DYCP - Beginning

Earth gif created by Nix Wood during R&D

I was very lucky to receive a Developing Your Creative Practice (DYCP) grant at the start of May this year. The DYCP grant allows artists to take time to develop their creative practice in a new direction. It encourages artists to take risks, try new things, connect with mentors and specialists and expand their knowledge. I decided to explore theatre live-streaming, in particular to what it offers puppetry.

Since I received the grant, I have been busy researching, interviewing, chatting, devising, learning and getting quite excited. And I believe it is important, as the DYCP is funded by Arts Council England with public money, to write about my experimentations and share the knowledge I have gathered. I hope it can be useful to others, not just me!

So here is the start of my DYCP journey…

(You might recognise the headings in the next few paragraphs. I have been wondering how best to structure these blogs to make sure they aren’t just a mountain of tangents (which I am liable to make). Then I remembered reading The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human, and How to Tell Them Better by Will Storr who explains how humans like to think in stories and in fact need narratives to structure our experiences in our brains. And then I remembered the Hero’s Journey or Monomyth, a basic structure in storytelling that follows the cycle of a hero receiving the inspiration to change the world, gathering up skills, treasure, allies and mentors, faces crushing blows and yet ultimately manages to succeed, maybe in a vastly different way to how they envisioned at the start….

And if that isn’t the journey a creative goes through during research and development or the completion of a project, then I obviously don’t know how to do creative projects.

I will be using the Hero’s Journey as a way of structuring my thoughts, not just for other people but to help me understand my experience. Hopefully it’ll make it clearer for everyone! If it works I’ll be sticking to it for future projects)

Ordinary World - The COVID-19 Pandemic

I sometimes wonder if there will be a time when I actually have to explain what the impact of the COVID-19 was like. I wonder at what point people won’t know or remember the heavy, panicky and uncertain feeling of the year 2020 and how it spread itself into 2021 too. In February of 2020 I had just completed a tour of Not Today, Celeste! in Brighton primary schools and was off touring the Little Angel Theatre’s If Not Here… Where? around hospitals all over the UK. By the end of March 2020, the UK was in its first lockdown and I had no idea what was in store for us. I was terrified for my family and I didn’t know when we’d be able to see each other again.

I think we were all in shock. And, like it was for most creatives, I found it hard to know what to do with the time we suddenly all had and yet it was increasingly tricky to make anything. It was difficult for creativity to be encouraged in a vacuum, without other people and in a state of global uncertainty. And amongst that, it was incredibly unclear what the theatre industry was going to be able to do or how it was going to survive.

We were all getting to grips with Zoom and online deliveries. It wasn’t the same.

I started watching National Theatre Live on Youtube. As much as it was wonderful to revisit old shows, it wasn’t the same.

I started making puppet films like Boo! and Silver in the Sky and turned to paper craft as a solo creative activity. I did some Zoom workshops. But it wasn't to same as performing, touring, devising or facilitating face-to-face. It was missing the element of liveness I think has always drawn me to theatre and puppetry.

As we went further into the year, out of one lockdown and on the edge of another, I started to look further into what theatre practitioners were doing without a theatre. How were they expanding into a digital space. I was reminded of the lectures and workshops I had at Brunel University on Digital Performance but that wasn’t quite what I was looking for. I was looking for the theatrical experience that I could have at home through the internet not performance that utilised digital elements.

Call to Adventure - Inspirations

I think I missed out on the initial conversations on theatre live-streaming and online scratch nights and digital festivals that were clearly happening. I wasn’t in the right space. But I’ll forgive myself. I ended up having to focus a lot on my mental health and just getting through each day(and I didn’t know back then but I was also suffering from symptoms of endometriosis).

It wasn't until October that I found what I was looking for.

Studio Figur

I stumbled on Dutch puppet theatre company Studio Figur on Instagram. I saw that they had a performance, Only String’s Apart, it was puppetry, and it was live-streamed. So I thought I would just give it a go, and I’m really glad that I did. It had it had that element of “liveness” that had been missing from National Theatre Live or the puppet films I had been making.

