Wednesday 24 March 2010

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Diva - Watery Revelations

I had my meeting with my dramaturge, there was much expectation due to me wondering about her reaction to the completed backstory. Anxiety too as we were to discuss my unsuccessful previous G4A arts aplication ... I was relieved that she liked my backstory and she referred to many of her favourite parts , many I myself liked. She is a lovely, very qualified , experienced insightful gifted person, she was able to highlight where I needed to tweak and expand a bit , what she did not believe, the clarity of seeing the narrators voice and the solo characters actual journey through the piece, the idea of these as two separate yet parrallel journeys/paths that meet, understanding more needs and wants better, showing the crisis point ,the actual choice the character makes and why, the different types of truth who is the character actually speaking to this was all great really helpful and took me deeper and happily into re-writing. Also preparing the next process we touched briefly on this next stage and we were both delighted to find we had similar ideas as to how score the piece, how to use music dramatically, the pattern, rhythm and beat of the piece

Her advice and our discussion included acknowledging how hard I had worked and that I had everything I needed in place (bar more money) information other support etc, more importantly how stressful the application and production process had been to date. A big point was the revelation - that I had a real difficulty focusing on myself as an artist of value as opposed to being always the producer (I felt I had to do this to work to gain recogniton and experience ) mentor mode etc for other artists) It made me feell really vulnerable all of a sudden, this induced some spontaneous water works on my part at the newness of of this feeling.

So the arts grant application form advice is sumarised ;-

JUST ANSWER THE QUESTIONS !
BE MORE BRIEF
FOLLOW THEIR NARRATIVE STRUCTURE i.e. FOLLOWNG THEIR QUESTIONS
MAKE IT VERY CLEAR I AM DOING EXCITING INNOVATIVE WORK
MAKE THE PITCH
AM AT A CRITICAL PIVOTAL POINT IN MY ARTS PRACTICE I NEED THEIR SUPPORT IN ORDER TO DO THIS PROJECT TO TAKE ME TO THE NEXT LEVEL IN MY ARTS CAREER,
I AM NOT JUST DEVELOPING MY OWN ARTS PRACTICE BUT ALSO THE OTHER ARTISTS I AM WORKING WITH COLLABORATIVELY,
THIS PROCESS IS BEING DOCUMENTED TO LEAVE A LEGACY FOR OTHER ARTISTS LEARNING


Wednesday 17 March 2010

Done - backstory has ending

I have been so busy not much blogging in recent weeks, but I am really feeling good about getting to the end of my backstory - I like it and have really enjoyed writing it . It gives me so much pleasure to know its done and I eagerly await my Dramaturge reaction. For myself, it gives me so much 'on the bone' - for when I look to start writing the poetic language . This next writing stage will delight even more I think, as there will be less words, be more compact and expressive, while still making the narrative arc. Poetry is a passion, ideas come all the time but more at certian periods- I am blessed that way I guess . My recent reading/ performance at Leicester Poetry Society was a total smash- despite some nerves on my part . I look forward to their review in their pamphlet - it all helps. I will become a member now. Getting recognition as a poet for page and stage is vital and it has boosted my confidence immeasurably.Looks like my co-producers did not receive my postal package of the grant application. So I will start all over again copying stuff to give to my Dramaturge who is on board to help - what a relief ! I am getting lots of good support from fellow practitoners on the grant challenge . Looks like devising and piloting digital visual stuff in the Summer months then ! I cannot help feeling frustrated as I just want to get on with what I do best 'make art' rather than all this adminstrative stuff