This week our R&P meeting took us again to the Festival Hall, this time just Hannah and I were able to make it, as Vanessa was away on an orchestral residency as part of her year in the Southbank Sinfonia.
Projecting back, this has been a great week for MOC! First up was a mime double bill, as we attended two London Mime Festival events, in what was it’s final week. On Wednesday, we went to see Hans de Hieri by Zimmerman and de Perrot, at the Barbican Theatre, which was amazing (see brief musing on the performance below)!
Then, on Friday we went to watch the much hyped Gandidi Juggler’s perform their latest show, Smashed, which was inspired by the lengendary choreographer Pina Bausch. The show opened with nine performers juggling with apples, on a stage bare of props except for nine chairs, giving no hint of what was to come! The hilarious, and rather bizarre show, displayed some really impressive, and unexpected juggling moves, a particularly unusual one being juggling whilst smacking a man’s naked bottom! The show did become quite repetitive, as even with their expert skill, there is only so much you can do with an apple! Then, about fifteen minutes before the end, crockery, which had been at the back out of sight, was neatly arranged on stage, and we anticipated some dare devil juggling would follow. We could not have been more wrong, the reason for the title was revealed, as everything was smashed to pieces, and the performers went bezeurk, among comments they shouted “juggling at the Royal Opera House, pretentious rubbish!” It was so unexpected, and so funny! The show then ended with the jugglers then stuffing as much apple as possible into their mouths! It was definitely unlike anything I have seen before! Here’s a short clip of the show, and a review from the guardian.
http://vimeo.com/51011132
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/jan/19/smashed-review
Prior to the show on Friday, we had a very exciting rehearsal with Niamph, the inspiring movement specialist and theatre performer we are working with. We have been discussing possible avenues for collaboration, and the qualities which movement and music share. Niamph introduced us to laban language, which in brief is the result of the work of Rudolph von Laban, to document all forms of human physical movement. Laban created eight ‘effort qualities’, representing the natural movements of human daily life; wringing, slashing, punching, gliding, floating, flicking, dabbing, and pressing. In our rehearsal, Niamph taught us how to move for each of these, and we attempted to copy her, which was very funny, they are much harder to do than she made them look! We then experimented with how the emotional state we felt performing each quality affected our musical style whilst playing. After the meeting we came away excited about exploring this further, and we will be blogging about how the collaborative process develops.
Back to the meeting, and first on this week’s agenda were funding opportunities. As many of you are I’m sure very aware, funding applications take a long time to do, so we are highlighting deadlines now, and delegating tasks. In our first session with our MBF business mentor Julia Payne, she highlighted the importance of delegating tasks to succesfully run a business, playing on the strenghts of each member, and as we have started to imput this more, we are realising how valuable the stategy is.
We ended by looking through a few potential performance opportunities, and making a note of people to contact. There are always exciting things going on in London, you just need to spend a bit of time researching where they are.
Next week we will be having our R&P meeting on the run, as we head up to the Purcell School for our first rehearsal with the young composers preparing for our performance at the Saatchi Gallery in March. Other highlights are a return visit to Oakleigh School in North London, to run our second improvisatory workshop through the Live Music Now scheme, and our next rehearsal with Niamph, so keep following to hear how it all goes.
One last note, our Platform 33/Non Classical performance with Emma has moved back to Thursday 4th April, due to unforseen circumstances, so put that in your diaries. We can also now reveal that the venue is The Macbeth in Hoxton.
MOC x
Projecting back, this has been a great week for MOC! First up was a mime double bill, as we attended two London Mime Festival events, in what was it’s final week. On Wednesday, we went to see Hans de Hieri by Zimmerman and de Perrot, at the Barbican Theatre, which was amazing (see brief musing on the performance below)!
Then, on Friday we went to watch the much hyped Gandidi Juggler’s perform their latest show, Smashed, which was inspired by the lengendary choreographer Pina Bausch. The show opened with nine performers juggling with apples, on a stage bare of props except for nine chairs, giving no hint of what was to come! The hilarious, and rather bizarre show, displayed some really impressive, and unexpected juggling moves, a particularly unusual one being juggling whilst smacking a man’s naked bottom! The show did become quite repetitive, as even with their expert skill, there is only so much you can do with an apple! Then, about fifteen minutes before the end, crockery, which had been at the back out of sight, was neatly arranged on stage, and we anticipated some dare devil juggling would follow. We could not have been more wrong, the reason for the title was revealed, as everything was smashed to pieces, and the performers went bezeurk, among comments they shouted “juggling at the Royal Opera House, pretentious rubbish!” It was so unexpected, and so funny! The show then ended with the jugglers then stuffing as much apple as possible into their mouths! It was definitely unlike anything I have seen before! Here’s a short clip of the show, and a review from the guardian.
http://vimeo.com/51011132
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/jan/19/smashed-review
Prior to the show on Friday, we had a very exciting rehearsal with Niamph, the inspiring movement specialist and theatre performer we are working with. We have been discussing possible avenues for collaboration, and the qualities which movement and music share. Niamph introduced us to laban language, which in brief is the result of the work of Rudolph von Laban, to document all forms of human physical movement. Laban created eight ‘effort qualities’, representing the natural movements of human daily life; wringing, slashing, punching, gliding, floating, flicking, dabbing, and pressing. In our rehearsal, Niamph taught us how to move for each of these, and we attempted to copy her, which was very funny, they are much harder to do than she made them look! We then experimented with how the emotional state we felt performing each quality affected our musical style whilst playing. After the meeting we came away excited about exploring this further, and we will be blogging about how the collaborative process develops.
Back to the meeting, and first on this week’s agenda were funding opportunities. As many of you are I’m sure very aware, funding applications take a long time to do, so we are highlighting deadlines now, and delegating tasks. In our first session with our MBF business mentor Julia Payne, she highlighted the importance of delegating tasks to succesfully run a business, playing on the strenghts of each member, and as we have started to imput this more, we are realising how valuable the stategy is.
We ended by looking through a few potential performance opportunities, and making a note of people to contact. There are always exciting things going on in London, you just need to spend a bit of time researching where they are.
Next week we will be having our R&P meeting on the run, as we head up to the Purcell School for our first rehearsal with the young composers preparing for our performance at the Saatchi Gallery in March. Other highlights are a return visit to Oakleigh School in North London, to run our second improvisatory workshop through the Live Music Now scheme, and our next rehearsal with Niamph, so keep following to hear how it all goes.
One last note, our Platform 33/Non Classical performance with Emma has moved back to Thursday 4th April, due to unforseen circumstances, so put that in your diaries. We can also now reveal that the venue is The Macbeth in Hoxton.
MOC x
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