Grace Jones: Ballet Dancer

[Interview by Hannah Kirby - First published in ForgePress 21 November]

"Dance feeds a part of your brain that nothing else does. Sport just doesn’t have the artistry, and arts won’t push you physically: dance is a harmony of exercise between body and mind. It processes emotion and thought patterns without speech. You have to use your own initiative, and answer with your body. Communicating through dance isn’t quite mysterious, but it’s subtle and ambiguous; it keeps people guessing. It’s the poetry of the stage.

"I started ballet late, by most standards, when I was eight. At first I just went along because my friend was interested; I was never one of those little girls coveting pretty pink tutus. Then, it was my family and friends’ appreciation of my dancing that I followed, rather than any burning desire of my own. But dancing, I felt – and feel – so confident. It sounds like a cliché, but it just feels natural.

"I got into the Royal Ballet School when I was eleven, almost by accident. I went along to an ‘outreach’ audition in Birmingham just as experience but, astonishingly, I got in. Saying you went to Royal opens you up to some embarrassing stereotyping: it’s an awful lot to live up to-. The School was really strict, but I did like having set parameters by which to live. That echoes the way I feel about the discipline of ballet itself: I love the fact that there’s an etiquette; there are standards, and you always know where you are. I suppose it’s really that sense of tradition that makes ballet so exceptional. It’s not necessarily snobbish, but it’s very English, very historical.

"At Royal, though, the dancers are taught to aspire to be perfect in every way. We were expected to improve ourselves not only in ballet, but also in beauty and intelligence. I do remain very loyal to the way Royal teaches, but there’s no denying that it could be a little undermining. I was quite a perfectionist before I went anyway, and it just got worse. I chose to leave when I was 14, because I wanted to continue loving and believing in ballet. Although it was due to my own reasons, not theirs, I couldn’t have done that at Royal.

"These photographs were taken for a magazine feature that was done just before then, backstage at our annual performance at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. It was my last with Royal.

"I moved to the Birmingham Royal Ballet at the age of 16, but had to leave only the next year, because I didn’t heal properly after an operation on an elongated talus [an ankle bone]. It meant I could never dance professionally.

"When I moved to Sheffield for my degree, again it was my family and friends who encouraged me – this time to start teaching. I thought I’d give it a try before I wrote it off. It was nerve-wracking, but I was curious. I’m so glad I did; I now teach advanced classes for the Union, and we’re performing in the University’s Society Showcase at the end of this month.

"We’ve also held workshops with the professional Hofesh Shechter Company, which was bizarre. Of course it was a huge insight for me to work with dancers who weren’t connected with classical ballet, but their style is so contemporary. Ballet’s changed a lot in the last fifty years; it’s much more dynamic, and it’s connected to modern dance in that it’s a technical foundation. Expressive, jazz and tap artists are all made to take ballet classes. But to me, much contemporary dance feels random: there’s not always an obvious sense of flow, or form. It can be very clever, but almost anything goes. Classical ballet uses codes to express itself, and it has its own language. Where contemporary dance is abstract, ballet is figurative, and lyrical.

"Most importantly, though, ballet is beautiful. It’s a testament to the aesthetic: with or without its message or story, it’s beautiful. That, more than tradition or snobbery, is what maintains its popularity."

Review - Peach and Appleblossom

[By Sarah Cooper - First published in ForgePress 21 Novemver]

Opening night. Fireworks night. But although the sounds of spectacular displays could be heard outside, unfortunately there were no fireworks on stage: Peach and Appleblossom fizzled out like a damp sparkler.

The curtains opened on the heart of the student home: the sofa. The obligatory pizza boxes and crushed Coke bottles completed the familiar scene with humorous accuracy. Here, the story of four students unfolded as they came to terms with unfamiliar emotions and relationships.
The action centred on the relationship between manipulative Dan (Ashton Kelly) and his brother Ben (Jacob Harrison-Beaumont), but the awkwardness between these two actors made it difficult to believe that they were acquaintances, let alone related.

Similarly, the relationship between both brothers and Lucy (Rebecca Watson) was unconvincing, with embarrassed ‘snogging’ devoid of chemistry and apparently only thrown in for good measure. The performers combined this with a lack of pace, stage presence and ability to replicate natural conversation. Spontaneity of laughter and the interjections which characterise real interaction were completely misplaced and painful to watch.

Frustratingly, the script itself had some moments of promise, which the direction and most of the delivery failed to fulfil. Such two-dimensional characters made it difficult for the audience to empathise with the story, especially Dan’s swift transition from moody teenager to psychopathic killer, which failed to convince. Consequently what was supposed to be a ‘staggering conclusion’ did not have its desired effect, since the audience simply couldn’t sympathise with the plight of either Dan or Lucy.

