Space to Learn

Nimble Fish has just been green-lighted to create and produce Space to Learn, an arts-led exploration of non-traditional teaching and learning spaces in Southend. The project is being supported by Royal Opera House Creative Partnerships and the Southend Education Trust and will involve work with multiple artists and schools.

We're really excited about Space to Learn, as it is a natural successor to the Learning Town Project, that wonderful bit of site-responsive, learning-focused, arts-led madness that we undertook last spring and summer. What the projects have in common is a desire to stretch the parameters of where and how we learn, and looking at novel ways to use the arts and arts-based creative practice to make that happen. Space to Learn will begin in the spring and we'll keep you posted as it develops.

Burning Out at Pulse Festival '10

We're thrilled that our production of 'Burning Out', performed by Katherine May from her novel, has been picked up by this year's Pulse Festival, which will run from 27 May through 12 June. Our dates and venue are still being finalised, but we'll let you know the details ASAP. There's a lot of other stuff happening right now with The Re:Authoring Project, our joint undertaking with Katherine, and you can stay tuned here or check out the project blog for details.

Reminisce Awhile...

From Sept – Nov 2009 I worked in partnership with Epic Arts as a facilitator delivering workshops to patients with AIDS who were currently being treated and elderly patients who were stroke victims. Using stimuli such as ration books, songs from the 40s and images we worked with patients emphasising the value of their memories and past experiences. One of the most striking things I will take away from this project is the value of simply talking. I felt very privileged to hear stories about school or family, Christmases and the houses they grew up in, deep personal memories that were of great significance to each participant; a stolen kiss with an American GI during the war, fond memories of sweets after Sunday School but my favourite came from a patient explaining how he met Sir John Betjeman whilst working as a reporter for the BBC. Apparently, Betjemin walked straight past him, took two lumps of cheese out of each suit pocket and said to the bartender “Where’s the port?” - by Samantha Holdsworth

New decade, new possibilities

We're very excited about where Nimble Fish is heading in this new yet-to-be-branded decade. New creative collaborations are underway, both community-based and otherwise, and several original works are in development as well. Expect a website revamp, too.

For now, have a look at the latest thinking behind Re:Authoring, our ongoing project with writer Katherine May. Having successfully rolled out an exciting reimagining of Katherine's first novel, BURNING OUT, we're now preparing to both take that performance to new venues and engage more writers in the Re:Authoring process. We'd love to hear what you think about our Re:Authoring 'manifesto', whether you're a writer yourself, in the arts generally, or just interested in the subject.

Culture Detectives

A gala Olympic-style ceremony at the Assembly Theatre in Tunbridge Wells capped several months of work on the Cultural Baton project, in which Greg and artist Sayako Sugawara worked with a Year 4 class at Istead Rise Primary School in Gravesend to explore the meaning and source of ‘culture’. Under the banner of Future Creative, three others Kent schools also participated in the project, which was linked to the selection of a travelling artwork commissioned in support of Kent’s Cultural Olympiad programme.

Our working definition of 'culture'...

‘Culture’ is a complex concept for adults, let alone eight-year-olds, so we decided to give the kids a playful motif in which to explore...thus, all 23 students became Culture Detectives! We focused on asking good questions, and examined all the different components of our world that might constitute culture. In small teams, we spent time capturing the ‘culture’ around Istead Rise using cameras, sound recorders, object gathering, and making shapes with our bodies in the manner of theatrical ‘tableaux’.

Saya working with our Detectives to create individualized badges

Making a tableau of Pocahontas, the famous Native American princess buried at Gravesend

All this hard work was put to the test on 3 December when our Culture Detectives embarked upon a live capture of the ‘culture’ of everyone present, including other students, teachers, parents, councillors, and even British Paralympic Gold Medallist Dan Crates. The findings of our Culture Detectives were presented back to the audience less than an hour after they were captured in the form of a multi-media presentation using iPhoto, iTunes and several inexpensive iPhone applications: one student described it as being like ‘taking the culture temperature of the audience’.

Interviewing audience members about things they find beautiful

A plasticine imprint of an object borrowed from an audience member as part of our live culture capture

The 'opening ceremony' for the Kent Cultural Baton project

We had about 20 minutes to collect, collate and then aesthetically arrange what we’d captured in order to show it at the event, but we managed it. The children were amazingly focused and clever, as most children can be when given the time, space and opportunity.

The Detectives presenting their 'findings' to the crowd at the Assembly Theatre

Reinventing the literary reading

A bit more about the collaboration between Nimble Fish and writer Katherine May. We've just emerged from the first public outing of Katherine's performance piece based on her novel, 'Burning Out', and we're very happy with the results. For more on Katherine's view of it, check out her blog.

As Katherine says, we are aiming to create something that, we believe, doesn't currently exist in the universe of presented literature. Most live presentations of books, whether fiction or non-fiction, hew to a particular form: something approaching a live audiobook, where an author reads excerpts from his or her work and then answers audience questions. I know the form well, as I toured and read extensively when my book was published in 2005.

There's nothing inherently wrong with this form, except that it is rarely challenged...and, as an author, pretty frustrating since one one can only convey the barest sense of a work that is, after all, designed to be far more than the proverbial sum of its parts. We think the 'live audiobook' reading is often boring for audiences, too, as evidenced by the near-extinction of author tours and the dwindling audiences at those still surviving. In these credit-scrunchy times--and with the publishing industry on celebrity-fed life support--we felt there was an opportunity to try something new; something that might give writers a new way to connect with audiences.

In thinking about what we wanted, two performance genres were ever on our minds. 'Live literature', mostly in the form of poetry performance and various forms of spoken word, already occupies a sparky, spiky domain outside the staid environs of 'straight lit' events like Hay and Edinburgh. But most live lit relies on lit written to be performed live, a very different creative proposition than literature written to be read privately. Nor did we want to create theatre; if that were the case, we'd go for adaptation, a successful genre in its own right. In our minds, the live presence of the author was still essential to whatever we created, and we were adamant that he or she should not have to become an actor for the purposes of presenting a different view of their work.

Have we succeeded? Well, as Katherine says, it's still a work in progress. But we think we're onto something and do join us in Folkestone on 13 November to see for yourself, and to tell us what you think. In the mean time, some photos of the process so far:

We began by creating a visual 'map' of the book's themes, moods, locations, and ideas...

...and then added some objects we thought connected with essential themes and characters.

We created a new narrative of the book using only its text, but sometimes in a different order than found in the manuscript.

We played with projection and sound, with the rule being that all 'tech' must be straightforward enough for the author to set up and manipulate without additional help.

Here is Katherine giving it a bash on 30 October at the Canterbury Festival. Special thanks to Peggy Riley and East Kent Live Lit for the opportunity.

Creative Partnerships

In 2009-10, Nimble Fish is working with Creative Partnerships programmes in London, Essex, Kent and Haven Gateway. The common link with our current CP projects is a focus on innovative uses of physical space to enrich and enliven teaching and learning. All of our current CP projects also emphasize co-creation of learning strategies that involve collaboration between teachers and young people. Nimble Fish has a long-standing connection to Creative Partnerships and has advised the programme at a national level. Most current projects are in their early stages, and we'll post later as work progresses.