The Charlotte Miller Art Project has been running since 2002 in partnership with ICYE UK (Intercultural Youth exchange UK), offering creative experiences and a voice through art to street working and living children through workshops and larger scale arts projects. Cmap has been running in the Latin America countries of Ecuador, Brazil and Mexico, through international charities and NGO’s.

Placements are offered on a voluntary basis for artists, arts educators and practitioners from the UK who spend 6 to 12 months in country delivering the programme.  Volunteer Arts Educators are sourced and trained in partnership with Icye UK –Intercultural Youth exchange, who works internationally to deliver volunteering placements and exchanges.

Fore more information go to www.cmap.org.uk

Collective Encounters has commissioned new music for all our major productions, both participatory and professional. At the moment we have three major performance projects underway: a professional tragic opera responding to our work with the homeless community; a participatory & professional folk-song cycle tackling poverty and inequality; and a largely non-verbal youth theatre piece which draws heavily on an underpinning score. Sometimes its just one song in a show, but music always seems to be necessary. But why?

Many of my most formative theatre influences have positioned music at the heart of their theatre (7:84’s John McGrath, Joan Littlewood, Brecht, Piscator, Pit Prop…) And they would pretty much all argue that music helps you speak to diverse publics; that popular music in particular can reach out and engage people who might not ordinarily be interested in theatre. They’d say that it offers another plane of communication to support and extend the arguments of the piece. And, above all else, that it entertains. Agreed.

But there’s another side to the coin. Howard Barker famously said that the ‘authoritarian art form is the musical’: that musical theatre at its very heart maintains and reinforces the status quo. Easy to dismiss with ‘it depends on the musical, the context etc.’ But is it? Or is the very essence and nature of music-theatre the problem?

Last night I saw a new musical at Ireland’s National Theatre, The Abbey – it’s the first they’ve produced in 20 years. Alice in Funderland is billed as “an audacious and modern take on a classic tale. Featuring explosive tunes, razor sharp wit, a message of hope and a whole lot of fun”, and on the whole it delivers. Given the economic catastrophe, the shocking corruptions and scandals, and the frightening rate of repossessions and job losses in the country over the last few years, I totally agree that hope and fun are vitally important. And the show’s great. Great performances, gorgeous mise-en-scene, inventive, engaging and beautifully executed. And the extremely young audience (not normal for The Abbey) loved it. But it left me with a bad taste in my mouth. There was some powerful musical satire, lots of ‘cheeky’ political winks to the audience, and a couple of very striking numbers that got right to the heart of the rampant poverty and inequality that has enveloped the country. At one point a chorus of the disaffected sing:

Broke, tattooed and toothless
It’s no joke; these mean streets are ruthless
When there’s no hope, of ever getting through this
Put your head down, you just have to do this

It’s powerful and distressing to see an army of sleeping bag wearing junkies in a highly choreographed number. On the one hand I felt that it was very important to represent this growing and phenomenally marginalised group on stage, but at the same time it felt all wrong. It’s essentially ‘feel-good feel’ felt that we were laughing at the plight of these dispossessed and hopeless outcasts and the foot-tapping, synchronized head turning just felt all wrong in this context.

But my main problem was with the final number and the way it left us. We’d been taken on a journey through (as the programme note says) the ‘deluge of uncertainty that is modern life’. All the problems I mentioned earlier were raised and we were allowed to laugh at them as if the bankers, property developers and politicians who brought the country to its knees were just bumbling fools. And then, in the final number we were consoled with an intentionally heart-warming number: ‘There is no fear, just nonsense’. Talk about placate! Both words and melody were aimed to sooth. Its basic premise was: we know things are shit and you’re scared, broke and unhappy, but at least you’re alive so don’t worry about it; and you’ve had a good old laugh tonight so you can go home with a glow in your heart. This hope is empty. It did exactly what Barker warned about: reaffirmed the myth that ‘this is how it is, there’s nothing we can do about it, no alternative, lets just make the best of a bad lot.’

So how do we get the balance between entertaining and provoking? How do we use music within theatre to help us speak in different ways, communicate on a different level, whilst simultaneously engaging and inciting an audience? To return to Howard Barker (not someone I ever thought I’d return to, having rejected him as a theatrical elitist the first time around!) – he reminds us not to confuse hope with comfort. That in times like these discomfort is what is required: I guess Brecht and Weill found the most familiar music-theatre way of doing this with their discordant harmonies and biting lyrics. I don’t want our theatre to make people miserable – unlike Barker I really don’t want to cause an audience pain – I want our shows to be wonderful, engaging, powerful, entertaining. I don’t want to hit people over the head but equally I don’t want to console, condone and commiserate. Like Brecht and many, many theatre makers before me, I want to make theatre and performance events that are a call to action: have a great time but leave wanting to change things. So how can music contribute to that agitational injection?

