Bideshi Number 1

Last night the rains fell heavy and long. This season’s first big rain. Sitting in air-conditioned dislocation only a mist was visible. Then the thunder and lightening came prompting me to slide back the glass wall onto steady-drumming steel splinters filling the thick green lake. The insects liked our light too much for that to last too long, and soon I retreated to bed to listen and watch the silver flashes catching watchmen prowling on rooftops like ramparts.

This morning the waters’ stagnant stench had been replaced by a freshness as they steamed us from below. The stilts of houses at the waters edge had vanished into the slickening depths. Further off only the tops of makeshift homes were visible, telling tales of another kind of dislocation.

- – -

The Beeb like to do things properly. To take care of their staff. To avoid all possible danger on our behalves. Drivers are engaged to carry us from door to air-conditioned door. Bell-bedecked rickshaws are considered a health and safety risk. Walking the 50 feet from office to bank yesterday I felt like I was breaking free. Morning schedules are tight, each employee being picked and dropped in strict rotation.

So upon receiving word that our driver was flooded in we waited the extra hour for our lift to work. Little did we know that his home had been destroyed – this news only came later in the day. For now we gasped and gaped at entire streets running under feet of water, at rickshaws riding through them, at people wading blind through waist-high muddy rivers.

In the sleek 7th floor office, business operated as usual. Hourly power cuts; cups of tea from the obliging team of Office Boys; an 11 o’clock meeting happily shunted to 12.

It was a meeting between the producer, myself and the casting agents that have started to meet actors on our behalf. We briefed them on the next set of characters to find and reviewed all the tapes we have seen so far. They will be recommending plays for me to see and setting up meetings with directors of all the major theatre companies here, as well as recommending which films and TV shows I should watch in order to see the best actors. Most importantly however they are going to invite me to all the right parties. I’m beginning to quite like this job.

The rest of the day was spent reading the draft scripts and transliterating them (from Bangla script to English script) in order that when I see the filmed read-throughs that are being made of each episode I will understand them without needing the translation in front of me. It’s extremely exciting, seeing ideas taking shape, thinking how best to work with the actors, imagining how it will look when it is finished.

The basic idea of the project is to create the best TV drama ever made in this country. It is not hard to believe that this is exactly what it will be. The production values, not to mention the budget, are higher than is normally conceivable here. Dramas are shot on the fly, actors being given scripts just before filming starts – if at all.

Taking up my scripts for Episode 2 a doubt slid into my mind. Once we have made this better-than-ever TV drama and captured the audience necessary, what will become of the on-the-flying directors and their rough-and-ready shows? Will the audiences go back to them once we are gone? Will they learn from our Beeb-xample?

Driving back through the deluge I wondered if the women hitching their thin cotton sarees high around their knees would really be best served by having a sexy new TV show to watch, or if our budget wouldn’t be better spent some other how. When our one operational driver told of how Jafur Bhai and Selim Bhai had been flooded out of their homes, and the production team tutted saying “well, when it comes to shooting we’ll have to get around this somehow” it didn’t seem to me that the highest priority in the country could really be herding an audience towards their TV sets in order to pass on a few words of English each week.

But what goes around comes around, and I certainly can’t complain. For now I shall invoice for my pay cheque, attend the parties and continue to enjoy learning many new skills. I submit to the waters and wait to be carried in the flood. Dekha hobe… we shall see…

new location?

yesterday was a big old bundle of inspiration.

swung by CosmoBar to deconstruct the installation i had left from the last show and to pick up the text of Where The Wild Things Are which i shall be performing at the Gung Ho Down in Brixton tomorrow night. then hot-footed it across to SOAS where i spent a couple of hours on the edit of the Fora das Correntes video. looking nice but there’s still a ways to go…

thereafter a brief meeting with the maker of the Gung Ho Down which got interrupted at one point by a phone call from a friend who had a ticket to Tunnel 228, the new show by Punchdrunk in association with the Old Vic, which is sold out and has been for a while. super excited i hopped the tube down there and met the carrier of the ticket in the queue.

hidden away round the back of Waterloo station, it seems like the prelude to a Shunt-like experience. though something was not quite ringing true. the people taking tickets were glum and silent in their balaclavas, not the least interested in making one feel welcome. part of the performance? maybe.

the warren of arches and damp brick walls were punctuated by some nice pieces of art. a big glass ball filled with what looked like a moving whirlpool of mercury; two bronze cherubs engaged in a fist fight; a balloon-strung body floating face-down in a watery lake; a writhing serpent of feathers, some marked with telephone numbers. curiosity got the better of me here and i called one of the numbers. was it a clue? part of the supposed play?

