost at a decision on what I want one of the major projects of the
next few years to be.
I would love Leeds to have a new studio theatre and I would
love to have at least some involvement in running that and getting shows put on
in that space.
I would also love to see more people engaging in
contemporary performance, live art, new writing and emerging talent and
programming work across a range of spaces, using the city and all its spaces as
a venue without the overall commitment to one venue and trying to make that
venue sustainable and without being limited to just what one space has to offer
and while doing this signposting to the work that is happening inside theatres.
I probably need a few days weeks to think about this
more and maybe make some decisions next time before I start typing.
But in that time I would like people’s thoughts and feelings on this whole subject.
That’s about where I’m up to. Thank you for ignoring my many
spelling and grammatical errors.
Thoughts?
Matt Allen
PS: The next NEWK is tomorrow (Thursday 11th of
October) at 6pm at Stage @ Leeds) Tickets are £2 to see four new or unfinished
performances. Supported by The National Lottery through Arts Council England.
