When you think about your own processes for making a ‘performance work’ do you have a formula you follow or is every piece a different process?  

My performance process relies a lot on 3 things.

1. How complicated the application process is, for the show /festival/residency. Read what is my level of energy.
2. What I’m figuratively working on or with, or thinking through at the time of the application process.
3. And what the actual physical /performance space, location, feeling is AT THE TIME OF PERFORMANCE.- which can completely undermine what I said I was going to do in the application process.

and how do you think process informs the end artwork?

hmm.. So I largely work within an improvisation framework; which can scare a lot of programmers, so I tend not to share this aspect of my performance process.

However, the way you feel is influenced by the architecture surrounding you, by what you’ve eaten recently, who you’ve hung out with, what literature you’ve been reading,  etc, etc… Just like a child right? So how you feel although in a way isn’t what you want to necessarily perform, nor do you want to watch it but it becomes apart of the work.

A really good improviser has the ability to summon up Context and Content, that is relevant to the place, the time and the people/audience, whether the audience know it or not.

I often like to walk through or near the performance space before hand, alongside going last in the program, there’s a lot of stuff sitting in the atmosphere, and it’s nice to make magic with the seen and unseen, the heard and unheard…

Also there is a lot of letting go that has to occur, and on the spot crafting.  There’s a weird split that happens in self, – like you’re channeling and at the same time watching yourself channel – this is so you can use semi familiar theatrical structures and aspects of stagecraft,  that helps you connect with the audience. It is necessary to know and be aware of say the use of timing, pacing, narrative, scenography remembering what you started with… the relevance being so you can recognise the ending when it approaches. Mostly there is a lot of praying that goes on.

But seriously;

I have an ongoing process /practise, that requires going into a studio and staying there for a length of time – each week. In a good week I go in twice, I’ve done this for the last 4 years. I also add a residency of 4 days or more about every 3 months or so… this is necessary, because during the day, I work as a nurse, and it is full on. In many, many ways the nursing gig can deeply deplete me in every way.  This practise is sustenance.

The performances are the pot at the end of the rainbow... So there has to be place to study and transition the work and/or the ideas, otherwise it falls into indulgence. There is a need to work with others. Within this practise I’ve had the privilege of working with a small group of other movers/ performers, weekly for most of a 4 year period.

This year the journey has been very much a solo one and it’s really really hard- to get a sense of what is building and or what is present.  Also most of the performing I’ve been doing this year has been in other artist’s work, which I have loved because it gives an opportunity to explore creativity and vision in a different way, I’m looking forward to doing more of this but there is a balance that needs to be maintained, which requires discipline, if I don’t all sorts of mental health stuff happenings occur and I unravel into an angry fiesta of a beast…. 

I’m over giving myself a beating for  the way I need to exist, I’m here and this is what I need, to be community spirited and able.