Webinar Wednesday 2022:Know Your Place:working locally when touring nationally with Louise Blackwell

and so hi everyone and welcome to uh webinar wednesdays for dance professionals and this is a super exciting session uh with hills blackwell so um we'll introduce them in a moment and just right before we get started i'm going to do some housekeeping and but as i'm sort of doing that and you're listening it'd be wonderful if you could pop who you are your name and how you'd like to be described so either what organization you come from or what practice um you come from in the chat and so we can kind of have a bit of a social session uh for louise and and i'll get started on some housekeeping so cool so i'm polly cuthbert and i am the artist development coordinator at the place and i use she her pronouns and i'm behind behind me as a white wall i've got ginger hair and i'm wearing some sort of plastic glasses and i've got a gold nose ring and gold earrings and i'm in my mid 20s and i'm really really excited today to be joined by louise blackwell who will leave this session um about working locally when touring nationally and um yeah super excited to get started so you can have captions uh if you would find that helpful and then it's around the bottom of your screen um and you should see a little cc button and you just need to press that um to turn them on or off um and you may have noticed um we are joined by two bsl interpreters so lauren and caroline are with us and they'll be changing every 15 minutes and if you use vsl and you'll be able to pin them to your own screen if you find that helpful and we really welcome questions and comments so do get stuck in and we'll be monitoring the chat and um yeah so if you have any thoughts or reflections do pop those in the chat as we go through and we'll have about 10 minutes at the end for questions and so when it comes to asking your questions we can do this um in two ways so if you're a bsl user um and uh you'd like to ask a question using bsl um please use the raise hand function on zoom and then um you can use bsl and our interpreters will interpret it for you um or if you're not a bsl user or you'd rather type your comment you can pop that in the chat and um shona will be monitoring the chat and sort of saving up those questions for the end and so yeah that's it um hi louise welcome i'm i'm hoping you'll appear on my screen in a second yeah hi welcome and thank you so much for joining us and thank you very much polly hello everyone my name is louise blackwell my pronouns are she hair and i am a we met a white woman with um brown hair with a gray fringe and uh glasses with a with a purple frame but they just look they look quite like a dark frame and so i'm really happy to be here today thanks ever so much for for joining us um it's really really helpful to to see your how you're describing yourselves and what your practice is in in the chat um so it's it's if i encourage you to pop your name and and where you're from in the chat as um polly said uh but we're gonna get going um i'm gonna share i'm gonna talk for the beginning of the session um a bit about the specific place that place being crawley um and then we're gonna i'm gonna share some questions with you and for for a little bit of interactivity to ask you some questions and so hopefully they'll be um it won't just be me talking uh at you all the time and then like polly said at the end there'll be a chance for some from questions and answers as well um so if you have any kind of specific questions about what we're talking about and then maybe save those for the end um but like polly said feel free to to pop some things in the chat um so i am um an arts producer i'm a freelance arts producer and and i have worked in the arts for over 20 years i co-founded um and co-directed a producing organization a touring organization called fuel which still exists i did that for 14 years um and in the last few years i have been working freelance and working with lots of different um artists like clod ensemble and fevered sleep who i've worked with for many years i work with them at fuel as well as associate producer but also thinking a bit more about my doorstep about where i live and how i can be useful and where where where i live and i live in the city of brighton hove and i grew up in um crawley which is in west sussex and lived there for 18 years before i left and my parents still live there now so so part of my practice practice now is very much about thinking about inviting people into a place and working with people in that place on a on a long term basis and so this is what we called it know your place working locally when touring nationally and and i'm going to be sharing some thoughts and we're going to be kind of sharing some stuff about thinking about audiences um and thinking about what it means for you as a dance artist or i see there's circus artists or digital artists or all sorts of practices um in the room which is which is really exciting i work um cross art form so so um my roots and my heart i would say probably uh is in um movement-based theater um but i now work completely across cross-art form so um so that's exciting for me um so crawley a place in west sussex um here are my slides going to change maybe they're not going to change we can't have this one the whole time and that's a bit annoying that doesn't seem to be working um i'm gonna stop sharing so we can see everyone hello hi that's nice um and i'm gonna start sharing again um to see if we can make my slides move uh just so that there's a little bit of visual stuff and not just me uh chatting at you from the beginning let's see if this works uh maybe it will maybe it won't i'm just going to do that that's not might be a little bit annoying for you i hope that's okay and i'm sharing a bit of information about you uh but not about you about crawley um which is really to have to share the thought that if you are touring to a place um it's really helpful to know a bit about that place um and often it's easy to google stuff like this all of this stuff is from the 2011 census so very soon um there will be more updated information it's really easy to kind of google a little bit just to kind of find a little bit out about where you are presenting your work so you can try and kind