I don’t know really how to explain “liveness” apart from it is something that is really felt and yet it’s just a little beyond tangibility. Maybe it’s knowing things could go wrong (not that I was hoping for that!), maybe it is fragility of each moment, how vulnerable it is or how fresh and present it is. Maybe it’s the fact that I have to be present with it, I can’t get distracted by my phone, I can’t look away or I will miss something and there’s no chance to watch the same moment again, that makes is so special and unusual when media is so easily rewindable, rewatchable and receptively gif-ed. (And you know how much I love a gif)

I think there is something about the liveness of a moment of theatre and the liveness of a puppet which is just exquisite.

Did it just take knowing that Only Strings Apart was live for it to have “liveness”? Was it that Studio Figur started the performance off with their artistic director, Noufri Bachdim, introducing the performance and the space before it began? Or that they book-ended the show with a Q&A, a chance to meet the puppets and the puppeteers and see how they used the space?

It felt like I was in a venue with them, rather than watching something that had just been recorded. There was something special about knowing that what was happening in front of me was actually genuinely live really. It was the liveness that had been missing all this time.

I was fascinated by their cinematography, I loved being able to see the puppeteers (and it wasn't distracting), they balanced the reveals and surprises with slower moments. It was really smooth and streamlined. It was wonderful to be really close up to a puppet, which I think is something that you do often lose out on with theatre. There was something beautiful about both feeling inside a venue, but also feeling like you were standing close to the puppet. And so that was just so wonderfully, spark-in the soul inspiring.

I suddenly thought, “Ah, this is it. This is the thing that I would really love to make.”

It was 40 minutes of something so beautiful, really intimate and deeply connected. While watching the Q&A I thought, “Ah, it's actually something quite simple.” How they've explored that simplicity was very layered and richly complex.

Only String’s Apart was my call to adventure.

Manual Cinema

In December 2020, I saw Chicago based shadow puppet company Manual Cinema’s made for livestream shadow A Christmas Carol.

I first saw Manual Cinema’s work at the Edinburgh Festival in 2016, where they were performing their show Ada/Ava. I instantly fell in love with them and was completely blown away by the sophistication of their shadow puppetry and storytelling.

So I was really interested to see how they were going to approach a live stream. And it was wonderful.

This time round I was really aware of the excitement of waiting for a show to begin and watching a digital countdown tick past.

They too, after their performance, shared a little of the behind the scenes. And there was something about seeing the puppeteers and musicians take that breath afterwards, which is really lovely to see.

It made me think about how, sometimes, in theatre, we can almost be holding our breath throughout a whole performance. Or we'll find ourselves really breathing as an audience together. So there was something very fascinating to see the breath and relief after the end of show.

Christmas time for me, and I’m sure a lot of people, was particularly difficult in 2020. It meant something more to know I was sharing this experience with other families, around the world. At a set time, a set space, gathered round a screen for something a little different. A small community for that show. There was something really special about it being kind of new for everyone and discovering this performance together.

I realised that was the thing that I really wanted to capture too.

(BTW - Manual Cinema are currently streaming their performance of Oedipus Rex a collaboration with L.A Opera between June 17th-July 18th)

Refusal of the Call - Doubts

So now I know what you're all thinking. If theatres are opening up, is there a point to live-streaming theatre?

The UK was quite different in February 2021 when I first wrote my application than it was when I received my DYCP grant in May. By February the UK had gone into a third national lockdown after a deeply dark December and a second wave of COVID-19. The vaccine program had only just started. But by May, things were gradually opening up, restrictions were lifting, the most vulnerable had received their vaccines. As I write this now in July, restrictions are in the news again as we prepare for almost all of them to be lifted in a couple of weeks.

So, I’ve been doubting.

I’ve been wondering if I was maybe just a bit too late on the live-streaming band wagon.

But deep down, I still think it's still really important that we creatives keep live-streaming and there are many different reasons for this.

One of them is, even though things are opening up (and obviously that is fantastic!) we don't know what the future is going to look like. If we’ve learnt anything it is that the future is so uncertain. We don't know when we'll be in this situation again.

Also, I think now is a good time to be approach live streaming, not from a place of uncertainty, urgency or isolation but one of curiosity and that is slightly more calm.

