Elemental

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

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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.

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

We are thrilled to annouce dates for the South West ‘elemental’ event and look forward to welcoming Rose Fenton as the keynote speaker. Full details below:

On Tuesday 19th May we kicked off the West Midlands event at Playbox Theatre in Warwick with the keynote speaker, Ali Williams from No Fit State and break out sessions with Bill Ferguson and Stewart McGill (find out about them here) and not forgetting Ros Robins from the Arts Council England WM as MC.

Starting with setting the scene exercise, interesting and thoughtful ideas and thinking came from the section and leading nicely into the keynote address from Ali Williams. The address was suitably informal looking at the progression route that No Fit State has taken from “little acorns” to becoming the internationally acclaimed company we see today. Starting with today – and the Tabu video:

Interestingly the development from little acorns to what we see today came from little investment from ACE in the beginning, and a lot of risk as a company! Full presentation and notes will soon be available.

Following a lovely lunch and some fabulous brownies courtesy of Playbox, breakout sessions with Bill Ferguson and Stewart McGill gave examples of how Street and Circus work on ground level and indeed the Playbox’s work nurturing the “Oak Trees” of the future.

Stewart’s presentation included an aerial demonstration by Christina Newman.

The Without Walls consortium has received news coverage in the Stage yesterday in the report by Lalayn Baluch: ‘Street arts consortium wins £400,000 ACE grant’.

Without Walls is a consortium of the country’s 8 main street arts festivals, including Stockton International Riverside Festival and is topical following Frank Wilson’s keynote address at ‘elemental’ in the East Midlands.

The other members of Without Walls: Xtrax, Bristol Festival, Brighton Festival, Greenwich and Docklands International Festival, Hat Fair, Lakes Alive, Norfolk and Norwich Festival.

Further information on the event and Frank’s presentation will be coming soon.

Over the duration of the elemental events have been and will be running a series of polls to get a picture of how you see the Street and Circus sector today…the first of these polls is:

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All the feedback and polls you take part in will be fed back into the Arts Council on evaluation, so it’s important that we have your views! If you have more to say please comment, we would love to hear your opinion!