of get under the skin of that place a little bit because it's hard isn't it when your doorstep as a touring artist is loads of different geographical places loads of different physical places and one of the things i i'm inviting us to think about is whether there is it's worth thinking about two three four places that over the next few years you'd really like to understand a bit better and you'd really like to take your work too and because i'm not suggesting that any of you have the time or energy or resources or team to understand a kind of a place in in detail but what i'm suggesting is that you might want to get to understand one place or two places or three places a little bit more over a period of time through working in partnership so i'm not gonna i'm not gonna go through all of this but there's some stuff here about how many people live in crawley and that there is about uh 20 percent of the population is is non it is non-white and 41 of all school-aged children and have a non-white british um ethnicity and so it just to get a little kind of understanding of what the um what the place is here are some pictures from some of the work that i've been doing in crawley which is about bringing arts and culture to public spaces so there's a town center there's a town square there there is a car park um in the center of the town uh what feels really important to me is trying to get to know who the key people are in that place that will help you make your work happen and bring it to people so that might be of course the person that runs the theater or the art gallery if there is one or the museum but it might also be somebody from the council uh who will let you do something on top of a building in the town centre or it might be the local youth leader who will introduce you to the local people um young people in crawley there's there's a range of primary schools and secondary schools there's a further education college there's two business improvement districts um which are really important organizations in towns and cities now that have basically are pull together a levy from all of the businesses that are in their local in their area designated area and they pay a percentage of their turnover each year that goes into a pot that then is used to make that place better and that might be through making it more safe or more uh clean for example but also in crawley that the lo the business improvement district and in other lots of other places around the country they also are investing in arts and culture i mentioned that because not not it's not kind of really broadly known that that exists but they're really important partners so there's gardens and parks there's nature conservation areas um there's community centres there's only one theater and it's a commercial theater there are two museums and two libraries in the whole town um there's a historic high street and there's four uh 400 retail landlords that own empty shops some some fall but empty shops in the in the in the town centre so that just gives you a sense of if you're trying to make work that is not in a conventional space this is the kind of picture and so talking about the town center which might be where a lot of your if you're touring to festivals um uh where a lot of the work happens it's pretty rare not not unknown but it's pretty rare that that work towards two neighborhoods mostly it towards outdoor work i mean mostly tours to to to kind of central connections and crawlies are kind of shops are really important in crawley there's about 3 000 jobs in the town center and there's a there's a few young people there's very high universal credit claimants in the town um i've been working with the bid to bring some joy uh to the town centre it's an amazing um crawley is an amazing kind of canvas because it's like there's loads of concrete it's a new town it's just 75 years old this year so um thinking about how we can enliven the town center is a really big part of what i'm doing at the moment um we brought uh the places production with red card and rosenberg's future cargo to memorial gardens a few weeks ago um and i can safely say it was the first time a piece of contemporary dance has happened on a 40-foot haulage truck in the middle of the town centre um and 250 people turned up and so um i've had lots of comments from people who live locally and particularly kind of counsellors and people who were like a little skeptical let's say about bringing this piece to the town who are who were really surprised that the residents rocked up so so my other thought at this point is think get to know your partners a little bit get to know if what their opinion is of um contemporary new work get to understand and and able and challenge them if if they say oh no sorry people don't like contemporary dance people don't like new work it's too risky all of those words are um ways of of stopping things happen happening and of course your partner whoever in the local place that you're talking to is taking risks sometimes so it's important for you to understand where your work fits i guess within that um kind of risk factor um so i think that's my little summary of crawley's a little whistle stop tour there but i just wanted to give you a sense of the kinds of things that i think about um when when working with artists to bring work into the town um and i just wanted to invite you to think for a moment individually for maybe like you know five minutes or so um really think about a project that you're working on or you have worked on or you want to work on in the future why would you like to take your project to this place could be crawley you could use that as an example or a particular place that one that springs to mind it might be new york it might be um beaconsfield it might be any anywhere it could be crawly take a few moments to think about one of your projects why do you want to bring it to crawley or wherever you you decide think about what the best environment is for your project what do you need why do you want it to happen in that place and what do you get out of presenting your work there i'd really like us to just kind of take some moments um i'm going to give some pictures to look at or let me know if it's useful to have those questions up actually it's up to you and to think about these