The Threat of Silence
A multi- media collaboration which aims to bring an artistically challenging production to Wales based and international audiences. The work will be an innovative and dynamic exploration of the language of silence.
Silence in which the possible multiplies. Silence in which the distribution of the sensible is remade. Silence in which we are left thinking, aware of the space which we are left to fill[1].
Artistic Vision
The Threat of Silence builds on the results of the directors last project The Acts Vigia. [Funded by a Creative Wales Award, the work toured to Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Cuba, Mexico, Spain, Denmark and the UK and continues to receive international invitations].
In this work we asked what performance could be, do or say in response to the brutal femicide perpetrating the Mexico/US border. After an intense period of experimentation, the piece was distilled to an hour long, slow, silent and authoritative series of repeated actions, accompanied by a spacious and equally repetitive sound score.
It was reviewed thus:
...What Vigia does is not an act of revenge to male violence but an answer, and offers a stark riposte to masculine aggression and abuse.
There are no words in this hour-long piece but it is eloquent, multi-layered, provocative and beautifully terrifying. Brave, stunning, challenging political theatre at its best…[2]
It is from the completion of this project and set of understandings that the vision for The Threat of Silence emerges and it marks the next stage of an investigation into, and pursuit of, an efficacy of a feminine language in performance.
We approach the proposal for this new production from two distinct yet analogous directions. One that will address the form of the work and the other the content. Both are inherent to the vision of the project as follows:
One
The director has been making theatre in Wales for 35 years. In the past 10 years an interrogation into the efficacy of performance as political provocation has become prioritised. And as this practice matures the conviction that ‘less is more’ has taken increasing precedence.
I am specifically interested, in this new work, to develop a form that consciously embraces the power of silence, stillness and quietude by exploring and applying dynamic strategies which move beyond the static or simplistic in applying extended time.
The Threat of Silence project aims to refine how the elements of performance – space, technology, text, action, and sound – can be moulded to create time and a place of refuge from the escalating bombardment of noise, information overload and escapist trivia satiating contemporary living.
The performance offers a counterpoint , a space where the individual spectator is invited, for its duration at least, to reflect upon their own potential for resistance to this pervasion.
Two
On June 4th 1989 the Chinese military brutally cleared protesters who had peacefully occupied Beijing’s central square for 6 days and nights. Hundreds, maybe thousands, lost their lives in this bloody crackdown. On June 5th a cortège of 83 armoured tanks rolled through the emptied Tiananmen Square and surrounding streets. From seemingly no where a young man in a white shirt and black trousers, carrying two shopping bags, appeared and stood in front of, and halted, the line of tanks. No-one knows the identity of this man nor whether he is still alive and yet this act of simple solitary occupation, became one of the most iconic images of resistance of the 20th century. Time magazine included him in their Time 100 - The Most Important People of the Century
His lone ness and stillness in the face of such a seemingly impenetrable show of force was deeply moving, inspiring to millions and it spoke for the thousands who had be silenced.
History furnishes us with endless quiet yet heroic exemplars.
The Threat of Silence is inspired by, and responds to, the significance and potential of such acts.
How
Over the course of the last year I have been in dialogue with the professional artists who will collaborate on this project. These artists have all been exploring the aesthetics of quietude within their own fields. They are: Zoe Christiansen – film and video installation artist; Margaret Cameron – published writer; Sara Penrhyn-Jones - film maker and Gerald Tyler - production manager. Led by the director, these artists, together with dancer Rachel Shiahm and renowned cellist Nicola Thomas, will contribute their distinct expertise to the vision of this production.
The aim is to bring together this wide experience and knowledge to create an evocative and challenging work that both confronts the addiction to freneticism and celebrates the strength and authority of stillness .
The piece
· will employ advanced technologies of text, sound and extended time film projection in the creation of the sonic and scenic space.
· will develop a unique physical and sonic vocabulary through a series of exploratory workshops.
· will address the accessibility of staging such experimental ideas for a main steam audience
The production runs parallel to a research project supported by Aberystwyth University under the title The Quietude Project. This research is investigating and defining principles engaged in the construction of traditional and contemporary expositions that employ quietude as a primary aesthetic. As well as a cross art form study this includes a series of laboratory performance workshops to explore presence and quietude in performance action. The findings of this research will feed into the production process of The Threat of Silence.
