Sunday 30 September 2012

Inspire 52 - Week 39. Memoires of Sedimenta Pebble in The Land of Lower Gardinia

This week has been full of exciting things again, development of a new production, work on a new commission, performance in Bournemouth Arts Festival with The Girls and Wulf Theatre - and facilitating a drawing workshop for The Big Draw today.

Sedimenta Pebble in The Land of Lower Gardinia

Sunday 23 September 2012

Inspire 52 - Week 38. Man in a chair

This week, as things have been getting into a new pattern for autumn and I have been finding myself working more from home and less out and about on location, I have been spending more time at the kitchen sink. Since moving into this new place a couple of months ago, I have noticed a man who sits in the garden against the back wall of his kitchen on a solitary chair. Sometimes he smokes, sometimes he just stares into space. He inspired me this week to write a poem about him.

Man in a Chair
By Hazel Evans

There's a man sitting in a chair
Face in his hands
Wondering how he got there.
What of all his plans
That have left his soul so bare?
How does this man
Have such an empty glare?

There's a man sitting all alone
Out in the rain
At the back door of his home
With a heavy hearted pain
Empty tears silence his last moan,
Facing himself again
Lost, broken, sodden to the bone.

Admittedly, it's not the cheeriest of poems, I have however had a very cheerful week myself so no direct relation to what I'm doing, but indeed a moment of inspiration.

I'm looking forward to getting back on top of my Inspire 52 project and creating some new work and going and continuing the path until the end!

See you next week

H

Sunday 16 September 2012

Inspire 52 - Week 37. Cutting It All Up And Down

And so the summer is coming to an end... what a ride - seriously!

As the autumn begins to show it's face and very gratefully indeed I welcome it in with our 'Indian Summer' it also marks a time for change. Two things I have done recently spell this out to me and they have both involved cutting things up, not to disolve them completely, but to make them into something different, like a metamorphosis to take us to the next stage of life.
  1. The cutting up the Explosive Illustration collaboration with Hayley Potter.
  2. The cutting down of The Paper Forest.
These two events co-incided with each other and indeed began to trace a new pathway forward for each body of work. I won't go into the deatils of wheat the plans are, as with every art project they need to be kept top secret for a while, however, here is a photo documentation of what happened... there are more pictures to come but we will be releasing a full documentation at a later date, this includes a full documentation of the collaboration with Hayley Potter and the making of the book we will are creating together. Click on images to enlarge

1. Cutting up
 

Inking it up
 

 
 

 Planning the disection
 
 
 
The 3m x 4m illustration has now been cut into 52 individual A3 pictures that will form the next stage of the collaboration ... I'm very excitied about the next bit ... to be revealed at a later date. It's been really great working with Hayley this year. As we were cutting up we were talikng about what we have gained from each other in this collaboration, it has been a very insightful and growing experience.

2. Cutting Down


Cutting my way through the Paper Forest ... having lived with it for 2 months in my exhibition, it was now time to cut it down. But in honour of the art work and everything it has bought me as a new installation, story, song and journey of discovery, I had to do it correctly. I began cutting each piece of paper with my big shear like scizzors, cutting my way though the 'thin tall trees speaking tales in time'. I kept the words, poems and comments that the public had contributed and began carving a new path through the forest.


Wonder away, wonder away,
As the trees lead the way
 


Shadows emerged smiling bright

 
The act of cutting through the forest felt quite overwhelming yet exciting at the same time, it was releasing hidden spaces and creating new places - something new was happening and emerging.
 
 
It felt like I was performing inside a piece of poetry.
 

Illuminating shapes and scribing sounds
Murmuring roots from the undergrounds


 
 
The Paper Forest spoke softly to me
And asked me to write my story
 





Conclusion
Cutting up and down the art has been a learning experience, a journey of freedom, an expression letting go and finding new paths forward. 
 