three things why do you want to take your work to this to this particular place what's the best environment and why do you want it to happen there um yeah and we're gonna just take maybe three minutes three minutes to think about that so we'll come back uh i'll i'll ding a bell or say hello again at 20 past so write it down or type type into the into the chat and when we come back in in a couple of minutes then some of you might want to speak out your answers to some of those questions and but just take a few moments to yourself with a pen and paper or a keyboard um and think about these questions and also jump into the chat or just or just shout outs i can't see you or if you have any uh thing anything else you want to say or questions at this stage thank you show now for putting the questions in the chat much appreciated okay so does anyone want to share any thoughts um to these questions what particularly maybe why you having thought about the invest environment having thought about um uh the other question like why why do you want us for your work to this place um feel free to i mean it might be because i know that the festival has the most money to pay me that might be a reason and there might be other reasons too would anyone like to share what they were thinking about be brave and speak out or or you can raise your hand if you'd like to or you can raise your hand with the with the chat function or you can just type in if you were going to bring a piece of work to crawley why would you want to do that maybe you wouldn't and that's fine too saying no to places is also good if no one wants to share that's totally fine um we can move on to the next i don't mind sharing great thank you very much okay so for me my art practice or should i say the stories within my art has changed a lot over the last two years as a result of the pandemic and the black lives matter movement and so now with me telling older stories from my parents and my grandparents in clown form and with outdoor art it would really resonate with the mixed communities of crawley and i'm finding it hard to place myself in festivals because the people who go to festivals aren't the communities that my art is created for so when i'm telling those stories of what it was like being you know part of the british commonwealth back in the 1930s and 40s and those stories people within 40 will understand these stories and remember these stories but we'll have also have lost the confidence to share these stories so i want to bring that clowning to the real communities where the stories can continue to live on in their natural art form yeah fantastic and and that's you know audi because of the people who live there um is it is a really good reason and and i think um what you were saying just makes me think about uh there's a national program that the arts council run called creative people and places uh which some people might know about which is about um reaching people that don't engage with with arts and culture or don't everyone in my opinion engages with arts and culture in some way it's about yeah we won't get into that but um but but uh those places on that there's 36 of them or 39 around the country crawl is one of them it's a new one but it might be worth in terms of placing your work it might be worth looking at those places because they are often very very places with very very diverse communities living living one of the places on their map is a community that i founded which is under the a40 in west london oh okay the west bank yeah yeah okay great do you know all about it fabulous yes fantastic and um and the other thing that is interesting to me about what the about um what i've just kind of shared with you about crawley i think that it's really important to have a kind of asset based approach so to think about what exists there as well as what you are bringing so so um it might be that people there are not confident to share their stories but there might also have been some projects that have happened there that that are about sharing their stories so so that's another really important point that you kind of bring up really is about how when you're talking to your partners you understand what other projects might have and it might be like none um of course that might be answered but but how you understand what else is is there um and that might have existed before is it is a really good it's a really good point also encouraging what's there to be going to other places as well because it's important we don't just stay doing the work for our communities that we've created but sharing that to the wider audiences yeah absolutely so this this segways quite nicely unless there's anyone else that wanted to come in and share anything on that particular um moment we've got we've got three of these moments so don't feel left out if you haven't haven't um spoken yet but the um so the next thing that i wanted just to think about a little bit together is about why have you been programmed in this place like why might your partner be that the local authority or the local theatre or the library or whatever it is whoever your kind of key partner is what why might they want it to happen in that place and what will they get out of presenting your work there um again we'll just think for um yeah like maybe three minutes um individually about that those two questions so what why might a partner a theater a person that is running a business improvement district and a local car you know local arts development officer why would they want it to happen um in their place and what do they get out of presenting your piece of work in their place uh so we'll 28 passed we'll come we'll come back together what you can see on the picture here is a concert happening at the bottom of some escalators in county mall and crawley which is a shopping center and a portrait of a person that has that shared their story of strength and it was a project run by um charmaine child who some of you might know and we then blew up these these um portraits and and presented them around the town centre and shot windows which connected to charmaine's project our performance called stories of strength um or maybe just i can't remember whether her show was called that but anyway that she then did her performance as well in the in the