“hello?”

“hi. who is that please?”

“gordon sinclair”

“can i ask you where you are?”

“doncaster”

“umm, ok. i’m at a show in london and your number is printed on a feather in an exhibit. were you aware of this?”

“oh. Dear, our number’s on a feather in an exhibition!”

then the security guard:

“please turn off your mobile phone”

“ok. umm the show is by Punchdrunk and the Old Vic. i just thought you might like to know”

so, on i went and stood at doorways peering through letter-boxes, being told to move on by other security guards. every time i thought i had found a doorway to an interesting new world i was told “don’t go through that door”

having seen Punchdrunk’s Faust i was prepared to have to create my own experience – adventure, seek, follow – but i felt that here that experience never really unfolded. there were performers moving around the space interacting with objects and working machinery, rather than interacting with the audience. it felt somehow that we were extraneous, a bothersome distraction. and perhaps that is how we were meant to feel. at one point a girl was taken off into a little room inhabited by an old man and a glamorous lady. this ignited some curiosity but when it became clear this was an experience only one person would be given my curiosity became frustration.

Punchdrunk is a company of extraordinary performers, they have been given free reign to play and create in a remarkable space, so i rather wish that they had allowed us to experience a little more of that playfulness with them.

however, somehow this trip did act as inspiration for me. later that evening i was to go and visit a warehouse in Old Street that a friend is living in. he is a performer and we’ve been talking about putting something on there. and we at Secret Soirees we are looking for a venue for our next venture.

so, secrecy being key i shall not tell you much about the venue, save that it is to be accessed through a manhole in the ground – i kid you not – and is a maze of extraordinary performance spaces. small ones, large ones, all to be navigated by the audience member with the help of one of the performers. tasks will be given, individual experience will be key, and it will all explode in the end in a big bright extravaganza of sight and sound.

the space is home to artists who are planning an exhibition for the previous week, so the space will also be scattered with sculptures, paintings and installations.

i wish i could tell more but if you want to know you will just have to come along. this will be one performance that is not to be missed. Punchdrunk, we see you. and we shall raise your roof

The Midnight Run

Here’s what i wrote on the bus home:

And in turn we run
Free-form through the streets,
Informed by the beats our bodies throw.

Impressing the actuality of our selves
On the faceless face of a city.
Our city.
Carving new relations with its
Humanful, human-filled
Presumptuous mass
Which day-to-daily
Week-to-weekly
Rubs our souls away.

So by playing the games it gives,
By riding the rides it provides,
We catch back a patch of place.
Attempt to assume a formful face of our own.

And in taking, we give back.

From form to form
An agreement builds
Unspoken.

From you, solidity,
The ground beneath my feet.
From me, malleability,
A smile.
From you, a starting point,
A fertile earth.
From me, a hopping off,
A slide.

I shall partake of this agreement, then.

I Take Part.

You cradle,
I rock.

You build,
We deconstruct.

You pave,
We wave.

We run.

by kim-leng hills

pottery inspired by saint paul’s on the midnight run

this was written in 15 minutes (and polished up this morning) to the provocation given by jasmine cooray. thinking jekyll and hyde, what does st paul’s cathedral become at night? part of the mini-midnight run, a 6-hour exploration of the city conceived by inua ellams.

After Midnight (St Paul’s)

Dudes frozen in stone assume life
Hard-held postures melt
Faces animate to
Navigate threads of ancient discourse

Stones retake their original shape so
Cliffs shy upward from street
To sky

Trees blossom from doors
Pews, an altar
Green
Bursting from branches
Long-since lopped from hunks of inanimate wood

Carvings shrink away
Dissolving from form to
Formless
The shrieks which issued silently from
Sap-run splinters
Evaporate unechoed into thick night

Gold falls from statues
Running in powdery rivulets
Back to earth

And from where it sinks a hillside rears
Verdant
A jungle hung with vines
Swung by chattering monkeys
Circled by the bright-splashed wings of a bird

Water falls as it was wont to do

Worlds are reunited in a thought

Until dawn light seeps through cracks in streets
And the colours bleed back to grey

by kim-leng hills

got a balloon i got a balloon i got a balloo-oon!

so today was the day of mass flyering on the streets of clerkenwell (lunchtime) and shoreditch (evening). i shall be interested to see if we claim any new readers as a result of my shenanigans.

