A week in Rhayader.

I've never worked in a rural landscape before, usually I find my inspiration from the chaos of the city, abandoned buildings, people's manic lives, politic and the sound of the streets.

I was grateful to take the time off to go to Rhayader with NTW and dedicate a week to being somewhere different, meeting new people, learning from the long established Peergroup and having an opportunity to spend time challenging and thinking about my own practise and how I establish myself in a new community.

For me Site specific theatre isn't just about working in cool abandoned buildings, its about listening to the community that's around. It's about embedding yourself as an artist, asking questions, finding out stories and finding a way to communicate what you've learnt back.

Peergroup reaffirmed my belief, challenging the way that we all might see a place for the first time. How easy it is to look at site and see a romantic ideal of what the landscape might hold, but in reality the truth could be very different. They told us to dig where we stand, to find out the stories of the landscape around us. As artists we should respond to what the community offers, the landscape, the stories, something that the community are proud of, that they might want to fight for, historical, political.

I found my inspiration in Rhayader at the bus stop. 

Whilst working around Rhayader and meeting people i started to wonder where all the young people were. I managed to attend the youth centre, running a short workshop with the young people on what was important to them about Rhayader, I got them to draw a map and the first thing they put on it was the bus stop.  I found it interesting that as a thirteen year old that's where i used to hang around with nothing to do! I spent an evening at the bus stop, meeting the youth of Rhayader and feeling inspired to tell there stories of why they would stay here but also why they would like to leave.

I interviewed the young people and choose to perform one of the girls stories at the bus stop accompanied with three young girls. I choose to use a verbatim technique, something I've used in the past that was inspired by Alecky Blythe. Listening to the girls words in my ear I spoke at exactly the same time word for word, with every inflection and pause. 

What I'll take with me from this experience is that art is not what others tell you it should be, its the everyday and what you see and want people to experience. Dig deep where you stand an be true to what you experience. Anything is possible.