The staging and direction of the predictable plot was not a highlight either, with many static scenes set awkwardly between the sofa and the irritatingly stiff door. Stage right was finally utilised for what should have been a climactic murder scene, but actually resembled a playground scrap. Only when a faint red stain appeared on the top of a pile of strategically placed clothes did it become clear that Ben was dead, despite the melodramatic, malevolent glare of Dan.

For the astute audience member there were various continuity errors to note, including the fact that the male characters had the privilege of wearing a few different t-shirts whilst their female counterparts must have been particularly impoverished students who did not change their outfits once!

The play was also continuously punctured by irritating and unnecessary blackouts. Small consolation came in the sound of Roy Orbison, which accompanied these bewildering moments of darkness when the lyrics often reflected and enhanced the plot.

However, Jo (Elanor Larbi) was a real breath of fresh air, making the most of a character that lacked depth. She coped brilliantly with a challenging sexual assault scene and her ‘brilliant humour and sultry ability’ (as promised in the programme) didn’t disappoint, restoring the energy and realism of the piece.

It was, however, disappointing to witness the unfulfilled potential of a play that aimed to be hard-hitting but ended up like Hollyoaks. Of course, it’s good to see that suTCo is supporting new writers. It’s just a shame there wasn’t a larger audience there to support it too.

Madeleine Lynch: Fine Artist

[Interview by Hannah Kirby - First published in ForgePress 7 November]

"I’ve always chosen to draw, rather than paint. I often find great artists’ preliminary sketches so much more expressive, more subtle than their finished work, and really feel that drawing, as a medium, deserves its own acknowledgements.

"Drawing, I feel more like my hands are doing the work. It allows me a more physical relationship with the page – like there aren’t any tools separating me from my paper. I use oil bars, which mean I really have to work and rework my materials, as they just don’t flow as quickly and easily as paint. That’s a conscious choice; I’m forced to go back on my work and myself for my view of perfection. It’s a labour through which painters often start, but it gets overtaken and overwhelmed.

"I was taught life drawing, which helped me to draw formally, and to learn perspective and proportion. Once I’d gained formal skills, though, I had the chance really to consider what art meant to me, and what I wanted to achieve. Since then, my work’s taken a turn from the formal to the more abstract, because I want to do something original and honest – to today, to people and to myself. Regenerating what people have already seen, for me, would be pointless.
This sequence, from an exhibition called Pro Sancta Omnia Sine Nomine (‘For Every Nameless Saint’), was the culmination of about a year’s work around the time of my transition. It had started out with studies I’d made from images of the pietà [Christian iconography of the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus], with which I’d been familiar from my Catholic upbringing.

"The more I reworked the images, though, the more oppressive the male domination of the work appeared to me; I found myself drawing contempt and resentment in the face of the cradling figure, which shocked me. In religious and particularly Catholic art, all female figures appeared to have to be qualified by a male presence.

"I decided to start drawing attention to the anonymity of women in religious art by concentrating on drawing the female form without a face. I created the pictures almost in reverse, by smothering the paper in black, and then scraping and tearing into it to expose light. In that way, the exposed female form becomes the origin of light within my work, despite its facelessness.

"I was always aware that what I did here was potentially subversive. In November last year, though, the sequence was exhibited at St. Marie’s Cathedral near Fargate. I had written to the priest there and explained my work, and he was really open-minded – I’ve found there are actually a lot of people in the church who feel the way I do. Aesthetically, too, exhibiting in the Cathedral was perfect. I picked dark wooden frames because they reminded me of the Cathedral pews, and mounted them on gold with the glass lifted off the paper’s torn surface more like relics’ casing. To my mind, I’d tried to arrange the five pieces as much like an altar as possible, and the priest allowed me to show them under a statue of the Madonna and Child.

"That was so fulfilling. It was where the work had started for me, and it felt like it fitted there; the people it was for, were the ones who saw it. For me that’s the whole point – that the people who see my work should be those to whom it’s relevant, where and how it’s relevant. But while it’s regarding female empowerment in religion, hopefully that’ll be everyone."

Review - The Wisdom of Whores

[By Jamie Cusworth - First published in ForgePress 7 November]

For many of us, the circumstances surrounding the transmission of the HIV virus may seem simple. You practise unsafe sex, or you share needles.

The Wisdom of Whores, the work of Elizabeth Pisani, a scientist who has worked in the field for a decade, reveals that the issue is not quite so simple. Pisani’s account takes us on a whirlwind tour of the sex underworld of places varying from Jakarta to Nairobi, through the brothels, gay clubs, slums and massage parlours, providing riveting interviews with the people whose practices help spread the pandemic.

