2016
A quick rundown of some of the projects that happened in 2016. I haven’t updated throughout the year so this will be a BIG post. Ok, early in the year I was invited to join the participatory arts team of Jewish Care, and have developed several works at their homes. The first was Recollection Collection, a wonderful project filming the residents of Princess Alexandra Care Home, mixing their thoughts and memories with archive film footage placing them in context, and screening the rough cut at the home to an invited audience. I’ll be applying to festivals with it this year.
Another project was Lifesongs - interviewing residents about the meaningful pieces of music in their lives - when they were a child, when they had children, and one they want to pass along to their grandchildren. I presented filmed snippets of those interviews back to the group weekly, allowing the residents and staff to interview the subjects and then choosing one song from each to play and sing together.
Two more Treasure projects happened as well: I was able to connect pupils of Eden Primary school with residents at Lady Sarah Cohen House and Kun Mor Home, they created stories together and the young people then performed them, with residents as directors. The next project will be an monthly Activity Box with Ladder to the Moon starting end of January.
In February, my friend Matt Zarb and I formed Zarper Aerial: a video aeronautics company. Matt is an actor and pilot and together we travelled early in the morning to Kemble Airfield outside of Cirencester to take his drone pilot license test. Matt passed, we are official, using his Vulcan heavy lift drone my Blackmagic 4K production camera, with a website up and running…
Most of the month of March was spent in Australia at the Melbourne Festival of Live Art. Natasha’s show Internal Terrains was on the programme - I made the music for the show and operated it in the festival. We took a break in Tasmania and visited the Bonaroong animal sanctuary where we cuddled kangaroos, and looked at echidnas, fed emus and gasped at Tasmanian devils.We stayed with old friends from Japan Sean & Linda and Chris & Keiko, and met director Alyson Campbell to begin work on Natasha’s next show, 50 Rooms, which will play at Colchester Arts Centre, Rich Mix and Tate Modern later in the year.
In May, Francesca Baglioni asked me to take part in her Audition Project, a Redux film by Richard DeDomenici: 75 live artists recreating the opening shot of A Chorus Line, creating a snapshot of the UK arts scene in 2016. The screening was a month later at Live Art Development Agency, as outrageous and fun as it looked…
The Tubthumpers had our last concert at Bishopsgate Institute in late spring, before striking out on our own as a proper 40 member acapella choir. We're now based in Kings Cross, lead by Gitika Partington our wonderful conductor, of the folk pop trio 3 Bucket Jones.
To Wales in June with Bill, an old friend who came over to research the Hereford Gospels. I was able to hold and examine a 650 year old illuminated manuscript. The simple act of turning the page in a book that ancient and delicate sets your heart racing. They don’t recommend using gloves anymore - the fibers from the cloth are more damaging than the oil from your hands (as long as you keep your hands clean).
In August Beastie made a dramatic reappearance in Hull - preparing for the 2017 City of Culture programme - as The Visitor. Gregg and Gary (Lone Twin) were both there, too. The neighbourhood of Longhill, a self contained area in the outskirts of town, welcomed surprise visits with local residents hosting The Visitor, showing him around, stopping in allotments, local businesses and events, and interacting with the community, allowing the Longhill area to express itself in unexpected ways. Here he is attending a community centre bingo game.
I was Steampunk Bob once again in the autumn - this time at St Matthew’s Primary School in Cambridge, with another project from People United. He was a resident Kindness Engineer, looking for KQs (Kindness Qualities) in the pupil’s favourite KPs (Kindest People), and creating a school gratitude song, The Gratitutune. I had to write & record it overnight and teach it to 600 students over several school assemblies.
In November I directed Sing Your Life Speak Your Mind for the choir of elders Bolder Voices. It was devised by the company, with Clair Chapwell their leader writing the script from two days of workshops. This was a wonderful experience - the script turned out to be terrific, quite deceptively complex: a series of short scenes of people aged 22, 44, 66 and 88 that gradually began connecting through the show. The cast played multiple characters throughout, changing a number around their necks when changing roles to indicate the age they were portraying. It ended with them playing their own age, talking about themselves, connecting stories the audience had just seen to their own lives, and singing the final song ‘I’m Alive’. The folks in Bolder Voices were a joy throughout - they worked so hard, staying late, memorising lines, really taking all directions on board and just being altogether fabulous. A great project, and I’m grateful to Clair’s invitation and her terrific leadership of the group.
The year finished with a Christmas collaboration with Lorna Rees from Gobbledygook Theatre. It was a sort of blind date collaboration - thrown together by producer Natalie Querol who thought we would work well as a creative team. And Lorna turned out to be a genuine pleasure to work with - creative and funny and full of ideas and energy.First of all we made Turtle Doves as part of the Winchester Woolly Hat festival, 25 minutes on the lives and manners of turtle doves, dressed as turtle doves. Turtle doves get their names from the sound they make when they sing - not from the hard shelled reptile - turtle doves Turrrr. So all our Christmas songs in the show ended with us turring the chorus, and we had the whole Winchester Great Hall audience turring along to Auld Lang Syne at the end. Lovely.
We then met later in December to create the full length Christmas show for Bournemouth’s Shelley Theatre, called Bob & Lorna’s Christmas Party. It was a deconstruction of everything that happens at a family Christmas - presents, carols, games, a Christmas story, a wrapping paper war, a Christmas argument, (left over from the Turtle Dove show) and more. In the foyer after we hosted an after party with choirs, dancing, a full bar, board games and a dj spinning records…It was terrifically received - my favourite quote overheard was ‘That was the best ten pounds I ever spent!’ The whole team worked hard and got along well - Matthew from the venue, Natalie operating the show and spinning the disks, and Lorna and I bouncing ideas and songs and jokes off each other, writing links, making signs and props and just having a lot of fun. I’m still surprised that in seven days we created a full length show that I think was rather wonderful.In all it was probably my busiest year art-wise, with two trips to Wisconsin, a load of video editing and Ladder to the Moon workshops in there as well. Here’s to an equally productive and fulfilling 2017 to all...
