062 Is Street Theatre A Pile of Rubbish?

Convener: Paschale Straiton

Participants: Gary, Steven Whinnery, Bev, Robert Cook, Isabel Carr, Paschale Straiton

Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:

There is a perception of street theatre as the poor relative of ‘proper theatre’ that happens in buildings: how much is there a prejudice within the industry?
There has been an increased focus within the Arts Council of England on street theatre, including a street arts strategy, designated officers in ACE (e.g. Chenine Bhathena in London – who has now left, will she be replaced?) and at local council level (e.g. Bristol). So, there has been an increase in funding of festivals and companies, leading to more innovative work…

However, there still seems to be widespread ignorance of what street theatre can offer (now classified by ACE under the umbrella of ‘outdoor arts’). The stereotype of ‘the living statue’ remains a pervasive image, for many theatre practitioners as well as the wide public. You have to be lucky enough to live in places that have regular, creatively produced events or that host strategic projects to see the ‘good stuff’ – e.g. Winchester, Manchester, Stockton on Tees or towns along the Severn River that benefit from the Severn Project.

Do we need to be able to differentiate between street entertainment and street theatre, between the ‘eye candy’ of stilt walking performers and attempts to make ‘Brecht on the street’, recognizing that there is value in and a place for both.

There is great, practical value of working on the street: you can reach a wide demographic, people that don’t usually go to the theatre; you can draw better wages from street arts festival bookings than from small-mid scale theatre touring (the former can be used to fund the latter); the sector encourages new emerging artists, working cross-art form, to produce work that gets to wide ranging audiences; empowers performers to be pro-active rather than waiting for the agent to call; festival bookers are often more accessible than theatre programmers as they are quite simply there, on the street; street theatre work can sometimes spin off into other contexts – e.g. corporate entertainment market, or it can be one of a number of contexts in which a company works – e.g. Theatre Venture uses street theatre events to show small pieces of work.

The Without Walls Consortium is really looking to invite artists from outside the sector in, through commissioning, with a special emphasis on artists with disabilities and from diverse cultural backgrounds. However, there is a need to continue to support the artists that have been struggling within the sector, now that money is beginning to trickle down. Also there is a hope that producers will support companies based in the UK in the lead up to the Olympics.

Like there is a tendency within the theatre industry to rely too heavily on ACE funding, there is a similar tendency for street theatre companies/practitioners to rely on the festival circuit. Perhaps we need to branch out of this, try to establish relationships with theatre buildings, other types of festival, engage with hospitals, museums, other public buildings and organizations, which will broaden our visibility and (hopefully) raise our profile within the industry as a whole.

It seems very important that there should be an increased critical evaluation of the ‘outdoor arts’ sector. It is very, very rare for outdoor performance to be reviewed by the press (– no wonder people don’t know about it!). Lyn Gardner has become interested in festivals and companies in the last couple of years and is beginning to cover this type of work, but she is a rare individual. Perhaps we need to try to establish more formal processes of feedback within NASA (National Association of Street Artists) or a similar organisation, or develop ideas of a similar nature.

Performance on the street is by its very nature democratic. Many companies and performers have no formal training, come from a musical, circus or activist background. We need to continue to celebrate this anarchic, provocative, raw, dangerous spirit while engaging with quality control, continuing to learn and develop. There is clearly an underlying tension between wanting to be accepted as a sector that is rich in ideas, skills and output, while wanting to retain a sense of being underground and unconventional.

Outdoor arts has an amazing potential and one that is beginning to be recognized by authorities. Wonderful encounters can happen between strangers, communities can come together in powerful, shared moments. We need to make sure that money is being spent responsibly and that festivals are developed in the most helpful ways. For example, Stockton International Riverside Festival is a wonderful event, which brings together high caliber artists from all over the world. But, how has the festival impacted upon the community, which is profoundly depressed? Is it a big, expensive, spangly party?

It’s important for outdoor artists to come to events like this, to remind people that we are here and that we’ve got some great (if sometimes smelly) things to say.

021 Outdoor Theatre in the Winter

Convener: Sophie Austin

Participants: Sophie. Andrew, Kas, Lwin, Su Su, jill, Paul, Jonathan

Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:

We discussed the idea of creating a promenade theatre piece specifically for an outdoor space in winter.

1. When doing outdoor theatre in the winter you need to think about the following:

Toilets – how many?
Power – generators? Noise, distance cabling
How not to make actors ill – heaters, space blankets, hot water bottles, gazebos
Voice – how to ensure an actor is heard? Well trained actors, good warms ups, employ speech/sound expert to suggest set possibilities for improving sound.
3 key people - Director, producer & events manager – someone who can focus on the audience experience
Access – Clear pathways, how to lead people round, speed of promenade, ensure good communication with the audience and performers. Ask experts like Graeae, Extant or Shape
Length of time of show – how long should it be? Should we ensure that people are moving all the time?
Should the audience be able to see everything?
Ensure you communicate with the audience – be clear – it is going to rain, it is going to snow. BE PREPARED.
You can’t guess the weather, prepare for every eventuality.
Lighting – torches, hurricane lanterns, flares, floating candles, glow sticks, fire
Offer a hot drink at some point during the show.
Are the good audience of Britain willing to come to outdoor theatre in the winter? As long as you are honest and communicate the ‘risks’ involved, they will come.