Another, there will always be people who can't see a show due to their location and geography or because their venues aren’t toured to. Studio Figur and Manual Cinema are both international theatre companies whose work I maybe wouldn't have been able to see so accessibly even before COVID-19. Live-streaming opens up work to different audiences, increases reach not just in the UK but internationally too.

Most importantly for me, is that streaming (live or recorded) has really opened up opportunities for people to access theatre, when they might have faced barriers in engaging with it before. Whether that is due to finances, to being unable to leave their home, or if they have a disability, or if they are in hospital or a care home.

I think accessibility has become more important to me and more important to my practice after working on If Not Here… Where?. Meeting the children who were in hospital, some of them that who had been stuck in in isolation for months, really opened my eyes to audiences who weren't able to engage with theatre but stood to gain the most from it.

I’m also coming at this from a very personal standpoint. I have a long history of having panic attacks when I go to see a show, and so I have to spend a lot of time and effort trying to mitigate and manage panicky feelings when I go to the theatre.

What I found really interesting during lockdown is my own accessibility needs almost being met. Early into the first lockdown, the National Theatre released a handful of its shows to be streamed on Youtube. One of those shows was Frankenstein, staring Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller, which I caught back in 2011 at the theatre. It was an amazing performance, but I had a panic attack throughout its 2 hour run time. I missed whole scenes because I had to take myself out of the theatre to calm down before going back in for more. So, it was just so wonderful to be able to watch something in the comfort of my own home and not have to go through the faff of calming myself down, or figuring out the best seat to buy that would have me as close to the exit as possible.

Live-streaming makes theatre accessible not just for people who can’t be physically there but who struggle to be mentally or emotionally present at a theatre.

While, yes, theatre are able to open up and welcome audiences back, I believe it's imperative that we do not forget that huge amounts of people really benefited from live-streaming.

It may have been their first chances to see theatre. It may make someone feel more comfortable to try an in-person visit to a theatre.

Finally, and it’s another very personal reason, is that live-streaming will allow me to access making theatre more readily.

I have had a chronic illness - I have an anxiety disorder I need to manage daily and I've just been diagnosed with endometriosis. Both of those really takes a toll on me and I think I have become more aware of just how much of an impact that can have on me performing and touring.

 Live-streaming for me, means that I can have a failsafe. If Im unable to perform away from home or unable to tour, I can still try and stream theatre from the comfort of my own home or a safe studio. It gives me the chance to continue performing, when things get tough. I can still access theatre.

So I need to remind myself that live-streaming doesn’t have to just be a way to make theatre during a pandemic. I'm looking further and asking myself, “how do I make work post pandemic?”

I need to remind myself from the outset, that this is still a really important way to be making work. It benefits more people than just myself.

Extraordinary Aid - Developing Your Creative Practice Grant

On a cold day last year, while walking up Brighton sea-front, a friend of mine told me about the Developing Your Creative Practice grant, which was something that they had been looking into doing for themselves. I was really surprised that there was that level support available from the Arts Council to do things that were purely for one persons personal practice. And, like a lot of creatives, I recognised that the lockdown, while devastating to performing, offered some time for self-reflection. This conversation happened just after I had seen Studio Figur’s Only Strings Apart and I realised quite quickly, if I was to do a DYCP application, it had to be for live-streaming.

I'm really grateful for the amount of support that they've given to artists during these really difficult times. And I’m very grateful to be one of the many artists who have been given this extraordinary aid. It feels so rare to have time to focus on developing my practice, to take risks, to try things to see if this is something that I can do. The last time I felt this was when I was studying for my BA and MA.

I knew that it was competitive, and I really wasn't sure whether I was going to get it (and I left it a little bit to the last moment!) but it felt like the right moment to go for and I’m lucky to have a strong team of friends and loved ones to ask for advice and to proof read my sometimes questionable grammar.

I'm really honoured to have received the money, that really represents time to explore without nagging worries or it feeling indulgent.

I would recommend anyone who wants to explore and develop to look into the DYCP. Compared to a Grants for the Arts, it’s a lot more friendly. I was surprised it only really comprised of three questions, a budget and an activity plan.

It started me on this really amazing journey, which I'm looking forward to talking about in future blog posts.

Now the journey truly begins …