Archive | June, 2011
The twitter stats for #artstogether
29 JunAlmost 1 million impressions today…
Time for bed… Thanks to all who came, attended, dropped in, and made it possible MxA Banksy from Bristol and other tales #sxswace
26 Jun
Last week at the Creative Producers week in Bristol. I enjoyed discovering hidden gems on my walk up to Stokes Croft. I lived there some time ago when working as an actor, and loved my walk back in time up to Montepellier and Picton Street.
Lots had changed and lots hadn’t too. The Italian grocers Licata’s is still there and the service and bar at The Beaufort hadn’t changed much. The pizzas in Renato’s next to the Old Vic tasted as I remembered them…
Bristol is a great city, and the walk round the harbour to the Olive Shed restaurant was great. The Pervasive Media Studio is a brilliant and inspiring place to work. The whole of the ethos of Watershed and their team is truly transformational. A great week. Lots of connections, thoughts and ideas. And seeing some old haunts and friends was again invigorating and in more ways the gamechanging shift that I needed.
New ideas, perspectives and insights were what we were given
So – Onwards and upwards – and a big thanks to Jon Dovey, Clare Reddington, Dick Penny and Constance Fleuriot – and nor forgetting all the other 11 producers who gave their time and generosity during what was an amazing week.
Thanks to ACE, UWE and The PMStudioUK for making this happen
So here are some of my other images from the week…
Director’s Chair in the sun #dayoff
26 Jun
A beautiful start to the Sunday – breakfast coffee and sunshine. After a busy time travelling I am going to kick back and put some time aside to sit in the garden and try not to think about work for at least 24 hours. So til later…
🙂
Through the arch / with some new ideas #blogpost
14 Jun
Packed bags, boarding pass printed, garden tidied, emails done, sort of sorted. Not really though. Never really sorted, more of a continual cutting of the grass and sweeping of the leaves. It will need doing when I get back. It always does.
Been taking stock recently. What’s important all that sort of stuff. Writing again, thinking. That’s it thinking. Really thinking. Often we don’t get time to do that. To take time out. To think and to imagine. To exercise your imagination. To have ideas. Ideas that have value as Ken Robinson puts it, is to use your imagination creatively. How often do we do that. I don’t mean short term problem solving. What to have for tea, shall I open that email now kind of thinking. But more proper thinking.
In my previous life, working in the NHS we had to do lots of quick thinking. Examination, taking the history, asking the right questions, doing the right tests, which x-rays to take, what to prescribe, working out what the potential diagnosis could be. Putting the findings in the ‘surgical sieve’
Yep that’s the term for it. Throw all the findings in, all the test results, all the history. What falls through? Forget it. It’s not relevant this time. What’s left behind? – there’s your answer. The stuff that stays in the sieve needs to be investigated further. This will lead you to a diagnosis.
The same is true for me now. Only this time it is a creative ‘colander’ not a sieve. And this time I am throwing in ideas. The rubbish ones fall straight through. The ones that are good stick around, and in time can stick to each other. This stickiness stops them falling through the holes. So the ideas can grow and be further worked on and put through the tests. To see if they are the correct ones. The right diagnosis. The ones that have value – and are creatively imaginative.
This process takes time, and you have to force yourself to have ideas. To exercise your imagination.
It is what I have been doing recently, and I know TEDxYork will further help with this in terms of allowing some of those ideas to be challenged and tested, and for some more to be thrown into the creative colander. This is good. I am looking forward to it. As some may stick around and be really worth exploring with time and energy.
So through the arch the picture shifts, it constantly changes, and here I will sit until it gets dark. Then go inside. Turn off my computer and wait to be picked up. As in I the morning I am going to Dresden, to see our show and to meet friends at the Annual meeting of Platform.
Ideas will happen. Some may stick around. The ones that do, I will tell you about. The ones that don’t I won’t
Til later
Mx
Livestreaming from #wyptransform on Saturday June 11th – Join the conversation…
9 JunAs part of the Trans.Form festival at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Pilot Theatre will be livestreaming from the foyer on Saturday 11th June from 11am onwards. You can catch this and join the conversation by visiting our new streaming channel Pilot-Theatre.TV
So what is this all about? Well as part of Transform we want to widen the debate and open up the channels for people to get involved and join the conversation. To ask the questions ‘What should a Theatre in 2011 be doing? How can it transform what it does? What do you want to see how do you want to be involved? These are the questions that the producing collaborators Alan Lane, from SlungLow and Kully Thiarai, freelance Director, have put together, in partnership with Amy Letman and the West Yorkshire Playhouse team with their programme of work. The events and activities are there to catalyse, stimulate, inspire and encourage this debate.
So where does what we are doing fit into this mix? Well there are many people who can’t get to Leeds. Many people who aren’t able to be in the space to participate. Many people in this country and outside the UK who I think it would be vital to ask to join us and to add to the debate, discussion and join in the fun. Why not?
So, as part of our ongoing research into how digital technology can help to widen the reach, provide increased engagement and to see what this stuff can do, we will be working with our partners Kinura on the day to help us keep a livestream going and hopefully not falling over. On the channel there is a chatroom where discussion can take place, also we will be folowing and using the #wyptransform hashtag on Twitter and we will be encouraging the conversations both on and offline. Bec Storey from Pilot will be hosting the mic and we will be talking to people, and I will be there all day too, as well as following the live performances taking place.
As part of the schedule of what happens, we want to open that up to you. What is it you want to say? Who do you want to talk to? Through this crowd-sourcing we will be able to chat with the directors, performers, staff, audience about their thoughts and yours and explore ideas about the whole Trans.Form project. We will be building all the stuff into a new Storify project that will then be shared globally.
We will be keen to see how far the #wyptransform hashtag will travel, where people are watching the stream from, and what feedback starts to come in. Already I know that colleagues in the USA as part of the #2amt group will be joining us, so it will be really interesting to see where this will take us. Who we talk to, what ideas are transformed and above all who gets involved
Marcus Romer
Artistic Director – Pilot Theatre
Marcus Romer's work & blog 