No subject is deemed too controversial for Pisani, due in part to her evident reporter’s curiosity, leading to a bizarrely compelling read. Indeed, the concept of the ‘waria’, a type of transsexual prostitute popular among South East Asian men, is so alien to a Western audience that you can’t help but read on in an effort to understand such an unconventional mentality.

Her investigation into the transmission of the disease is morbidly compelling, as is the revelation that simple statistics regarding sexual practises can never suffice to determine the most high-risk groups. Further to the simplest assumptions regarding how HIV is spread, Pisani emphasises that who is having sex, with whom, how often, and in what context, all create variables meaning it becomes too difficult to find a simple solution to the problem. Most worrying of all, perhaps, is the speculation that readily available medication for HIV has created a somewhat blasé attitude among gay men in particular, leading to irresponsible behaviour.

In the end, Pisani boils it all down to one key issue: responsibility. If everyone used condoms and clean needles, the epidemic would undoubtedly go away. Making them readily available and changing people’s attitudes are the problems. Let’s just hope those who can make a difference take on board Pisani’s advice, as it comes from a person who clearly knows her subject and can write about it in a hugely entertaining manner

Review - The Bald Prima Donna

[By Emily Hansed - First published in ForgePress 7 November]

At the University of Sheffield, we have come to expect professional and exciting performances from suTCo, and The Bald Prima Donna, the first production of the semester, was no disappointment.

At times confusing and unsettling but always amusing, this performance captured Eugene Ionesco’s bizarre script perfectly. Those present enjoyed a hilarious evening without fully understanding what it was they had witnessed.

As the audience entered and took their seats in the transformed Drama Studio, now an in-the-round space, we were immediately made to feel slightly uncomfortable as two of the actors were already on stage, clearly in character. This classic technique never fails to bring a forced quiet throughout the auditorium as the audience mutter to one another, deliberating whether the performance has started and whether they’re supposed to talk.

The staging of the production continued to have a huge effect on the audience reception as the actors used it with impressive skill, at times coming very close to us and using direct address, heightening the stream of awkward yet intimate moments throughout the performance.
The set was clearly representative of a traditional middle-class English living room, as the character Mrs. Smith tells us, but her opening speech immediately makes us aware that this is not going to be a ‘normal’ play.

As the director Tom Shallaker states in the programme: ‘This is the English middle class from the absurdist focalization of a French playwright.’ The company have clearly set themselves quite a challenge, as the Theatre of the Absurd is a genre renowned for its difficulties.

It took great confidence for both the director and cast to present some elements of this production.There was a clear danger of parts becoming dull and monotonous and others seeming out of place, but this was skilfully avoided. Katey Warran’s long, repetitive opening speech became funny through her exaggeratedly snooty voice and slight sneer, a humorous caricature of the English middle class. The long dialogue between Mr. and Mrs. Martin posed the same risks, and yet it became the highlight of the whole piece. The confidence of the direction that hilarity could be created through a monotonous, repetitive sequence – with no movement whatsoever – was striking.

There were refreshing breaks in the still stage pictures through the maid, Mary. Kelly Jackson’s performance was energetic and her Yorkshire accent and active facial expressions were extremely well-received by the audience.

Henry Jones and Luke Holbrook’s deliveries of Mr. Smith and the Fire Chief’s ‘stories’ were equally energetic, especially Mr. Smith’s dramatic performance, hilariously emphasized by an obvious change of light to a blue pool. The variety of pace, tone and moods used by all the actors made this a highly enjoyable production.

It was disappointing to see quite a small audience, but this did not affect the atmosphere or lessen the audience involvement in any way. We are fortunate to have such an active and professional theatre company, and judging by the audience response and my own impressions, this was an excellent start to the semester for them. I implore students to see as many of suTCo’s future productions as possible.

Testimonial - Hokusai changed my life

[By Marc Jerome - First published in ForgePress 7 November]

In my first year I bought a poster of Hokusai’s ‘Under the Wave Off Kanagawa’. What caught my eye was the composition of the painting: the bold blue and white of the savage waves contrasting with the serenity of Mount Fuji and the grey sky. Also known as ‘The Great Wave’, it’s probably the most famous work of Japanese art. This picture, though, is ‘Kajikazawa in Kai Province’: in the centre a man and boy are fishing amidst a turbulent shoreline; the rocky outcrop on which they stand forms a triangle with the man’s fishing lines. This triangle is echoed again in the background by Mount Fuji, defiantly making its presence felt through the thick fog. The blankness of the mountain engulfs the struggling fisherman, becoming at once sublime and terrifying. For me, Hokusai’s work presents a paradox; he manages to create exceeding complexity out of seeming simplicity, which I think says something profound about the way we have to perceive the world.