It’s very interesting at the moment to be exploring this through two such contrasting forms (opera and folk) – which will be most powerful? How will each form work and affect an audience differently? Will we be able to entertain and provoke? Have a listen to existing arias from Songs for Silenced Voices (2010), some of our new songs for In Our Times (2012) or some older ones from Smoke and Mirrors (2008) and see what you think…

If anyone has thoughts or words of wisdom, I’d appreciate them!

I’ll keep you posted on how things develop…

Go to the In Our Times pages to find out more about the event.

Join the In Our Times community to review the material that has inspired this performance piece.

Tickets are free but limited.

We’re very sorry to bring the sad news that John McGuirk has passed away.  John was one of our very first participants and a vocal supporter of Collective Encounters.   He’s pictured here receiving an Open College Network certification for participation in our first project Living Place, from Artistic Director Sarah Thornton.  John saw Collective Encounters’ first professional performance and was so pleased that we were tackling the issue of regeneration in north Liverpool and looking at the ways in which it was negatively impacting on many people, that he decided to join us.  He was very proud to act in a forum theatre piece that discussed how older people were at the time being ‘regenerated out’ of the city.  He came to see many subsequent performances and joined in when ever his busy schedule allowed him.  One of the real highlights was his guest spot playing spoons in our 2008 cabaret Smoke and Mirrors, where he amazed and delighted audiences with his skill.  He later told us he’d played spoons on the stage of the Liverpool Philharmonic!   Here you can see John play in a North West Tonight trail feature on Smoke and Mirrors.

We’re very sad to lose him, and our thoughts are with his family.

Alistair was a core member of the Kabin Krew a small company of actors with experience of homelessness.  He helped to devise and performed in three productions which all sought to communicate the experience of homelessness to a wider public audience, and explored dreams and aspirations for the future.

Alistair worked alongside a team of professional artists as they developed our opera Songs for Silenced Voices and performed in its companion piece, Moving On which he took with the company to London, performing at Crisis Skylight for members of Streetwise Opera, and also at the National Theatre’s John Lyon’s studio.

He performed to over 100 people at Liverpool City Council’s Homelessness Stakeholders group, sharing his experiences with service providers and helping to facilitate service users to give their ideas and opinions about how services could be improved.

Alistair overcame his literacy difficulties to achieve a nationally recognised qualification: an Open College Network accreditation in Facilitation Skills.

Drama facilitator Abi Horsefield, who worked with Alistair for 3 years said “Alistair was an amazing character, he was always up for a laugh and a challenge. He was brave enough to share his story with a public audience. I loved working with him. He will be sadly missed by me and the group.”

Alistair with co-members Bernadette (left) and Emma (right).

Artistic Director Sarah Thornton shares a memory

Alistair was central to one my most treasured memories of the past few years when he participated in a sharing of work in 2009.  The very first public airing of our then 10 minute opera, Songs for Silenced Voices, was to members of the Kabin Krew.  It was a nerve wracking experience – how would people with direct experience of homelessness respond to an opera which sought to tell their stories in such a heightened and lyrical style?  We were all very nervous waiting for the group to come and anxious as to how they’d respond.  Suddenly an opera seemed like a big risk.  Fortunately the piece was very well received – members of the group felt it communicated the ideas effectively and truthfully and Alistair was visibly moved by the piece.  But the most powerful experience was the subsequent performance by the Kabin Krew of their stories, told as monologues supported by music, to the professional team.  As each actor performed their own story we were absoloutely gripped and reminded both why we were making the opera, why it was so important to tell the stories we were telling, and also just how close we all come to the possibility of homelessness.  It was powerful theatre and an incredibly powerful creative process.  Alistair was very happy to have been part of the process and talked to me about how he felt valued and respected, and how important it was to him to have been given a platform alongside professional actors.  He later came down to the empty shop where we’d be performing the opera and was very proud to be part of a photo shoot on set.  He was a charming, open, emotional man and I’m very sorry about his sad, untimely death.

Alistair with Denise Kennedy (left) and Abi Horsfield (right)

If you’d like to share your memories of Alistair we’d love to hear them

The Fazakerley Cottage Homes Community Play Project aims to record living memories, unearth hidden stories, celebrate heritage and look to the future. It will bring professional artists and the local community together to animate this remarkable space with music, light, film and performances.

They are looking to recruit a Creative Researcher to help  capture stories, read through those already gathered and make sense of them in order to build a picture and timeline of the Cottage Homes Site over the last 100 years. Ideally the Creative Researcher will have a background and an interest in the field of Community Arts. Specific duties include

• meeting the team of volunteers already involved on the project to understand and share the work that has already been carried out
• preparing a timeline of stories gathered
• attending and documenting activities at community consultation days and workshops alongside volunteers and local researchers
• looking at the stories in the context of key national events and significant changes in health and social care and child welfare policy and attitudes to disability
• storing stories in a structured way to allow it to be understood by third parties
• contributing and sharing ideas and experiences

The Creative Research will work directly with Eamonn Leavy who is heading up the project and they will be reimbursed for expenses as appropriate. Starting asap. To register your interest or to find out more contact – Anne or Eamonn on 521 7569 0r fsnp89@hotmail.com