Space for performance.

 

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 26^th 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.  

Get in contact via @skeletonp or at info@skeletonproject.co.uk

 

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 11^th 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.