Right now I'm at a storytelling event at the Friendship in Borth. Peter Stephenson is entertaining a packed pub with tales of the sea and the bog. This storytelling event is part of Cymerau, an arts based research project exploring the relationship individuals and communities have with water in Borth and Talybont, mid Wales. Part of the event was streamed live online earlier this evening. Peter is just telling his final tale of the night. It's about a beautiful mermaid.
Cymerau (or confluence in English) is part of a UK wide research project called Hydrocitizenship (2014-2017) that is being funded by the AHRC. This work aims to engage communities in creative conversations about water and related…
I recently went to see Jony Easterby's for For the Birds at Ynyshir Nature Reserve. I wrote a review of the event for Culture Colony Quarterly.
"After disembarking a crowded coach from Aberystwyth, I joined almost two hundred warmly dressed spectators in the chilly moonlit car park at the entrance to Ynys-hir Nature Reserve, in the centre of the UNESCO designated Dyfi Biosphere. Moving slowly on foot we spread out along a narrow track lit by a string of a thousand…
Sam Christie and Tom Payne present the second episode in a brand new series about the arts in Wales. Featuring the latest content fromhttp://www.culturecolony.com
Notes From the Edge of the East is a film that I made with Sam Christie. We shot it last March in Krakow Poland. The hour long film explores thee changes in the Polish city of Krakow since the fall of Communism through the eyes of an Englishman, Karl Naylor, who has lived there for the past 10 years.
At the recent 'relation and participation' symposium in Aberystwyth, NTW artistic director John McGrath spoke about a new paradigm through which to explore the opening year of National Theatre Wales. 'Commitment'.
Commitment rather than location? In addition to location? If we begin to think about theatre and the theatre of NTW specifically through this paradigm then what might that mean?
It might refer to the commitment by NTW to be innovative, engaged and international.… Continue
"Working in Wales the debates surrounding independent media work are quite advanced and within those fields there is a preparedness to address issues of meaning, issues of process, issues of representation, and really get in amongst the art form, really pull it apart and analyse it, and move on into pieces of work that synthesise that analysis. That may be because if you make a film you've actually got the thing there, so you can rewatch it, and you can debate the thing. With theatre once it's… Continue
The fine details of the text are worked through painstakingly. Linking the language of the play to detailed choreography. I watch the material develop and try to imagine it within the location. An impossible task as I have never been to the place. I did try, a drive by, from The Greystone's Motel near Trecastle, over the public road that bisects the military land, to Tirabad. The village was sat high up on a hill to the right, several miles from the road. It looked inviting, one of my… Continue
Added by Dr Tom Payne on July 18, 2010 at 23:30 —
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I join the throng of early morning commuters as they make their way between Shrewsbury and Cardiff. Somewhere between 6 and 9 in the morning are the best hours of the day. The light is different, sharp, grey, blue. The day is unsullied by the lethargy of the late riser. Newspapers sit straight upon the tables, anticipating creases. I sip coffee from a stainless steel flask, a cumbersome addition to my luggage, it is necessary however... paying £1.50 for a cup of instant coffee with UHT… Continue
Added by Dr Tom Payne on July 18, 2010 at 19:30 —
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During the previous three days I had settled into a pattern of documenting, and then things changed. What had worked for the first part of the week suddenly left me floundering around trying to find a way to record and make sense of the process I was witnessing. Retreat, regroup, change strategy.
i am documenting the genetic processes at work in the creation of The Persians, the forwards and backwards moves in the rehearsal process that lead up to the live…
77 pages of writing, 18 hours of audio,2 hours of video, a script and a map. Mike Pearson commented that I am probably making hard work for myself when the time comes to listen back to/read/watch all of this material.
I am planning to write the first week up when I travel back to Aberystwyth on the train on Friday, and then next week I will try to arrange research interviews with the performers and crew. Hopefully I can pick some useful questions out of the -…
Lines mark out the space. The lines are a map. A map of a location. A map hangs on the wall. Denoting the location of a village, the village housing the location on the floor. And that is as close as I have been so far. I tried to drive there, but you can't. Well you could but you would probably get fined £500 by the military... honestly, you should read the signs... don't stop, do not pass go etc. etc. And so all I have at this stage are the maps. Not just the cartographic kind, for… Continue
Added by Dr Tom Payne on July 13, 2010 at 6:30 —
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