i unleashed myself (in the mold of Patsy-Whee) wielding balloons and coloured pens and tried what turned out to be a highly effective flyering tactic. not that i have undertaken such a task myself before, but of course we have all been accosted by flyer-ers.

being dressed as a child is one advantage – people think you are to be helped, you’re innocent and kind, and take pleasure in the joyfulness one exudes.

being dressed as a slightly scary one is even more effective (pencilled on lashes a little a la alex, clockwork orange) – people don’t want to cross you either.

bright yellow-orange-pink balloons and a similar outfit of course catch peoples’ eyes, so you can engage in affection-inducing from quite some distance away. so by the time they reach you/ you reach them, it’s almost like you have built up a relationship and they can’t turn you down.

now, the best part was the phrase “one for you!”. it fits perfectly with the child (like doling out sweets as a child: one for you, one for you, one for you…) and also makes people think that they are winning something i think.

so from the lunchtime clerkenwell rush to the nightime shoreditch buzz and a whole new crowd to play. one guy in the courtyard of 93 feet east, lowering, grabby:

“how old are you?”

“5 1/2″

“yeah? i’m 6 1/2. you wanna play with me?”

at moments i would be made to feel so vulnerable, afraid – at others like i was at one with all the world.

on my way to the not night at queen of hoxton i passed a pub with a group sitting outside.

“one for you! one for you!”

“oh thank you sweetheart!”

and a round of applause as i moved away. i grab the moment:

“do you want me to do my trick?”

“yeah, go ahead!”

i ask to borrow water on the table and take a slurp.

“are you going to spray it in our faces?”

mischief lights my eyes but i move away and tip my head back, and gargle Singin’ in the Rain. they laugh, cheer, and i go on my way. happy. at home.

leaving the queen of hoxton after dancing like a loon (highly influenced by the mashed up rhythms of a friend’s four year old) and befriending-ish almost everyone in the bar i was just walking away from the group by the door. a woman says to a friend:

“is she going to be all right getting home on her own?”

and then to me:

“sweetheart, will you be okay?”

at this point i feel i need to reassure them that i am actually an adult, going about my business, and that there is nothing to be afraid of on my behalf.

“i’m fine. i’m in character, but i’m in control as well. thank you though. thank you for your concern”

on the way to the bus i managed to claim a big yellow smiley-faced balloon (having left my bumptious bundle of them behind at the bar) from a lovely lady on the street. i had tied it to my wrist while carrying my bag on my shoulders so that when i got on the bus and tried to take my bag off the balloon made it impossible to take it off completely. so i tried climbing through the straps of the bag. for a while. by this point half of the bus were engaged. and then came the singing.

“got a balloon i got a balloon i got a balloo-oon!” by the time i had to get off i had finally made contact with one guy who had been looking low, lost and sad since he got on the bus, and who had not engaged with me at all. while there was a person standing between us i caught his eye and, smiling, mouthed “i got a balloon!”. he smiled back and i approached him.

“do you want my balloon”

“no. i don’t want your balloon.”

“but you look sad and the balloon is smiley and it will make you happy”

“i don’t like your balloon. (he has started to smile) your balloon’s annoying”

(my sad face descends)

“see look now you’re sad and you need the balloon”

“yeah. i need the balloon. you’re sure you don’t want the balloon?”

“yeah. you keep the balloon”

“ok. bye then”

“bye”

and as i walked off up the road a woman was leaning close to the window, waving solemly.

the streets became quiet again and i was alone, but happy inside for my day of interactions and fun. i wonder why we do shut ourselves away? and why when someone doesn’t people actually suspect you of being certifiable?

there must be more fun!

speaking of which, saturday night, this:

http://walkart.wordpress.com/artworks/the-midnight-run/

good night. sleep tight

xXx

we’re officially cool :)

http://lecool.com/cities/london/newsletters/current.html#event12264

and then and then

and then there was a break in which a lady doll came and threatened people slowly to music. this freaked people out an appropriate amount though the only shame of it was that we missed one important whee thing.

the guests had all been required to send us their very own childmares in either image or word form (some were more obedient than others) and of course people thought that perhaps this was one of them being enacted. but no. we were not that on the ball. in fact as most of them had come to us only that day or the day before we had not had time to bring them to life. but we have made the commitment to do so this Friday so keep your eyes peeled if you brought us one.

