untried… untested
Fast becoming a regular event, the BT Studio is presenting an evening of performance by artists from Oxfordshire. You’ll have the chance to see extracts from unfinished pieces, which could include dance, theatre, music, poetry and live art. Afterwards share your thoughts on what you’ve seen with the performers over a glass of wine.
Tonight includes dance work by Paulette Mae…
Monday 20th September at 7.30pm
Tickets available from Oxford Playhouse
http://www.oxfordplayhouse.com/show/?eventid=1503
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September 30, 2010 at 9:00 pm
Burton Taylor
‘Untried Untested’ Monday 20th Sept 2010
I was happy to see The Burton Taylor hosting a scratch night for performance in any medium and also emphasising the role of audience feedback. The application procedure stipulated that the work should be unfinished, that the performer/creator was willing to receive feedback and was planning to develop the work and perform elsewhere.
The night began with a contemporary dance work ‘Gravity and Desire’ choreographed by Jo Lott and the dancers of Firefly dance (Paulette Burke, Anja Meinhardt, Dan Baird, Helen Wadge). 4 female dancers dressed in red and one male dancer in black and white. The piece opened with a beautiful gesture like catching a whisper and releasing it upwards in to the air. There was a lot of unison dancing and some nice stage composition and shifts from whole group to duets, trio and some solo. The tone was quite even overall and in development may take on more space and meaning. The dancing was heartfelt, well rehearsed and executed. The excerpts shown will be part of a longer work based on Chaos theory.
The second piece was a reading of some acts from a new play by Andrew Johnson. Following straight on from the dance it was a real mental gear change for an audience member and I remember thinking that I wasn’t sure I wanted to be there after all watching theatre instead of dance. However, mental shift made, I was able to get in to what was being presented and laughed, nodded or smiled at many junctures and enjoyed the idea the play suggested of a world ending in rain.
The third act saw a round faced musician with his keyboard announce he was a musical theatre composer and that the following were some songs he’d written and that by the way there were some cds for sale. ‘Oh no’ I thought. Corny, musical theatre! What’s that ? Actually there were some really witty and interesting lyrics, some well written music and well paced and arranged sequence of works that covered the sad and thoughtful as well as hilariously funny which kept the audience fully engaged. Hats off.
The second half began with another contemporary dance piece ‘Spill’–choreographed by Paulette Mae and dancers (Nodoka Nakamura, Caroline Potter, Sarah Terrington). The opening soundtrack had recorded voice before music came in. There was some lovely sensitivity in the choreography and performance, a nice light touch and good shifts in energy. The introduction of the live spoken word added a strange disjuncture but this seemed appropriate for the subject matter being explored.
The last work by poet musician Paul Natty Smith was perhaps for me the most disappointing. While there were moments of moving narrative, sincere expression and some nice vocal reverie, as a performance it lacked sophistication.
Feed back Session at The Burton Taylor Scratch Night
At the end of the show, the audience were requested to return after the break for the feedback session. This was to be conducted so that audience members came face to face with each set of performers. Terrifying! If I hadn’t come for the express purpose of discovering how the BT ran their scratch night to include audience feedback, if I wasn’t so committed to the principle of giving feedback and the stated requirement to give it, and I hadn’t known any of the performers, I would have escaped with the half audience that left at that point!
However, I stayed. Chairs had been placed in groups so that each set of performers could be joined by some audience. The organiser explained we would have 5 minutes and then she would move us on so the audience members could give feedback to each act.
How was I going to give feedback to a theatre piece, or to the poet whose work didn’t grab me? What would I say? How honest should I be if I did have something to say? I felt blank. This really made me realise how difficult it is to give feedback and what a lot it is to ask of an audience –especially a general audience. However, I realised there were things to say and that there was a good buzz of voices coming from all round the room. Not being the only one and being randomly teamed with other audience members was also interesting and gave an opportunity to listen to others opinions and feed off each others ideas.
Certainly it was an interesting, if long, evening. I would recommend the experience to all performers as a means not only of seeing exciting new work in different genres but also as a way of beginning to evaluate your own work through the eyes of a potential audience member. Well done B.T for giving performers a chance to try out new material and encourage feedback.
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