town square okay so would anyone like to share their a bit of thinking even if it's unformed about why the person that is inviting you into their location might want to program your work and what they will get out of it feel free to jump in what are the reasons that people might katie are you going to come in i want i will i think um this is for a pizza in a process of making that's that we're touring in autumn and that it's based around club culture and works a lot of street dance street dances um so i'm looking for a place that has a club culture scene um and we want to establish links with this review music scene and djs and bring those audiences in and so i'm thinking manchester trying really trying not to think of places on arts council's priority places list which is very hard but yes i think in manchester and because of the crossover with the music scene in djs i'm thinking it would bring new audiences to a theater it's a diverse cast so it's kind of represents different communities and the piece is interactive so it also responds to and can be shaped by local communities um and you know there's not a lot of it's not a huge deal of dance performance that happens in manchester so also to help them kind of develop and profile more dance great thank you thanks for sharing that katie that's um that's great and i think you what your your point that you said fi the last point about um there's not much done i mean you didn't say it as bluntly as that but there's not much chance that that happens in manchester and so you might be bringing something new like that that feels like a really pertinent and and useful thing for in terms of starting a conversation because there might be lots of pieces of work that have happened in manchester the people that are developing a kind of club club audience and and also what is who is that who what what you know there's so many different um demographics that might that that might be um gloriously and and and also that the kind of involving um people in local people in in the work you know that's also something that's beginning to happen or not beginning to happen it's happened for donkey's years but is it has a particular focus at the moment it's it and so thinking about what your um it's not your usp i don't think but what what the kind of thing that might in that particular place mean that it's it's useful for that promoter to to start a conversation with you is is is really helpful i think and also i'm really interested in why just to hear from you why you wouldn't want it why you want to avoid the priority places i was just trying not to automatically default there for for kind of cynical reasons obviously they are in the in the bids but yeah i'm just trying not to not to default out of necessity and to think about it a bit differently yeah it's a really interesting point though because crawley is a priority place so so the government have designated sorry the arts council have designated a range of priority places that they want to um focus their investment on over the next three years um and also there is a an agenda that is called leveling up uh which i'm sure that you're you've heard of that phrase and kind of aware of it and so there's a series of other places that are also leveling up places direct that has been designated by um by the government um and there are creative people and places projects as well all in this area of kind of you know people need more culture there um or need to need investment in order to enable arts and culture to flourish and and i think like it's really interesting because particularly around the beginning of may linked to a particular arts council fund called which is the national portfolio organization fund which is a fund that is about supporting companies for three years and i got lots and lots of emails from people saying i'd really love to come to crawley um and it was so obvious and it's fine it's like yeah great but of course there's more investment here let's talk about that but it but for me it's about what is it that you bring and why are you interested in crawling not just about the money because actually there isn't any money yet like it's all to come do you know what i mean it's not like there's there's lots so so i think yeah that's it's an interesting and and important and kind of natural for as an entrepreneur you know as an artist and an entrepreneur wanting to get your work out there of course those places i think it's fine it's just about this is partly you know actually what this this chat is about in a way it's like just working out what the reasons are to to make those that aren't just without money can i ask you as a as somebody that programs other work then one of my kind of worries is that those places are going to be and the communities that they work with are going to be potentially kind of exhausted by incomers um and i worry about how much capacity programmers have to help independent companies build those links and really you know bring in participants for engagement work i've i've just kind of got this fear that certain venues and programmers are going to be kind of overloaded and just can't really connect visiting artists with communities in the in the way that they'd like yeah i think that's a that's an excellent question and it's for me it's also thinking about so thinking about your point of entry is so so the theater yes might be one but they what they might depending on how long they've been working in that place how what their resources all that stuff they they'll have some connections with like but but maybe there's some other ways of having a kind of gateway into those places that are not just to do with the arts organizations there might so in terms of people's capacity i think partnership working of course is that is the is the way to make it possible it might be that that theater doesn't program your work but there is a another organization that is i don't know i don't know what how your work is that is about a community center and that audience that you know it i guess that capacity issue could could be helped by thinking about not just the theaters um potentially um thank you um katie for sharing sharing that um much appreciated so the final um question or set of thoughts that i wanted to um share with you are um uh not coming