 
 To see the Paper Forest installation in it's original form click here
 

Beautiful edited pictures by Danika Westwood
(Plus some snapshots from my phone)



Sunday 9 September 2012

Inspire 52 - Week 36. Harmonic Fields Inside Out

I have had the most amazing time this week - I have been performing as Aeolian in Harmonic Fields in Portland Dorset.

Following a residency weekend exploring outdoor performance in June with Jany Jeremie, the show choreographer, I was employed as a performing artist for Harmonic Fields as part of Inside Out Festival and London 2012 Cultural Olympiad.

Harmonic Fields is an ensemble of 500 instruments, played by the wind. Harnessing this natural energy, life is breathed into the orchestra, creating a symphonic soundscape, unique to each visitor.
Pierre Sauvageot, creator of Harmonic Fields explains. “We’re constantly bombarded with new noises, which amplify, until we no longer listen. Sounds from Harmonic Fields are quiet and come at their own pace, like waves on the seashore. It is music in its simplest, most primal form.”

Harmonic Fields is part of the London 2012 Festival, the spectacular 12-week nationwide celebration running from 21 June until 9 September bringing together leading artists from across the world with the very best from the UK.
The London 2012 Festival celebrates the huge range, quality and accessibility of the UK's world-class culture including dance, music, theatre, the visual arts, fashion, film, comedy and digital innovation, giving the opportunity for people across the UK to celebrate the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Inside Out Festival website

We were very lucky to have amazing weather all week, and even one of the windiest locations on Dorset, we had some times when there was just no wind to play the instruments. It was great to meet and work with Pierre Sauvageot and Jany Jeremie, and work with the rest of the Aeolian team (including fellow Valise Noire partner Michele O'Brien), we had such a laugh all week.

A really special time

 
Click on image to enlarge

 
 
A beautiful and inspiring show
 
Out on site I even managed to write a poem, rather than describing what it was or what I did I think this captures the experience best. The rhyming scheme is a bit all over the place - I've only just noticed that when typing it up! But it reads okay ... I guess it is a real reflection of the feel of the experience ... I was 'in the now'.
 
The Aeolian Path
by Hazel Evans
 
Of the Earth and seas
And a glimpse of the breeze
The Orchestra plays it's turn.
One stepping foot on the path of a book
And the notes float away no concern.
Dancing the slalom of twinkled chimes
The band marches a fine line
Between where the sky ends and the sea begins
And the memories we leave behind.
The path leads the score
Through an invisible door
And into a valley so deep,
Whispered silent voices singing the choices
Give us new memories to keep.
There is no beginning, there is no end,
Just somewhere in between,
As the wind pipes the cellos
the drums sound their bellows,
Once gone and we're never seen.
Released in the air, the winds gather the notes,
Over cliffs the Orchestra flies.
Setting afloat, no need for a boat,
The music is released to the skies.
 

This is a piece of free writing I did whist an Aeolian. I am aiming on doing more free writing, it's interesting to see where the mind and pen take you.

Free writing on Harmonic Fields - unedited - By Hazel Evans

And so they spoke to us, the Aeolian winds flew over seas on the back of a gull, flighting, gliding up against the rock of the cliff. Skipping on the flickers of water rising off the rippling tide, wide, astride they travelled far on the water's story. A path of darkness, black and blue, a path I though I'd taken before, it was one I thought I knew. The ocean opened and the seas unfolded, and inside, the stories were all rolled up, in a cavern locked tight with only one key, that was lost for a lifetime, it was there but no-one could see. They stepped on down the seabed floor and walked all the way until they reached a frozen door. The ice built a lock in the waters cold, the stories were behind it frozen untold. For year on year they wondered who could tell of the spell and how to break it and where was the wishing well. In the depths of the blue, the silent life froze, gliding in time, laid stillness in the mill-ness the pond arose. The churning and turning awoke from below, as the earth shuddered and opened a crevice to show what had always been there but always not seen left up to us to reveal the screen.

 

Rehearsing the moves and costume on site!


This is a film posted on You Tube by a member of the audience ... I think there were almost 15,000 visitors in 10 days! - That's me dancing at the end!!