Elemental

Simon Chatterton, an Oxford-based independent producer focusing on outdoor arts, music, visual theatre, circus and site specific performance seeks a flexible, independent assistant with proven arts administration and project management skills to support a range of festivals, events and artists projects in the UK and internationally.

For full job description click here.

For more details on applying for this role contact simon@simonchatterton.co.uk

Elemental sponsored a tent at Quest for the Yorkshire leg of the regional event. We sponsored the Mechanics tent which focused on “the practicalities of making outdoor arts projects” welcomed Leila Jancovich and Ali Pretty as keynote speakers.

To kick off the event Helga Henry, General Manager of Fierce Earth and Producer of Elemental, talked about ‘elemental’ so far, findings, recommendations and giving the audience an overview of the themes nationally.

Below is the presentation used by Helga:

To download a copy of the presentation please click here.

Were you at Quest? Let us know what happened, why it was useful, someone new you met…

Following on from our other polls, we would like to know what you think on the below question…

 Loading ...

Got more to say about this, well comment below: click on the title and it will take you to the page and allow you to make your comment in the box below.

Lets here from you!

By Helga Henry, General Manager of Fierce Earth Ltd, Producer of Elemental and Chair of Creative Republic.

Inspired by elemental and the exploration of outdoor work, Helga Henry - General Manager of Fierce Earth and Producer of Elemental, produced this article for the Birmingham Post published on the 7th June 2009 - you can find it here!

Ever since 1998, the month of May finds me on the sunny streets of Birmingham, sampling the weird and wonderful delights of the annual Fierce! Festival. And although there is no festival this year, last Friday was no exception.

As part of the 2009 “for one year only” programme, Fierce! and our partners at Ikon Gallery presented the iconoclastic performer, Reverend Billy. Self-styled anti capitalist preacher (he exorcises the tills at Tescos containing “Wall Street funny money”) he gave a blistering free performance in Oozells Square with his funky backing singers, the Gospel Choir of Life After Shopping. Opposite the headquarters of the RBS, his giant quiff quivered to the message that what we spend our money on has an effect on the climate, our jobs and homes, in fact on the whole world.

Hundreds of people gathered to hear the word of the Reverend. Still more happened upon him by chance. From the clapping, cheering, whooping and dancing of the crowd, everyone had a good time.

Art in the streets is uplifting and democratic. There’s the chance that people will stumble upon something to make them laugh, cry or gasp. As an audience gathers, they share reactions, jokes and vantage points. They connect. The critic Lyn Gardner said of The Sultan’s Elephant that this work “turns a million strangers into a community.”

Same in Liverpool’s capital of culture, where grandmothers, toddlers and all ages in between waited for half a day for a good view of La Machine’s giant mechanical Spider as it paraded the streets with its live orchestra perched atop cherry-picker cranes.

Grand artistic gestures funded by public money may seem unnecessarily splashy in the current climate. But everything is relative.

Given the community cohesion this work promotes (it’s been proven that crime reduces during events rather than proliferates) and City promoting media attention it generates, they constitute good value for money. Some previous Fierce! highlights such as the Great Swallow (Benjamin Verdonck’s giant nest on the side of the Rotunda) or the much acclaimed Street pianos (15 pianos in community settings emblazoned with “Play Me, I’m Yours”) were produced for the public money equivalent of two duck houses, a moat and some manure. Or a fraction of 1% of what we’ve spent to bail out a bank like the RBS.

Play Me I’m Yours has, from its Birmingham beginning, has taken place in Sydney, Australia, Sao Paolo, Brazil and is now hogging media attention in London. But the city, and Fierce! had it first. The region has some great unusual spaces to see great performance – check out Soweto Kinch’s Flyover show under the Soho Road on June 13 if you want to discover it for yourself. Great music in a stunning location.

And bring on Birmingham’s spiders and elephants: they do more good than MP’s manure.

Compiled by Theatre Bristol and Kate Hartoch

Infrastructure:

Circomedia, Theatre Bristol (Creative Producer for Circus and Street Arts), CAST, agencies supplying paid work.

Resources:

The Albany Centre, training space at Artspace Lifespace, Desperate Men studio, Circus Maniacs

Funds:

Bristol City Council Key Art Providers, Arts Council England, South West Relevant commissions from Bristol Harbour Festival, The Bristol Do and Theatre Bristol/ Bristol Old Vic.

Ramshacklicious

Bristol Artists making work for outdoor contexts and contemporary circus include:

The Wonder Club, Acrojou, Desperate Men, Tom Marshman, Cirque Bijou, Stickleback Plasticus, Marc Conway, Ramshackiliscious, Invisible Circus, Fair Play, Frenetic Engineering, Above and Beyond, Once Arts and Ceremonies, Bongo Bolero, Luci Gorrell-Barnes, Pickled Image.

Important Festivals:

The Bristol Do, Bristol Harbour Festival, Mayfest, Glastonbury Festival

Strengths:

Needs:

This was sent to elemental by Kate at Theatre Bristol following the elemental event in the South West, to find out more about the South West look at the South West page or click here.

The launch will take place on Thursday 2nd July from 11.30am-1pm as part of the Circus Space Residency at the National Theatre’s Watch This Space

Crying Out Loud are pleased to be part of this Europe wide support programme for emerging contemporary circus artists in Europe and we encourage projects from artist’s that mix circus with other art forms.

What is Jeunes Talents Cirque Europe?

“A support programme for emerging contemporary circus artists in Europe aimed at assisting artistic research for the creation of new performance. We encourage projects that mix circus with other art forms, for example drama, spoken word, digital media, theatre, music and puppetry.”

“Who can apply?

