A few more photos... memories of Summer School

Save the Last Dance...

Save the Last Dance...

'The Last Train for the last Waltz'

The Barefoot Doctors Summer School 2011........was an absoulte joy to be apart of , I'm very happy to have met lots of like-minded creative indivduals.  Through an exciting and creative three days this has allowed me to renew my creative juices and allowing great ideas to grow. It was another discovery gateway for me as an artist and has enabled me to realise that I can take inspiration from absoultly anywhere :).


The piece I helped create was inspired by the one of the verses of the song 'Take this Waltz' by Leonard Cohen, intertestling enough the inspiration that Leonard Cohen took to write the lyrics for the song, came from the poet Federico Garcia Lorca and the poem is known in English as 'Little Viennese Waltz' . I in turn found this exteremly inertesting and saw this as almost like looking through a window, or a journey of sorts.


And so in my groups mini film/performance of our inspiration/journey that orginated from Federico Garcia Lorca poem, which then became a beautiful music and lyrical piece to then again change into a visual and at times aural stokie piece. I found great enjoyment at mixing different art-forms that of old and new to essentially create a piece of live art.

Oh.... the hokey cokey.....

Well, it is now Friday.. on Tuesday I would never have anticipated reaching Friday... but thats how it goes with weeks I suppose, espescially one's that involve B-Arts and the Barefoot Doctors Summer School! Day Three: Tying together of all our work from Wednesday and performing it live on t'internet... interesting visual effects due to live streaming, adding to the mystique of the performances :-) Each individual giving something different to each piece and each audience member taking something individual with them from it too. Just shows that when you throw a bunch of creative people together that they'll come up with 2+2 = infinity. Even the spaces between the pieces were filled with creativity of some sort.. the dance of moving tables and chairs, the dance of setting up equipment, each intermission choreographed with movement.. would be nice to see a time-lapse of the whole event to watch the rhythms of everyone. Each individual performance piece was outstanding considering the time contraints involved and proved that creative people don't just add creativity they multiply creativity by a million! A lunch of soup, bread and salad, everyone open and chatting, several conversations about life, the universe and all inbetween. Discovering similarities and differences and finding that each person utterly supportive of each other. Now to Flashmob hokey cokey!!! I had taken it upon myself to tag "Newcastle Town Centre" in my facebook status update that morning.. just to see if it would have an impact on what we were doing... the message went out: "Flashmob hokey cokey 4pm Newcastle Town Centre" The pixies of mischief were fully in control. The interesting part was trying to look inconspicuous and at the same time hang around ready for the "signal". The new sweet shop seeming to be a favourite haunt of potential hokey-cokey-ers. So carried away was I with the plethora of confectionary, I nearly missed it.. Luckily the Guildhall reminded me, with its chimes! On your marks.. get set... go!!! It was over far too quickly... the little boy who brought his toys to it, the dog tied to the man's belt (the dog loved it!!!! It would seem that Dog's really "get" what B-Arts is about... such is their sense of humour). Phew!! Its over.. HURRAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Time to melt into the background! "What was that all about?" I was asked, "Is it going out on YouTube?" asked another.. such is the power of social media. It touches all our lives whether we realise it or not.. Social media, blogging, Online home made movies, and all the rest were once the domain of the "geek", the "nerd".. the socially isolated, who used it as a means to communicate with their friends.. Its now been adopted by the whole world... this world has now shrunk.. it is smaller... it is however, still full of possibilities, the infinity of conciousness that can come together for a few days and create together. A group of strangers who have become good friends. Individuals who through social media will continue to create, share projects and go out into the world!!! Thank you Barefoot Doctors Summer School, thank you B-Arts... for inspiring, giving space and time to allow for this to take place. ((((HUGS)))). rofl.

Well that was fun...

Great week with you guys. Kinda want to build a house of creativeness and have us all live in it. By the sea...of tranquility.

Summer Lovin'- had me a blast, Summer Lovin'- it happened so fast!

Three whirl-wind days where strangers became friends.
We would like to thank the amazing group of people we have had the pleasure of working with these last three days. 
You know who you are 
Thank you for displaying such a willingness to share your ideas, collaborate and create magical and beautiful moments with your candles and incense, the senses of sounds, seeing her memories in a ghost coat with the feasting pigeons and the journey of their dance.You know what we mean.
Thats what it's all about...!
Flashmobbing Newcastle  - Relive some of it with Ustream
Don't forget to tag us in your facebook photos
We'll carry on uploading stuff over the next week - so please do keep calling back to the blog and leave your thoughts over the next few days - once you've had chance to get your breath back !

Live action.

Info on how to see the live streaming of all your hard work tomorrow
Streaming Instructions (this post will take you via facebook)


So tell you friends to gather around their computers this will be the one they don't want to miss!


Plus we are flashmobbing in the town centre tomorrow at 4pm. 
Definite location to be announced here on the blog, on twitter and on facebook tomorrow. 


So tell you friends they can either join us or avoid us !!!


We're going to have so much fun tomorrow
 - thats what its all about! 
OOOOoooooooooooo.........

Responses to performance pieces

As a group, we have been working on a performance piece in response to object-driven performance. We had to tell stories etc. with random objects, and then come together for a big performance later. We decided to highlight the use of the internet and digital media through sharing information in the form of objects to represent various things people put online.

Are we all good to go?

People are about to show us their responses to the great performances they have just seen. Are we OK here Carly - This is my interpretation of the world - Clapping - We are just watching them and doing them - Are we alright here Tone - Yeah what ever - Cool - Slamming - Clapping - Laughing - Are we alright here Susanne - The buses just went quiet - Clapping - You say you are innocent so talk - You don't say much do you - I'm here if you need me - Clapping - You just eat boundaries Susan - Army coat in the courtyard - Silence - Flash! - Laugh - Clapping - Shall we all hide?

current pics

connections

So it's just after lunchtime and the room is heaving with conversation and making, tearing paper, snatches of working chatter come past me like "Are we going to do this with no words," 'Shall we shout out?", "make it quite simple","maybe it's like a work bag". "this is what punishment for kids was.." We have all spent the morning open space-ing our digital landscape,making connections and working out how to join up- so many things- reconciling the public and the private, how do we engage and make the world wide web and engaged and creative space- not just a platform for ranting, mind games and pretence of the least positive kind. A definition of performance is about to be redefined. Here we go Susan

...a bit nervous

Tuesday 9-12 - feeling mild anxiety about going to the first morning of BD, but also excited. When I did a BD workshop a couple of years back, I made several really good friends, who in some cases I went on to collaborate with on artsy stuff.

So the nerves are the usual social anxiety - will I fit in, will I cope physically (particularly will I get too tired to cope?), have I got stuff to offer? Only one way to find out I suppose - finish breakfast, get my stuff together and get off down to the Barracks...

Summer School 2011

Morning everyone

Here we go then

Into the largely unknown- because who knows what this group of people on this day can create!

We're getting hold of the tools and we're off and running

Good luck and good connections to us all

Susan