Rebels of Extinction Collaboration for MIF Festival in My House and Yours 2021

Sustainability is something very close to my heart in all things, from helping to set up a group for sustainable productions in my time at LIPA where we encouraged fellow students to consider both the material choices and make more from what they could recycle on productions. Through to my own personal life with clothing and fashion, from my earliest days back in Birmingham, where I would visit Birmingham Rag Market which then was full of vintage and second-hand clothes and more to create my individual look as a New Romantic.

Most years I would invest in a few key pieces and mix up with my charity shop finds, to the point now when I treasure my treasures discovered in my favourite secret outlets! From the very warm as new jacket, I wear most days on my walks through to the most amazing Alexander McQueen shoes I tried to make fit lol some results of the hunting trips are better than others.I hadn’t really had much experience or using fast fashion until I went to Uni and began to see the daily parcels being delivered to the reception from all of the known brands and seeing students scrolling through their screens did I begin to grasp the size of this market. Order for the weekend, wear once, bin! The culture and price points offered made it hard for them to refuse as budgets tight, the overt marketing to create this ethos is immense and hard to resist.

Fast forwards to lockdowns, no theatre I have been attending the rather wonderful Artist Drop-Ins hosted by the Manchester International Festival team, a real tonic in dark times. A place to meet and just share where we all are, offer support to each other and share practices. They have developed over the year (can’t quite believe I am typing that statement) to now hosting some great zooms with local, national and international artists and a brilliant concept Matchmakers. A kind of creative speed dating affair, bringing possible collaborators together and forging new working partnerships. Check them out here

https://mif.co.uk/whats-on/mif-matchmakers-february/

From there Rebels of Extinction formed, collaborating with Actor Devisor Simone French, Actor Devisor Visual man Tom Halls and Director/Producer/Writer and brilliant Voiceover artist Rebecca Taylor Sharman.

With our bid sucessful the time to create content was here, so as a newbie to be sure with filming and so far only creating work for projection I hadn’t really given sound and eek editing footage with words in sync! much thought! Big Big learning curve and at times I may have thrown my toys out of the pram had it not been for the calm more experienced Tom stepping in to help re-edit sections .But that is what a creative growth life is about right? going in with naivety perhaps but then also allowing yourself to be helped and supported.

This is one of the big takeaway moments for me on this project, how a team working remotely and under time pressure can come together and make something happen.

I really enjoyed getting my head into After Effects once more and to a more advanced level than I had attempted before, with lights,cameras and action, there is that wonderful moment when you are self learning software when the basics become second nature and free up some more heaspace to push on to learn more.Since entering the doors of LIPA in 2016 I seem to be on a continual route of new software learning and folks it doesn’t get any easier trust me.

With the additional footage from an oustanding documentary about just how destructive the production of clothing around the world is having on our planet from ‘Riverblue the Movie’ a huge boost, and the fabulous images of Salford Mills from my old neighbour and local historian Tony Flynn we had our story. A story crafted by Simone and Tom with their unique satirical approach, the catchiest earworm so far of 2021 all underpinned by Rebecca’s scripting and direction.

A huge big thank you to the team from MIF who looked after us in the production process, we streamed as the second of this years Festival in My House and Yours on January 28th . It is still online and available to view here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH9yiWP3HYw&ab_channel=ManchesterInternationalFestival

Simone and Tom’s theatre of TomYumSim here

https://www.simonefrench.com/tomyumsim.html

http://www.tomhalls.com.au/welcome

River Blue http://riverbluethemovie.eco/

Cherish your clothes,make considered choices,change one thing

discovering a new technique for photo montage for projection

In my second year studying at Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts we had a day working with amongst other things, artist Gavin Mitchell who’s work I found completely brilliant and so interesting. He blends the old and the new with a delicate humour and wryness which turns a multitude of found images into a new fabulous creation. OK you can see I liked it lol so much so I now am the lucky owner of one of his works a present for graduating from the Mr Gibbs.

Find his work here

https://gavinmitchell.net/

So back to the workshop and looking at projection and content creation, we had been asked to bring some imagery to play with , well with a career and study of photography going back a wee while ! I have in fact a huge plan chest filled with remnants of my early days from college through to the last commercial film shoot I did back in the 90’s! So I grabbed some that I thought looked interesting with a thought that some of my cohort may not have access to stuff as living in halls.

He also arrived with a wealth of stuff from old movie’s on film, trailers for films and a massive collection of old slides sourced from car-boots and many a bric a brac find both here in the UK and on his travels. Looking at overlaying them to create images with stories or indeed oddities .

At first I was tentative, as any photographer will tell you the thought of chopping up transparencies is well? just not done ! fact. The first three were combining some footage and stills from Gavin with some images I took for a property developer of the Manchester Tobacco Factory both before and after. Shot on a magic film called polarpan where you actually processed it yourself? I know ! the resulting images were a strong contrasting black and white . Exceptionally fragile and at times not a guaranteed outcome, we were edgy in the 90’s lol

still available to buy (must dig my processor out ) from one of my favourite places full of interesting photographic and video finds

https://www.profilmdirect.co.uk/polaroid-35mm-auto-process--slide-mounter-slide-mounts-polapan-and-polachrome-1521-p.asp

The shots gave me some great graphic windows with which to play with, placing behind them almost giants of humans going about their business.