from the screen here they are um so this is the this is about our people our audiences our spectators our viewers um why might they be watching your show or event um what brings them to your place what brings them to the high street what brings them to the theater what brings them to the local park how much do they know about your work do you think and how can you connect with them before during and after your event has happened um so yeah again just take a couple of minutes this time we'll be quick come back at 38 and think about the people that are watching or experiencing your work why are they there have they just stumbled across it because they're shopping have they seek sort you out because they're a massive fan and they're amazed that they're actually you're actually in their town think about why those people might be there something this is i was very delighted we got a free digital screen [Music] uh bit of advertising for future cargo in the middle of the town square which was super good um [Music] that's what this picture is hmm okay let's come back um to being thinking collectively rather than individually um anyone want to share anything about why the people that are watching or experiencing your work might be doing that and yeah we love future cargo i love future cargo too thanks katie for sharing that obviously i'm sucking up to the place because it's a place project so i'm um sucking up there go for it lucy and jim jim it's just sorry that's all right go for it um yeah well i was thinking that i mean i guess this is especially true post covid and i acknowledge that there's still fears and stuff po post covet is the wrong phrase but like in in the thick of code but people want to have live experiences with other people i think and especially with other people that they know in their community so whether they know you the touring artist or not they know who else might show up there and they might have a good time with that person or those people and also they might trust the the local venue or partner and kind of see everything there or at least go through their brochure and want to support that local venue or partner and then certainly in the case of the teeny tiny company that i run it it's unlikely to be that they know my work or our work but they might know stuff like our work and have a curiosity about that um and so we do a lot of thinking about without saying like we're just like this famous company that you know but not them how can we make that clear in our like in how we talk about the work and in the materials that they see before they might come yeah i think that's that's that loads of really great points there and i think um going out with your mates uh which is sort of what you're describing i think is is a is a kind of really good driver and thinking that um yeah that that might be a a driver for them coming to your piece and and and crucially i think that trust with the promoters certainly from from my point of view like how you try and build that trust with an audience over a long you know over 10 years um and and that you are so that you're at a point where even if people come to something and they don't like it it's okay because they're it's of a quality um or a kind of experience that that um they have come to know you as a promoter for like that i think that is a really really crucial thing and and it's worth having a conversation with your partners about that because about what if people don't like it i know that sounds weird but like how do you like that that it's okay but because sometimes there's just this weird thing that i don't know when we were touring you know some of the some of the um people that were running venues or whatever would kind of just not talk to us afterwards if it kind of didn't go very well and it's kind of like but let's talk you know it it's okay what we're making is new and unusual and uh often you know quite sometimes challenging work let's embrace that because if you want to be programmed you know if you want to be in places where where potentially like crawly not not a lot of unusual contemporary work happens it's going to be met with with with some challenge and so that sort of partnership and relationship with with that with that promoter um or whoever it is or or that community leader who's going to tell everyone about it is is really is really crucial um i think that's that's that's really helpful thank you thank you jim um anyone else want to share anything before we move on to i can't believe time is time's flying man um i think i will move on to kind of this um bit of question and i'm not gonna we're not gonna go away and think about this but but you touched on it jim is like what can you offer your partners in advance that will connect you more to a place so you know there's it's a useful thing like comparisons to if you know that people love matthew bourne in your i mean this might not be a relevant um a relevant analogy for your work but but if you know that um you know people enjoy the red shoes and the math and they also love reggie brett matthew bourne i don't know that how how you can you have that conversation with your partners about what do people like in crawley and of course that's a ridiculous question because it's multifaceted and there's not one thing but like what has been popular um what what you know what's the scene like is there a live music scene is there a visual arts scene what's the what what's the kind of vibe of and also that you know that of course that person you're speaking to won't know everything either like they'll have an opinion and so you sort of will have to um pick that a little bit sometimes too it's like okay this person says only these people like contemporary dance you know which often is um a kind of close way of thinking about things rather than like the people that have responded so far and but what thinking about what you can offer your partners in advance like really simple things and and i'm sure this is this is not you know there's no news for you but like if you um could even do an advance is it somewhere that's not too far from where you're based if you can go and take a picture in the local at a local landmark of yourself in crawley or you know if you're going to crawly but something that will kind of let people know that