Wednesday 30 September 2015

comments from Contrasts and Overview

I have sat down to write an Overview and remembered that comments from Saturday have been shared with Shallal 2 but not yet on here.

So Contrasts first.
Thank you to everyone in Shallal 2 for facing the challenge of access to St Ives, worth it but a struggle, we came by car and train!
Thank you to Chris Hibbert, Lou Brett, Arts Council England, Henrietta Boex, Falmouth Art Gallery, Colin Curbishley, Naomi Frears and Lucy ( artist last in the lovely big Studio 5 that we used), drivers, family and friends.
Anna and Skye, tired but available, came to join in again, they are missed now they are at college and n/a on weekday dance days.

The show was really well received and we had a full audience of approximately 40.

Audience Comments
"delightful, uplifting" 
"Heart lifting, Soul enriching, mesmerising

for the first time we did an encore! as the audience were very appreciative, and we had Chasing Pavements 'up our sleeve' but not in the programme of work.
Thank you to George for filming it, we have no photos but look forward to seeing the film..
Donations collected were just under £100 with half going to http://www.paih.org/ Action for refugees

(for local insight see: http://www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/news/13792923.Falmouth_teenagers_on_holiday_saw_the_frontline_of_Europe_s_refugee_crisis/?ref=fbshr
Anna Munden is now training at Bristol Old Vic and performs with local Pipeline Theatre Company http://www.pipelinetheatre.com/
Congratulations to them for rave 5 * reviews from Edinburgh Festival)


Onto Overview:

Yesterday Shallal 2 met and discussed another small Christmas show, and Mazz has joined us recently! after watching shows for a few years.

Today Colin and i go to Dance in Time at Dartington http://www.danceindevon.org.uk/event/dance-in-time-2/ - the joy of CPD for an affordable £10! - really looking forward to it.

There are lots of possibilities from Contrasts and Shallal Studios Residency at Porthmeor which finished yesterday. I can't do it justice but the last 2 days meant a lot as we had an emerging graduate artist Lily stay with us, (she drove from Shropshire to work in the studio for 2 days!) Lily loved meeting with and working alongside everyone. Yesterday we arrived to collect furniture and Zoe and Toby were photographing a beautiful swan drawing of Zoe's.

This morning i open my emails to to one from Jane at Back Lane West - can't wait - our next Cross Art form residency called Cross Currents, which includes a possibility for artists to participate in workshops run by Cinestar, http://www.cinestar.org.uk/which Jo Mayes ( who we worked with in re mapping st ives)  co -directs.

Yesterday Colin told me Express Yourself had an excellent clay workshop, i look forward to hearing about it today.
On our journey we will dream and scheme around our community groups and developing more outreach and potential new work in new areas.

Welcome to Matt Leach our new business manager! 

Cornish Doorways full steering committee to meet soon, and John Keys coming to chat on Friday at main co.

Plan to meet Laura from EMMI soon http://www.emmiworkshops.org/about-us.html )

Meeting Belinda Whiting re Doorways photography next week.
New film camera coming soon to main company via Barbara, when we last had a camera some wonderful novel work was done.
George editing photos for youtube looking forward to it!
Potential to hang Andy Parker's exhibition of large black and white photos at Porthmeor Studios.

Late notice, that i was accepted to give a Provocation for 10 mins - no powerpoint - at AHSW Conference on 17 November. It will help me refine my ideas and increase my experience of talking to larger groups, this time my main plea is for accessible community groups as progression from targeted groups, including some overview of running inclusive community groups and approaches/ methodology for that.
We also hope to disseminate what we have learned in Shallal Shared and Always New research.
......................

Shallal Studios blog can be found under more on their website www.shallalstudios.com, watch out for online exhibition of art work from the residency coming soon!!

Many thanks to all the artists who enabled it to be such an enriching time for us all, with many new partnerships formed from it. What we have learned and the impetus will help to inform us in our desire for a permanent inclusive arts studio in Cornwall.
I have an artists statement for my work with the main co, and hope to write soon about the impulse for Shallal Studios.





Sunday 27 September 2015

Documenting Eddie, Zoe and Lydia photographing earth fire wind etc placs at Newlyn Gallery.


 Demelza and Jo went out with  Eddie, Zoe and Lydia sketching and photographing earth, fire, air and water placs at Newlyn Gallery. 
Thanks to Demelza for the following photos.
Passmore Edwards built the gallery and we hope to perform there in next years Newlyn Arts Festival and or make a dance film from dancing on thh steps of the old entrance - we shall see!
We hope Eddie might create a body of work in response to them and Jo has ideas for clay plaques, so we look forward to it all. 
Barbara was in in the afternoon, introducing the photography, film, recording side of the Doorways project. We hope to soon have in our hands a new film camera which she discussed with us, our old one was from 2005 and couldn't be repaired 3 years ago, so we look forward to being able to film again and seeing everyones response to using it.
Eddie with sketchbook


Lydia with her ipad



Zoe with her camera she won from a competition!