mr ellams then returned with a fine rendition of his magnificent piece Knight Watch. he’ll be performing it again on Friday so i shall say no more here, except that it must be seen.

finally i was heckled by passersby three stories down while singing love for sale to a bright full moon only lightly shrowded in cloud “yaaay, sing some more!” so i turned to them and belted a couple of lines their way. this must have been my favourite moment of the evening as it highlighted the newness, the strangeness of this thing we were doing, and brought the streets in to us.

the excitement for me in taking this forward is in making an entirely unique experience for people each and every show that we do. the venues will change, the themes will change, the format will change – it may not even be performance but could be an undercover laser fight on Hampstead Heath. these are the Secret Soirees that we want to bring to you – requests will be accepted and thoroughly examined and perhaps also executed depending on their potential – let us know what you dream of doing in London for the night and we shall see if we can make it happen.

cookies and a goodnight kiss,

r/i/p

xXx

Liberdad, Patsy Cole, Inua Ellams, Chrisalys

(leaving you with a sneak preview of the acts who will be performing in Patsy’sChildMare@THEWHATWORKS this Friday night. )

And Then There Was Fun

So, having set the scene (I may have forgotten about the wall of dolly faces covering the bathroom walls, the strategically placed potty, the Beano comics and the red water bath floating candles and rubber ducks) I shall introduce you to the characters at play.

patsy-whee

Patsy-Whee was running riot, wheedling the guests into playing games with her, and teasing the poor Nerd. The Nerd (all high-top pants and patched up glasses) was hiding behind his copy of The Twits and telling tales to Matron.

through the eyes of the nerd

Matron was running tricks in her tight black get up, red nails and hat. Guests soon came to understand this to be some kind of children’s home where the kids weren’t always treated with the utmost kindness.

the matron - control

After some time a story was told to the children “gather round…. They fuck you up your Mum and Dad” to which Patsy-Whee responded by singing I Wanna Be Evil, all the while tormenting the poor Nerd to within an inch of his life. Singing in such a small space (there were 25 attendees, a perfect number as it turned out) was a joy, unmiked, really being able to sing to each and every person.

i wanna be evil

The Nerd then rocked it with his poem, The Way of the Nerd, telling of the dreams and tribulations of Nigeria’s first cowboy. Spying from a bedroom the look of charmed affection on the faces of the audience pulsed me a warm glow and it felt Very Right to be here and now. There’s certainly something more special about performing to people in  home, I guess it felt for them more of a treat, more like it was jut for them.

the way of the nerd

Patsy-Whee stormed back on the scene, chasing the Nerd away and enacting for the audience her very first sexual fantasy. Now this was a tricky one to play but somehow it seemed to have been pitched just right, the audience enticed and shocked in equal measure. The transition was made far smoother by Shane Solanki’s reading a portion of the book “Childhood and Adolescence” reassuring that masturbation is in fact entirely natural and if supressed during childhood could lead to “true perversion”. Thank goodness for that, then.

solanki and sons - child psychologists

to be continued…..

Lowdown on a Childmare: Secret Soirees’ Very First Beginning

here’s how it went:

guests congregated at Stokey station at 7.45 to be pointed in the right direction by a top-hatted gentleman (trusty Robin the pianist saving our souls in an untold turn) and thence following the trails of our dearest dolly:

until they reached our door where little baby Eric was laughing and laughing as if he would never stop. upon entering a 40s cupcake lady swapped cake for membership fee and pointed them on their way along the paper trail – pages from books hung in a meandering line (past the wall of images of freaky dolls; past the paper-covered table strewn with crayons, felt tips and chalk) from door to the wall of dolls.

childmares

dollies and teddies (that we have hoarded and found over the last few weeks, and then lovingly abused with glue, paint, nails and cotton, swapping various body parts around and paying special attention to the creepery of their eyes) were propped up in child-painted paper-lined cardboard boxes, each also hung with a relevant page of text.

the text i had taken pages from were:

i like this poem (a collection for children from 5 to 15); a book of traditional international fairy tales; vile victorian childhoods; and a 1960’s psycho-babble about children, adolescence and their sexuality.

broken doll

beside the wall of dollies was a wonky television with The Wizard of Oz playing upside down, and plates full of fairy bread and monster munch were being handed round.

so this sets the scene – more on the performances when i have rested my tired and drooping eyes.

good night,

i/p/r/m/p

xXx

london’s best-kept secret

secret location party 8th may – deign scheme:::

mail the word Chucky to secretsoirees@gmail.com for further instructions…