you care that you're that it's not just a kind of one-nighter which it probably is just a one-nighter and and there's only so many um you know one-nighters that you can really deeply get get involved with in terms of the location so so thinking carefully about your capacity but is there anything that you can think of that you know can you yeah can you can you share you know if your great grandmother was from the place can you share that if so like if you know there's only seven degrees of separation isn't there so how do we how how can you really kind of like even a tiny little thing um any little anecdotes i think really help to um to let yeah let the let people know that that that you care in these locations and that you're touring to um so i wanted to just before we go into the kind of questions uh little section it's just to share a few maybe three takeaways from from what i've been sharing with you so like i say like choose three five however many one place depending on what your capacity is like clearly kind of go for it don't expect that every single place you talk to you'll be able to have these kind of um deep sort of thoughtful thinking relationship so um you know maybe think about the next three years where do you want to spend most time um there's all sorts of reason we've talked about the difference reasons you might want to be in a place so it might you might want to spend the most time there but you might not want to spend that much time there but but for particular reasons it's important it's an important place and research research those places even just on google is good is fine and good but also discover you know ask people that you know who live there ask to try and find connections um that amongst your networks of if there's a company that you know that's toured there ring them say what was it like um just spend a little bit of time trying to find out about about those places and and probably the most important thing of course you will all know this i'm sure is find a local champion that might be someone from the festival or theater or arts organization that you're that you're working with or it might not it might be the person that runs the local facebook group that has 40 000 followers if they're your friend you know the venue or the partner is gonna wanna know that you know that because suddenly there is an audience for your work that they might not think there is that the organization might not think there is so so try and yeah kind of think uh broadly about about who that um that local champion might be um and very finally before we go to questions and i'm gonna stop showing my screen so we can see each other here are um our or my one of my um ways of getting in touch and and finding a bit more out about creative quality so creativequality.com or the the creative quality handles on twitter and facebook i think they are um i'm going to stop sharing uh thank you louise thank you thank you that was great i'm super um informative and great to see so many place projects that keeps coming up um i am wondering if we will just want to take about a minute for people just to pop questions in the chat and so yeah if you have any questions for louise please do share them and we'll work through them and feel yeah don't feel free to keep your camera off or on it's it's fine it's fine by me um either way um yes there were i think two were there two place projects in there chicago and say i think were the two that were that were there um you know that's that's that's because i like dance you know that there's it's also there's so much isn't there that's about personal preference in terms of um i mean it's not just because i like dance it's also because i think that it has a powerful way of connecting with people that is is bigger than that is sometimes more useful than language than physic than spoken language um but yeah that's the other thing is like finding out what your partner's um tastes are and of course as a programmer and promoter it's not about ever what you like what what i like particularly but of course there will be there's always a there's always a bias there's always is i i think that we try desperately to work i try really hard to work with lots of different people who who have different tastes from me and that feels important but but also yeah if we i enjoy conversations uh with dance artists that's for sure i mean i guess if there aren't any questions and my question for you kind of follows on from what you've been saying and is there a project that what has been your favorite but you have felt has had like the most impact in terms of the places that you've worked in if you can measure that in a way that you do so maybe that's a question of two halves like do you have a favorite project and then what's had the most impact oh so um two things come to my mind um one is that when i was at fuel i i instigated um and worked on a kind of touring program that was called new theatre in your neighborhood which was about working specifically you'll kind of see a little thread and it's one of the reasons i left fuel is to kind of focus on my neighborhood rather than being in neighborhoods around the country but but um uh we worked in six different locations around around the uk in this kind of more deeper deeper way you know with with some with with a significant amount of resource from the arts council and esme fair burden foundation and working in preston in um lancashire was one of the moments where i was like ah whoa there's loads more than i'd ever thought about this thing and we we over three years we presented so we commissioned new work made about that place or or by people in in that place and then like i think katie was saying earlier and then that work then toured uh fuel then then toward that work so in terms of impact like i feel and we work really hard with local artists at the beginning of their career in preston and i see the ripples of that still around the country in terms of those makers that we've started working with i'm not saying it was fueled it wasn't just us it was it was low it was about the kind of local infrastructure that was there to kind of support those artists but but like a little what what i love is thinking about a little and and this is perhaps a way of thinking about touring your work is