If so, come to Pilot. We’re going to be there trying out two small elements of Treasured on some of the audience there. As ever we won’t be using the stage, but a small dressing room round the back of it. Also we won’t be using the jewellery (which will be wierd after 3 weeks of getting so used to it) as we don’t want to spoil your enjoyment of the final pieces. You might see the shadow of one of them though – as a teaser…

Here is the info:

PILOT
The Theatre @ The Custard Factory
Digbeth, Birmingham
Doors open 7pm
Tickets: £4/£3

more details: www.b-theatre.co.uk

However, my brain is obviously more overloaded than I realise. Last night I woke up standing on my bed in the pitch black, desperately trying to put the piece of head jewellery onto Katherine (who wasn’t there). In my sleep as I began to stand on the surface I remember thinking ‘this is a really unstable surface to do the dressing from’, and then ‘its really ridiculous to do this in the dark – I can’t see where her head is’. Upon exclaiming outloud ‘We need more light in here. This isn’t going to work’. I opened the curtain that hangs alongside my bed and woke up.

It strikes me that this has an interesting resonance with the pieces we’re making, and how you move from being outside a dream/fantasy world into being central to it yourself.

Shame my sleepwalks are never really useful in shedding light on the performance itself.

In the afternoon we found time to feedback about each piece as it stood on Friday, and nab Joel for a cup of tea and chat about the performance. Some interesting stuff came up, particularly about the head piece which is proving difficult. It is such a powerful piece in itself that we seem to have been sucked into making a ritual out of it which offers more signifigance or power than we can actually deliver. It can only ever be disapointing following the current build up – having worn it you won’t rule a country or possess superhuman powers or win in a battle. We may have found a solution in focusing the experience more heavily around what happens when the piece is on the head. Perhaps moving away from loaded images of annointing, or cleansing and looking towards a narrative again.

I will think on!

I hadn’t been able to sleep much on Thursday night – falling asleep late and waking up at 6.30 too alert. Coming into the Foyle Gallery I was on an excited evening pace rather then morning speed, and buzzing with things to try out. Fortunately Katherine and Sam responded well, and didn’t send me to the mad house.

The result was a huge amount of headway on the arms, which had suffered from lack of attention/understanding. The piece of jewellery is really loaded, with a dark beauty that has begun to come through in shadowy images and song. The jewellery also suggests the power of nature and the inevitablitiy of life and death – a huge concept to try and distill into 5 minutes, but a good challenge! When Joel watched them in the afternoon this was his favourite, I guess it probably has the most complete shape now, and is therefore the most tranformative experience.

As we worked through the morning we found elements that worked, others that don’t and I can’t always find the way through. It’s funny, there is no panic, I know we’ll find them soon and it would be wrong if they appreared instantly. This part of the process is a gradual shaping and enhancing of all the best bits from the last 2 weeks. Along the way we’ll discover new moments too, whose presence will influence everything that’s already there. Its where you begin to realise just how much material you’ve generated.We are working with bright sounds and a narrow, long performance space to create a greater feeling of height and distance for this one.

In the afternoon Katie came in and saw the head piece and the neck piece from yesterday. She made notes and fed back to us. She commented that now she is further removed from the process she gets more nervous taking part in the performance – a bit more like a real audience member. This is extremely helpful as she helped to spot when things were confusing or too unsettling.

Mostly in the rehearsal room I am taking the role of audience member, swapping occasionally with the girls so they can experience the effect. Being so involved continuously in such a multi-sensory world I find I gradually begin to lose my sharpness and judgement. Today it was great to have Katie confirm lines of thought i’d also been going down myself as well as helping re-focus my mind by asking questions and making suggestions.

I’m looking forward to working a bit more on the head and arms tomorrow.

As directors we’re trying a new thing, attempting to play to our individual strengths, with Katie leading the first part (generating material) and me the second part (editing and fine-tuning). During this week we are transitioning into me leading rehearsals – freeing Katie to talk to our designers and think about the broader picture.

Today was my first day. We looked at the arm piece in the morning and the neck piece in the afternoon using some of our key moments list as a guide.

The morning was hard work partly because I had left the ‘set’ up from the previous days impro, which although very helpful yesterday was quite contraining today. In the afternoon I totally cleared the space, so we could look at our use of space with fresh eyes. We enjoyed ourselves, found some interesting things and I felt quite emotional after taking part in the dressing.

Poor Katie ended up doing boring financial stuff to keep the company running. Hopefully tomorrow she’ll get to communicate with Rania, Alexandra and Ben.

Now my head is buzzing with images and words and shapes and possibilities. I’m going to do a bit more work in preparation for tomorrow and then watch and engrossing film. I find it really exciting when it gets to this stage in the process, my head seems to kick in again, like it does in the very early conceptual stages, or the first week in devising. The only problem is stopping it when you need to get some rest!

Lou Platt (who we’ve worked with most recently on I Am Waiting) came along on Friday to help us out. She did two days devising on Treasured in May, but being a drama therapist ment she could only give us a few days at this stage. It was so good to have her expertise on ritual (used in drama therapy) as well as her fresh eye on the material and enthusiasm.

Particularly enjoyed by Lou, and the rest of us, was the poetical brilliance of Katherine Maxwell-Cook, who wrote a delicious poem for the neck piece – looks like this one’s here to stay.

Potentially this is an interesting way of drawing a person in and out of the action. So sometimes you are a charcter in the film, sometimes you are seeing the action as though watching the film. Don’t know whether it will make it to Treasured, but an interesting notion.

On Thursday Katie and Katherine did one around the theme of an ‘old house’. The seats were covered in dust sheets. There was a tea set on a side table, and books covered in talcum powder. Best of all were the Viennese Whirls Katie had brought in, that not only fitted the space perfectly, but tasted very good!

Part of the idea of this space is that while you’re in it you get to chose which piece of jewellery you wear. However, we don’t want to reveal the actual jewellery, so on Wednesday Katie set the perforers the task of coming up with a selection process that would related to and led to the jewellery.

Katherine had made three pictures that were hung on the walls of the ‘old house’. These included images, textures, colours, words and things to touch. While you were in the space you decided which you were most drawn to, and this is your jewellery choice. I liked that it was so hands off – you could choose at your own pace and view from a distacne or close to.

We showed a short section for each piece of jewellery. The aim was to test how many of the senses people could process simultaniously, so I picked some impros with fewer and some with many. Each one included being dressed in the jewellery, but as there were quite a few people (as many as we’ll get through in 2 hours of performance) they did only one each.

Then we went downstairs for a chat over coffee. The biggest find was that touch is such a strong sensation on its own it wants to be the sole focus. People really couldn’t focus on anything else when the jewellery was being put on them, or at least wanted to be allowed to experience only that sensation.

Another interesting thing we did was elevating the people who wore the head piece by making them stand on a step stool. This seemed to give the wearer greater importance – Abi felt like a Queen. The head piece in particular has an upwards feel to it – many of the narratives that have come out of it include flying. Interestingly the arms piece is very earthy and ground level, perhaps the neck is a middle ground piece – we’ll see.

Thanks to Dan too for bringing up the question of comedy, and whether there was a place for it in Treasured – that made us think! Is Treasured taking itself too seriously? Have we been blocking comedy, or will it crop up later in the process? Is Treasured simply not funny?