Photos by George from visit to SculptMotion Dance Paignton


All  the photos can be viewed on our Facebook page

sharing skills and approaches in morning workshop

SculptMotion rehearsal

Tom rehearsal

Friday 18 September 2015

Contrasts by Shallal 2 at Porthmeor Studios

As a creative off shoot to Shallal Studios successful Residency at Porthmeor Studios, Shallal 2 will be performing Contrasts again.

Contrasts 
by Shallal 2
3pm Saturday 26th September 
at Porthmeor Studios, St Ives.
Entrance is free.
Donations to Shallal ( Shallal 2 are currently unfunded) and to www.paih.org who help refugees.


Contrasts explores the themes of light and shade, urban and coastal landscapes and artists at work inspired by Porthmeor Studios, St Ives.

Saturday 26th September is the last day of the entertaining St Ives Festival, and Studio 11 home to the visual arts residency will be open before and after the show in case you miss the Open Studio Days so come along and make a day of it.

Shallal Studios Porthmeor Studio residency now has 3 Open Studio days,
 information on www.shallalstudios.com blog
19 September 10am - 3pm and 20, 23 September 10am - 5pm.



SculptMotion Dance at ROC creative

What a fantastic day out on Thursday, some of Shallal dance Theatre went to visit SculptMotion Dance at their home in Paignton, Devon.
Colin, Zoe, Jonathan, George, Sam,  Jo L, Star, Trevor, Kerry and (welcome back) Demelza and myself set off early. Everywhere is far from the tip of Cornwall and approx 2 hrs later we arrived for tea and warm up, exercises/sharing, lunch and then watching, sharing and feedback session for their new work, and our new approach with George.
When we left they were discussing employing a musician so George was a "hit."
Their work was strong, entertaining and committed and we all learnt a lot from each other and hope to continue the relationship, we just need to plan and dream the next opportunity.
We wish them well for their new show in November and would love to see it.

They had a lovely large hall, art space and photography and create music, one piece was in the show.

I enjoyed some of their work so much i was too engrossed to take photos but here are some memories of our day.


last improv with found props, love the suitcase!

George was a "hit"

Kelvin's strong performance in SculptMotion's tango memory piece, i so enjoyed watching i only got these snaps as it was repeated.


Monday 14 September 2015

Thursday visit to Sculptmotion Dance, Open Studio for Porthmeor Residency, and some Art AMATA residency photos

After lots of trying we plan to meet with SculptMotion Dance this Thursday. A day trip to visit them at their home at Paignton Theatre, with 10 Shallal Dance Theatre dancers, George and myself.
This fulfils some of our hopes from the residency of sharing practice and they will also show us work for their new show.

A welcome back to Demelza after her travels and sadness in the company as Anna and Skye have timetables which don't give them Fridays free so they will be absent while at college, but we wish them well with Art and Design ( Anna ) and Music (Skye ).
There are plans to try to do Contrasts by Shallal 2 at Porthmeor Studios which they can perform in, and our new approach with George allows them to drop back in whenever possible.

Shallal Studios successful Portmeor Studio residency now has 4 Open Studio days, do get along if you can more information on www.shallalstudios.com blog
16, 19, 20 and 23 September 10am - 5pm.

Here are some photos i didn't get to blog earlier from our AMATA Shallal Shared residency.

Toby centre and some responses to figures by other artists

more abstract responses

Belinda Whitings photos from the residency are now up on our FB page.

Belinda and George have had creative discussions and we plan to have a showing of images to music from the residency up on Youtube soon.

Main co diary reminders:
25th September        Barbara Santi ( film, photography, editing etc ) coming in the afternoon
2nd October              John Keys artist/producer coming to chat in the afternoon

9th October              visit to Godolphin House 
time Arrive 9.30am - 10am  
10.15am - 12.15pm workshop with Anna Marie Murphy

Passmore Edwards

Well what a wonderful way to start this term when we embrace Doorways project and begin at Blackwater Village Hall.
John Passmore Edwards was born in the village. Dean Evans gave us an illuminating slide show and i cannot do his life justice or thanks Dean enough for all his work to preserve his legacy and remind us of such a great and good man, who wanted to be "useful."
In his lifetime he was called Mt Greatheart.
When i went around at the end of the afternoon it was really good to see how everyone had picked up different aspects of his life and expanded on them. I look forward to seeing how the company develop their ideas.
Dean Evans and Peter Kirby outside the newly refurbished Blackwater Village Hall. Passmore Edwards grew up in Blackwater

Interesting slide show with food for thought.

some of our highlights and inspiration from the talk

Portraits of Passmore Edwards when he was older, building Hospitals, libraries and more, pathway through life and inspiration, he was at his desk before 7am till after 7pm, the influence of a girl selling drawings of bricks and the 3 pasties he took to his first job with him, are some of the images we have
"I thoroughly enjoyed working with your group today. You are all so enthusiastic. See you again soon."

Dean Evans 11.9.15