kind of like dropping a little um a droplet of water that you're the kind of droplet that goes into that place and then kind of can create some ripples that that other people can take up that can take the baton to mix them with metaphors all over the place here but and can take the baton up and and carry on something that you might have started or instigated so it's not because that's the other thing it's like what i'm saying is you know you haven't all got a responsibility to kind of have these long term like really in-depth relationships with loads of different places around the country but but but thinking slightly more um strategically perhaps about about where you do want to try and build those those partnerships and and then where you're just kind of drop dropping in and what the impact of that can be um and the other thing the other thing that um [Music] in terms of impact i worked on a project over many many years with claude ensemble who are a musical movement um company uh called red ladies which was a project with 18 women um dressed in redhead scars red stilettos black sunglasses and black macs um and we the red ladies uh paid attention to the particular places that we were in and and um uh were were placed on top of buildings played drums in the middle of the stair of town squares of kind of encouraged people to look at their environment in a different way um and i think that that in terms of like you know the kind of feedback from people and the moment like that that joy in kind of discovering a building or discovering a place a new for local people through outsiders coming in um yeah was was a kind of thrill thrilled to work on that really i always think it's so wonderful when you have an encounter like that as an audience member and you can you're like oh that street at that place is where that thing happened that one time yeah but it was to do with art and it does change your perception of an area which i always think is so magical about site-specific work and work sort of in public space i think that that's really exciting and yeah especially if it has anything to do with red stilettos yeah do we have um any other questions um for louise and would anyone like to speak them i think jim's got a question hi sorry uh to talk again but um i just wanted to pick up on something that you said earlier and maybe dig down a little further and it's about um venues or and partners of any kind who might well the example you gave is they don't talk to you after because um it was weird or or whatever um an experience that i've had is like a repeated experience and i bet a lot of people have had is particularly with that particularly with dance there can just be like a a red x that goes up and it's like our audiences don't like it we've not built the audiences um and we've definitely taken with some success attack of like we could be your starter dance piece and we're really friendly people and we've got a whole program of like engagement so like why don't you try us first and that that has some success but i just wonder if you have other examples of even yes just like yeah yeah yeah we don't do that yes i mean when you said that i thought uh a good uh uh my instinctive comeback is like do people in your place like dancing you know it's a natural thing it's just like okay wait you don't there's you can't we're not having dance because the the kind of step from and it's also about what you call it it's what you call it also so so one and i don't mean in a sneaky way but we didn't call future cargo a piece of contemporary dance um we talked about the 40-foot we talked about the experience of it um and i i don't i i am i feel like uh what happened so so people walked up and then there was a conversation about with a few people afterwards where i was like ah the um they went oh well that was that was quite a kind of like avant-garde piece of work wasn't it or well that was quite a kind of oh that was that was contemporary dance wasn't it and and i'm like yeah yeah let's have that conversation then and so so i feel like how the language around what what you describe it as is is powerful and i i feel conflicted a bit about that because you know it's dance that's what it is but but um there are there are barriers we know and i think that's also about like how you trust your how you trust how you find the right people to work with because also like you bang on the door tons of times and people keep saying no like give it up like go and find someone else who wants who wants a more interesting thing like a conversation because i i i've tried you know and then far and then and then you may find that they could end up coming to you um because of how you know i know that i'm talking about kind of long game potentially but that your time is so precious and your work is important and so if people just keep saying no even if they're the you know high-profile rich whatever festivals like prove to them or not prove to them because you don't have to but like but but do your stuff find people who are interested in what you do because otherwise it's very very demoralizing i find i don't know if that answered your question yeah absolutely thank you anyone else we've only got three minutes left good goodness me does anyone else want to um ask anything before we say goodbye that's fine if not um well if no one else has any questions um just to say thank you so much louise and that was super super interesting and great to hear about the kinds of work that you do and thank you to and caroline and lauren our bsl interpreters have done another smashing job today and and thank you all for coming and it's been great having you here and we have three or two more webinars um coming up so do check them out on our website and they are every wednesday until the beginning of july and so yeah thank you all so much for coming and yeah some nice comments thank you for spending an hour with me and thanks for inviting me polly much appreciated thank you everyone bye everyone hi hi thanks that was great so i think what we've been doing is we've been kind of staying on the call but just turning cameras off and have a little half hour break fine and then um yes they did yeah probably didn't say that beginning right

2022-10-27 06:27

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