Embodying the pathway towards writing Pink Granite (Part One)
Let me take you on a journey pealing back the layers of time to show you how my new book Pink Granite is coming about. This is the first of two posts documenting this journey.
Early in 2023 I worked with M.A. students at Salford University. I have done this most years since 2016. I share my practice, and lead them in explorations within their own practices. I usually record the session because it often crystallises for me where I have arrived in my own work journey. I run the session according to my intuition working with a light structure.
This particular session came whilst I was engaged in the year-long project group led by Sandra Reeve in Dorset. You can watch the recording of my lecture/demo in five short sections here.
This filmed reflection formed the basis of what I presented for the Open Space phase of my work with the project group in Dorset halfway through the project group year. During that phase I projected the film on a large screen moving live with it and inviting the participation of the group members. I filmed that session too then developed the new material into a crystallisation which I shared later in the developmental year . You will see in the film I split the screen to fold in the new material within the workshop space. You will also see the beginnings of written fragments that were emerging.
From June 2023 onwards I was writing, writing writing. It seemed like layers of rock were emerging and that I was quarrying my own process.
Working with Sandra Reeve’s project group (Move into Life) was my second experience of extensive devising in a group collaboration where people were following their own creative threads for their own work. The first experience was in 2014/15 when I made the outdoor walking performance Little Blue Man, a mourning for my Dad. If you are interested to look at that, it is below and there are nine films of that process.
The second experience of the project group was very fruitful in facilitating my reflections on 30 years and more of creative work as I branched out into the new creative challenge writing my second book, Pink Granite. I write from the body and it was important for me to embody this new story. So, for my contribution to the collectively constructed work I set myself the challenge of weaving my reflections and a new story between and sometimes within the projects of the other group members. This produced 12 stage posts which I condensed into a film, although the actual performance was live. The film, which I will share with you in Part Two, and the final performance/sharing at the Project Group final weekend, became my reflection on ageing as a performer leading me to explore ancestral roots into quarrying. It has served as a research route on the way to writing Pink Granite.
I have always been fascinated by the way projects and ideas have a habit of repeating themselves in different guises, or turning up unannounced like thoughts that won’t go away because they are unresolved. I used to pride myself on never having finished a piece of work, even it had done its national tour. I always found there was something left to do that funding resource or time didn’t allow for. Making Pink Granite has had an uncanny way of serving that unfinished business. Through mountain layers and time slippages I have been able to revisit performance moments in my older body and settle the unsettled in the associations within the new creative story emerging from the sometimes recycled work.
Necessary within the process of unpacking a creative journey and coming upon new milestones, I set myself the formidable task of combining a writing journey with a performance journey. I set myself the challenge of weaving the history of my performance work between and sometimes within the each project group member’s piece. It was a bold offer and somewhat understandably galling for some participants. Strange how real intentions have a way of out-maneouvering perceived intentions, and the unconscious has a habit of having its way in the end.
In Part Two, I will share the explorations and the filmed outcome. By then it should be possible to order a copy of the book Pink Granite.
Thank you once again for reading this and viewing the films.
Part Two to follow.