Crying Out Loud is now calling for applications”
Taken from the Crying Out Loud website.

To find out more about the scheme click here or to attend the launch event please email to rsvp here.

Introducing Jean Vinet, our special guest for the North East elemental event on Friday 19th June.

In French -

Diplômé de sciences politiques de l’Université York (Toronto), Jean Vinet a fait des études supérieures à l’Université de Paris III en théâtre et éducation. Il a travaillé au Centre culturel canadien avant d’être directeur pédagogique au Centre national des arts du cirque de Châlons en Champagne entre 1992 et 1998. Titulaire d’un doctorat de l’Université de Paris X, ses recherches ont principalement porté sur l’évolution de la formation dans le domaine du cirque. Depuis 2000, il dirige le Centre des arts du cirque de Basse-Normandie (La brèche) qu’il a créé, un lieu pilote dans l’accueil en résidence et la production dans ce domaine en France et en Europe. Il est membre fondateur de l’association nationale Territoires de cirque, membre du réseau européen Circostrada, membre expert de la Commission nationale consultative pour le spectacle vivant et membre du Conseil de la création artistique récemment créé à l’initiative du Président de la République Française.

From www.labreche.fr

In English -

Jean Vinet graduated in Political Science from York University (Toronto) before pursuing his studies in Paris in education and theatre (Université de Paris III). He worked at the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris before managing the Training Department at the National Centre for Circus Arts in Châlons en Champagne (National Superior School) between 1992 and 1998. He obtained a PHD degree from the Université de Paris X, where his research has focused on the development of circus training. Since 2000, he is the Director of the Circus Arts Centre of Lower Normandy (La Brèche) that he created, a new structure leading circus productions and residencies in France and in Europe. He is one of the founders of the national association of circus producers and presenters, Territoires de cirque, member of the European network Circostrada, member of the National advising committee for performing arts and recently appointed member of the Arts and Creation Council created by the President of the French Republic.

We look forward to welcoming Jean and he will be joined by a panel of UK specialists that are to be announced!

For more about the North East region please click here.

By Stewart McGill, Director, Playbox Theatre, Warwick.

(The following post is the first part of the presentation Stewart made at Elemental WM as part of the break out session and his work with Playbox Theatre.)

To consider the work of Circus and multi-disciplinary arts with young people here at Playbox Theatre is to also reflect and consider where Circus as both entertainment and art form has emerged in last 20-30 years. Maybe the ‘Little Seedlings’ are more than young people aspiring to gain confidence, skills and talent – maybe the image can be applied to a movement that swept across the world backed by Government visionaries and motivators in places like France and Quebec.

To put it into a context one has to go back some time. In the post-war years Circus was big entertainment business – here in the UK Circus directors divided the country into three segments - West Country/Mid and South/North and Scotland – the big three circuses, Chipperfield, Bertram Mills and Billy Smart’s rotated in 3 yearly cycles with massive tenting shows – animal based but certainly in the case of Smarts heavily influenced by the now gigantic US Road shows, The Three Rings of Ringling Bros and Barnum and Bailey, Cole Brothers, Clydel Beatty etc. With Smarts the focus shifted to ‘The Spec’, large arena fantasies based on Wild West, Fairyland and Arabian Nights themes involving the whole company on ground, in air, on floats – this was dynamic, interactive, passionate, visual and aural circus for the new age … until TV came along and audiences deserted many forms of live entertainment for the miracle Box (see Greatest Show on Earth – Circus of Horrors – preserved on film for the live visuals).

When Playbox Theatre began its mission with young people in 1986, Circus was off most agendas in the UK … certainly it was not considered an art form at all. In the UK Circus was all but dead – killed off by more sophisticated forms of leisure.

I had always cherished a love of circus as entertainment art, and its possibilities – Degas, Picasso, Lautrec – and not lost on ballet creators – Diagalev, Stravinsky. As means of communication – the language of circus being universal, the body as communicator of emotion, fear, anxiety, love, jealousy …. Who could forget the classic circus movie ‘Trapeze’ playing out a love triangle high above the ring of Cirque D’Hiver in Paris?

As part of Playbox Development we started looking at an emerging new form … we lovingly called it ‘New Circus’ and it was a step away from street entertainment – busking with attitude, juggling, acrobatics and often poor attempts at narrative. Traditional circus hated it – condemned as having ‘no skill at all’ – ‘the great unwashed’ – anarchists – rubbish. Yet here was something that seemed to capture the imagination once more, in theatre and dance – we sensed a potential to steal from the new form for Playbox – we met and were inspired by young rebels forging new identities – Archaos – living the Mad Max existence. Plume – in Paris – creating poetry in circus and a bunch of hippies inspired by Peter Schumauus Bread and Puppet theatre – called Cirque Du Soleil. In UK don’t ignore work of Brian Dewhurst – Andro who inspired Guy Laliberte and Gilles Ste-Croix with his human circus!

For his full personal perspective following on from this introduction please click here for your downloadable pdf.

To see all about the region, please click here.

We are delighted to announce the final elemental event to be held in the North East on Friday 19th June.

We are pleased to announce that Jean Vinet from La Bréche creation centre in Cherbourg will be our keynote speaker.

RSVP deadline is Wednesday 17th June, places are limited! To book your place now to avoid disappointment please email: gemma@elementalexchange.org.uk.

An exciting elemental event in the North West is unveiled prior to the Xtrax Showcase!

To add to all the wonderful speakers Marta Almirall Elizalde (Director of Culture for Barcelona and Choreographer of the group who performed at the opening of the Barcelona Olympics) will be joining proceedings to bring her experience to the conversation.

RSVP Deadline: Monday 1st June. Email: gemma@elementalexchange.org.uk