[1] Tim Etchells on the work of Jerome Bell
[2] David Adams, Arts Critic, Western Mail. 03.04.08
Silence in which the possible multiplies. Silence in which the distribution of the sensible is remade. Silence in which we are left thinking, aware of the space which we are left to fill[1].
Artistic Vision
The Threat of Silence builds on the results of the directors last project The Acts Vigia. [Funded by a Creative Wales Award, the work toured to Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Cuba, Mexico, Spain, Denmark and the UK and continues to receive international invitations].
In this work we asked what performance could be, do or say in response to the brutal femicide perpetrating the Mexico/US border. After an intense period of experimentation, the piece was distilled to an hour long, slow, silent and authoritative series of repeated actions, accompanied by a spacious and equally repetitive sound score.
It was reviewed thus:
...What Vigia does is not an act of revenge to male violence but an answer, and offers a stark riposte to masculine aggression and abuse.
There are no words in this hour-long piece but it is eloquent, multi-layered, provocative and beautifully terrifying. Brave, stunning, challenging political theatre at its best…[2]
It is from the completion of this project and set of understandings that the vision for The Threat of Silence emerges and it marks the next stage of an investigation into, and pursuit of, an efficacy of a feminine language in performance.
We approach the proposal for this new production from two distinct yet analogous directions. One that will address the form of the work and the other the content. Both are inherent to the vision of the project as follows:
One
The director has been making theatre in Wales for 35 years. In the past 10 years an interrogation into the efficacy of performance as political provocation has become prioritised. And as this practice matures the conviction that ‘less is more’ has taken increasing precedence.
I am specifically interested, in this new work, to develop a form that consciously embraces the power of silence, stillness and quietude by exploring and applying dynamic strategies which move beyond the static or simplistic in applying extended time.
The Threat of Silence project aims to refine how the elements of performance – space, technology, text, action, and sound – can be moulded to create time and a place of refuge from the escalating bombardment of noise, information overload and escapist trivia satiating contemporary living.
The performance offers a counterpoint , a space where the individual spectator is invited, for its duration at least, to reflect upon their own potential for resistance to this pervasion.
Two
On June 4th 1989 the Chinese military brutally cleared protesters who had peacefully occupied Beijing’s central square for 6 days and nights. Hundreds, maybe thousands, lost their lives in this bloody crackdown. On June 5th a cortège of 83 armoured tanks rolled through the emptied Tiananmen Square and surrounding streets. From seemingly no where a young man in a white shirt and black trousers, carrying two shopping bags, appeared and stood in front of, and halted, the line of tanks. No-one knows the identity of this man nor whether he is still alive and yet this act of simple solitary occupation, became one of the most iconic images of resistance of the 20th century. Time magazine included him in their Time 100 - The Most Important People of the Century
His lone ness and stillness in the face of such a seemingly impenetrable show of force was deeply moving, inspiring to millions and it spoke for the thousands who had be silenced.
History furnishes us with endless quiet yet heroic exemplars.
The Threat of Silence is inspired by, and responds to, the significance and potential of such acts.
How
Over the course of the last year I have been in dialogue with the professional artists who will collaborate on this project. These artists have all been exploring the aesthetics of quietude within their own fields. They are: Zoe Christiansen – film and video installation artist; Margaret Cameron – published writer; Sara Penrhyn-Jones - film maker and Gerald Tyler - production manager. Led by the director, these artists, together with dancer Rachel Shiahm and renowned cellist Nicola Thomas, will contribute their distinct expertise to the vision of this production.
The aim is to bring together this wide experience and knowledge to create an evocative and challenging work that both confronts the addiction to freneticism and celebrates the strength and authority of stillness .
The piece
· will employ advanced technologies of text, sound and extended time film projection in the creation of the sonic and scenic space.
· will develop a unique physical and sonic vocabulary through a series of exploratory workshops.
· will address the accessibility of staging such experimental ideas for a main steam audience
The production runs parallel to a research project supported by Aberystwyth University under the title The Quietude Project. This research is investigating and defining principles engaged in the construction of traditional and contemporary expositions that employ quietude as a primary aesthetic. As well as a cross art form study this includes a series of laboratory performance workshops to explore presence and quietude in performance action. The findings of this research will feed into the production process of The Threat of Silence.
[1] Tim Etchells on the work of Jerome Bell
[2] David Adams, Arts Critic, Western Mail. 03.04.08