The general consensus was that the show must go on.
All who contributed go very inspired by the possibilities and not too bogged down in the inevitable health and safety conundrums – that’s probably for a different sessions.

010 Politics and content in outdoor theatre

Convener: Bev Adams

Participants: Matt Burman, Paschale Stratton, Naomi O Kelly, Sophie Larsman, Laura Hayes, Adeel Akbar, Sharon Matthews, Dominze Campbell, Susanna Roland, Mark Morreau, Tom Brockelhurst, Agathe Pitarch, Tom Jackson, Joe Hallgarth, Robert Cook, Neil Heating, Natalie Querc, Roxanne Peak-Payne, Roisin Simpson

Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:

Street Arts has its roots in the lampooning of power (Commedia), satire (Punch and Judy), and the protest happenings of 1960’s. In 21st century Britain, buskers have to be licensed and paid street performers have local authorities as their paymasters, either directly or indirectly through a festival producer. What opportunities are there for street artists to create contentious, inciteful and through provoking work?

Local Authorities are by nature political organisations striving to meet a host of political agendas– NI111 –participation in the arts targets, community cohesion agendas, street artists are used as pacifiers for disenfranchised communities and with their work used to provide the pretty picture in the promotion of UK towns as destinations. Street Arts delivers well against these agendas. Is it time for us to upset the status quo? Should we try and change the agenda from that of street artists meeting the targets to street artists creating work because of what we want to say or change.

Matt Burman from the Without Walls (a consortium of producers and promoters of outdoor arts) said that, whilst Without Walls was particularly attuned to the need to provide spectacle shows reaching audiences of 5,000 in the run up to the Olympics, not many street artists/companies were proposing work of “intellectual riguer” and there is a desire to see more work of this nature. How does spectacle engage the audience emotionally and intellectually? Group F (French Pyrotechnics company) mentioned that sometimes they strive to engage through colour – getting 10,000 people to look at the colour blue for 2 minutes. Sometimes it is about making the audience look at their surroundings afresh with imprints left by ephemeral street arts works in the audiences minds’ eye often permanently changes their perceptions of that place.

Paschale talked about her up and coming project based on Punch and Judy with an outcome of facilitating the audience/general public to write letters which are posted to the government. When asked if the company censored/vetted these letters she replied that the public where often polite as they were mindful of who they were writing to.

Another member of the group talked about theatre work on sustainability with small communities in India - street theatre as a form of local activism. How do the measure the ripple effect of something quite small and localized?

The work of the street theatre company, Desperate Men, on the River Severn was cited as being a particularly good example of small local meaningful projects extended to specific communities on the river. This project became about the saving of the sturgeon, a once native fish to those waters, and culminated in a large scale finale as a stand off between Caviar Magnates wanting to create a factory (jobs) and the River “Wardens” wanting the Sturgeon to repopulate the river. This type of political project is an extension of the local activism project. It is based in reality, takes into consideration the locale and the interests of the local people but is removed from the realms of agit prop by being presented as metaphor. The plight of 1 sturgeon and its battle to survive.

Public space is increasingly privatized, controlled and licensed and working in the public realms brings with it a number of restrictions and limitations. In order to make impact and draw focus away from the general hubbub of the public space, practitioners tend to work in broad brush strokes, using archetypes. Complex narrative and dialogue is not always effective. Narrative does not necessarily need to be the driver of the message. The emotive visual image can speak a thousand works and have great impact.

Who is out there and do they really want to hear your views?

With theatre (indoors or out) we should be creating a space where change is possible and where people are able to listen, but more importantly, they are able to engage.

What is the language of engagement? Tapping into to universals helps – food, shelter, the human element.

What do we have to protest about? There is currently no political focus but a need for new social, economic and political structures. Where is the vision. Should we start a political party of street performers?

Is it the role of the performer to present of an argument or a political standpoint? Being political does not mean being polemical. Telling people what you want to say (especially if they don’t want to hear it) is the politics of oppression. Politics as content in performance is problematic. Often such shows preach to the converted. Those shows that are successful in helping us to change the way we perceive the world are not successful because they present an argument. Often shows succeed in changing our perceptions through their expression of human interaction. The development of empathy for the plight of an individual is a deeply political act and opening an honest and generous line of communcaiton with the audience on a particular subject creates the possibility for dialogue and development of ideas beyond the life span of the performance - allowing the dialogue with the audience the opportunity to bear the fruit.