afullweekend

so a full weekend!

private view of pre-cutslicedoranges at Light Eye Mind, London  a show curated by Sid and Jim http://www.sidandjim.com/ - which was full of serious, enthusiastic and highly professional young people's work, it was also fun and thought provoking https://www.facebook.com/events/508392049499893/?active_tab=about then onto Leeds to see Bish Bash Bosh https://yorkshiredance.com/whats-on/event/bish-bash-bosh/ an evening of scratch dance at Yorkshire Dance - which was totally ace - some really interesting work that explored new possibilities offered if you think about dance and......... hybrid and interdisciplinary are the keys to new ideas. Marguerite Galizia – Fold  - https://margueritegalizia.com/2017/08/15/fold-working-title-2017-present/  and Lewys Holt http://houseofverse.co.uk/project/lewys-holt defiantly stretching this with some solid collaboration between Aidan/Clerk37 https://soundcloud.com/clerk37 and Maria Popova with Interlocution thrown into the mix - Leeds Light Night saw Leeds lit up - sometimes challenging and sometimes dull and worthy, sometimes fun - a DJ in a portaloo is a winner. The Tetley https://thetetley.org/visit-the-tetley/ had a really respectful and thoughtful show about the history of the Leeds West Indian Carnival - some excellent objects telling the story, Leeds Royal Armouries was very odd - a disturbingly, gloriously strange way - https://royalarmouries.org/visit-us/leeds basically the whole building is a celebration of the ingenuity of the human spirit to create wonderfully designed objects whose main purpose is killing. This politically challenging aspect is barely mentioned - but there is a free boat ride from the train station/city centre which is great fun and you get to see a 'post industrial landscape' from the past! Henry Moore has a stunning show combining an investigation of process and use of everyday materials. jiro takamatsu - the temperature of sculpture was very good with lots to talk about with students - especially the role of the sketchbook/journal - https://www.henry-moore.org/visit/henry-moore-institute Then onto Ipswich to Dance East to see the fabulous Joss Arnold - it really is a must see, catch it on tour if you can, the evening has 3 pieces: all containing the signature strenuous power of the choreographers interest but V has some great specific moves with total control of lighting and the final dance, RUSH was so explosive with a tremendous soundtrack. https://www.danceeast.co.uk/performances/joss-arnott-triple-bill/ Finally it was flipside http://www.flipsideuk.org/ at Snape to listen to Ali Smith, Alvaro Enrigue and Maureen Freely which was just wonderful - talking about the space between translation, interpretation and exploring what is original. So thoughtful again if you get the chance go listen to these people - Smith was so 'telling it like it is' but backed up with intelligent thought, Freely was a wall of rigorous wall and Enrigue was so funny that I went out of the hall and bought his book!

I just need a weekend now to get reflect on all this!

witnesseverything

witness at Dance East was a tender and moving dance piece exploring mental health http://www.companychameleon.com/ there were some truly extraordinary moments of dance moves - I wish they had trusted their dance and not spoken - their movements communicated everything....

a quick jaunt to the Norfolk and Norwich Festival to see Summer. Autumn. Winter. Spring. could it possibly be a new genre 'fly on the wall theatre'? editing choice control truth and theatre as a mirror were topics of conversation 'post show' - It must of been life changing to be part of the experience for the participants - Summer was great with audience participant conversations and in Autumn I had my first tarot reading - an 'interesting' experience.

With the discovery http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5155780/  afterlife - what happens there and where is it? is at the fore and can we get there and if we can should we? lots of meaningful questions about destiny...win it all http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3155328/?ref_=nv_sr_1 don't do it no no no just don't do it.

busybsuybusyandsomedance

The Toshiba lecture at the Cathedral in Norwich last night was awesome with possibilities and yet also informed by the terror of every post apocalyptic film I have seen where the world is taken over by robots. There was a moment when the extraordinary machine being demonstrated very cutely clapped its 'hands' and the audience laughed at it and I thought - this is where after lulling us into a false sense of security a lazer beam extends from its 'head' and destroys us, thus starting its progression to world domination! But it didn't happen and I am mow on the train to Ipswich working on the presentation and workshop for Being A Man, on the way to see a dance/food/sound piece by Protein called May contain food - at the Dance House. This is after a day at NUA running a master class on bookness! I'm really looking forward to BAM next week at the Southbank - trying to work out a way to cram in 30 years of bookmaking and thinking into 2 hours with an added workshop is proving tricky! Ann Veronica Janssens, yellowbluepink at The Welcome trust is on the list of things to see on Friday after the session and I'll also get to attend a private view at CSM of the XD Fine Art Course.

notthatkindofweek

a good week on the teaching front - the learning agreement presentations with year 3 at NUA were excellent - fantastic energy, potentially there is a really wide range of work that challenges the idea of textile design and ambitious all encompassing projects.  it promises to be an exciting year. camberwell was all about deconstruction, book structures and reflective thinking - a link to the bookness presentation here.

http://www.slideshare.net/l.bicknell/what-is-book-bookness-2015

CONCEAL | REVEAL at the dance house in Ipswich was a marvel of restraint precision - the Russel Maliphant Company presented Broken Fall, a piece I've seen with the BalletBoyz - it really is such a fractured, clipped piece with trust and weight at the centre. The other pieces were a lighting joy by Michael Hulls with serious collaborative thought going into the relationship between movement and light - I thought about book relationships and an element of a workshop I run that I now realise is really about dance.

working on a presentation for NUA about home and came across some devastating gifs of buildings falling down, well being blown up - it's going to be fun!

stringistheanswer

An excellent dance experience at The Dance House in Ipswich – Park by Jasmin Vardimon was somewhere between narrative and abstract, sometimes this was good and at other times quite annoying. There were a number of extraordinary moments and sequences where individuals became part of a larger group – moving in unison and then breaking off and becoming individuals again. A nice touch was covering the dance area in corrugated cardboard – their steps leaving a trace of what was........a form of mapping or documentation - uuuuummmh

I’ve spent the day in Colchester at the Minories with The Colne and Colchester Embroiders Guild – a really fascinating workshop with a group of thoughtful, individuals who come together as a really supportive group – the discussions were wide ranging and encompassed such issues as fame, authorship, the role of the artists in society, contexts for looking and displaying, technology as a driver of creativity and material understanding. This was all within a practical framework of the exchange of skills, although the day turned out to be really about thinking and developing starting points.

I spent some time in a pound shop buying goods for the year 1 students at NUA who are going on the trip to Hunstanton. One of the many fun exercises planned is to create work in a team from a pile of everyday stuff – so far one packet of rizlas, a ball of string, one paperclip, an envelope and a chain like the one you have on a plug for the sink – it will be fun.

makingarchivesdance

Looking forward to watching Play at the Dance House in Ipswich on Friday. It’s a 3D-imaging-dance-fest by the Jasmin Vardimon Company. Teaching at NUA and on the OCA so far this week has been all about audiences and the makers relationship(s) to making - http://www.slideshare.net/l.bicknell/context-audience-understanding2014 why do we make the things we do and who are they for?

meanwhile – it’s nice to see that Glasgow School of Art are pointing out the work I undertook with archives as having some value  http://gsaarchivesandcollections.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/artists-using-archives-les-bicknell-unpicking-and-rebinding/