Series Windows

I was loving this with the possibilities for projection work for bands or theatre work opening up my mind and making me braver, with a gentle nudge from Gavin I did it !

Using some outtakes from one of my earliest test shoots whilst working as a full time assistant at Avalon in Manchester and clips from processing of some really interesting branches in oil from a collaboration with a young artist who’s name along with the model has long been forgotten (research underway) I began to snip the larger medium format images and recreate as 35mm slides!

Girl in the Wood series

So new from old,I am now in the process of multiple layering of images to create new content for projection . Then scanning them in on my Flextight Precision II another part of my transition from analogue to digital as a photographer , yes you could do it in photoshop but how much more fun is it to be hands on and make something.

RESEARCH AND INSPIRATION MADRID DECEMBER 2018

Seems to be fast becoming a new Tracey ritual, the quest to absorb and study the work of one man ? yes it the rather exceptional work of Robert Wilson. Last year I whisked me and the Mr Gibbs off to Dusseldorf to see The Sandman, was an amazing experience front row ! Dusseldorf was fair but bitingly cold and for me not enough art to feast on. So no surprise that I had being keeping a close eye on his upcoming productions, there it was a window of time was there and the idea forming in my head. In true Tracey style I booked a hotel first to make sure we would be going and then counted down the days until the tickets for Turandot a the Teatro Real went on sale, a very nervous Tracey sat waiting for the go on the 15th October!

https://www.teatro-real.com/en/the-theatre/the-real/the-teatro-real

It was tense!! 365 people were in front of me ! there were only two dates we could do and those cheaper seats would be going fast. Success I had a rough idea where our seats were not bad, definitely not cheap but no choice I had to see something of his on a bigger scale . There we were our first proper opera and first time to Madrid! At least I had consulted the Mr G this time as last year I booked it in a random moment 5.30 am whilst staying somewhere teaching .

the day before Teatro Real Madrid

I am slightly ashamed to say I was unfamiliar with pre LIPA, there are just not enough superlatives to fully describe his work, indeed it could be foolish for me to attempt it? But nether the less I may try ,for me I find his work so rich in a truly visual way layer upon layer of intricately woven elements from light to colour to scenography ,he has very quickly become one of my main influencers in the creation and thoughts on creating lighting for the stage.one beautiful image after another akin to passing a leisurely heady afternoon with my tome of fashion photography my most loved photography genre VOGUE! Especially the September edition . At times almost reaching sensory overload but such a feast !

We had a few days to explore Madrid from what I can only say is one of best little hotels I have ever stayed at, in a great location for the big two museums close by . We did one a day as I don’t like rushing as then you could miss a gem. Both very easy walking distance from the hotel as was Madrid we discovered, very easy to walk around and so much great food!

MUSEO DEL PRADO

MUSEO THYSSEN-BORNEMISZA

MUSEO REINA SOFÍA

Food oh yes we did food ! tapas with attitude and so so delicious , luckily for us one of my dance students just so happens to be from Madrid so with her local recommendations we experienced some fantastic local cuisine , a highlight for me was the small seafood standing room only one opposite our hotel, oysters,scallops good plonk ! heaven

http://www.artriphotel.com/en

so fresh!

No trip to Spain for me is complete until I have drunk my body weight in Cortardo’s

Madrid did not dissapoint with seemingly dozens of Artisan coffee places nearby happy days

Cortardo

My next project has given me the tiniest of chances to encompass some of his techniques, well a chance to investigate them and have a go interpretating some of my own thoughts around his use of one place on the stage I sometimes feel we all don’t play with enough ... the cyclorama , that combined with the rich references to Baz Luhrmann film has given me the opportunity on the upcoming 3rd year dancers show Romeo & Juliet again at LIPA ,working closely with set designer Mailin Hellend to facilitate this a collaboration from the start. Along with a close working relationship with the director to bring the various choreographers involved pieces together as a narrative piece. I want to bring the rich highly decorated scenic elements along with the richly textured costumes by designer Charlotte Mcadam to life and full of the sense of place and time of day as in the movie . So with this and my dissertation based on his work I was and am completely justified in seeing this first outing of this production.

programme

So here we were, waiting outside this grand opera house watching the well dressed of Madrid mingle with chinking glasses of champagne , to say I was excited would of course be an understatement. Sitting there surrounded by all the gold and glamour, unable to see anything of the front of house rig I just sat and soaked up the atmosphere.

waiting for curtain up

It was amazing, so rich yet stark parred back to the purest movements and went so quick!

Two acts of continued joy for me and I have to say loved the singing ! a new one for me, the best way to really describe it is to say nothing but give you the link to the production images. A worthwhile trip? for sure loaded with ideas and yet more inspiration for both my upcoming show and eek dissertation.

https://robertwilson.smugmug.com/Turandot-Madrid-2018/?fbclid=IwAR0CPWqO2GDTbQbikrw3v9TkkASTO4c7W5rKqexTq2G9b

I did however lurk behind as long as possible in the auditorium to have a look at where and what maybe rigged front of house, only Robert Wilson could get away with turning the Royal Box into a rigging point!

you can see the LIPA production of Romeo & Juliet soon see link below to book

https://www.unitytheatreliverpool.co.uk/whats-on/romeo-and-juliet-2018.html

more can be seen on my Instagram feed if you like exploring like me

https://www.instagram.com/juliet/?hl=en