Chalk About

Here we go then. As of this week, there is enough Festival mayhem on the horizon to put anyone's blood pressure through the roof and have an escape plan hatched for August. I'm not there quite just yet thankfully. Instead I still have some work to show off from festivals been.

The engaging Imaginate Festival, which ran last month, boasted a raft of theatre and performance aimed at children, but largely enjoyed by grown-ups as ever. I was asked by Curious Seed to work on Chalk About, an interactive dance performance that shed layers on issues of identity and growing up (and pizza). Me, Chris and Leandro worked on a poster together early in the year with only chalk and cloth at our disposal. Proper Arts & Crafts!

I joined them again months later after the show had taken shape and toured Europe to shoot the production in Edinburgh. It always amazes me how organic shows are. Like other art forms, they are never finished. Especially so when your raw materials are chalk and children, it is always nice to be part of something unrepeatable.

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Auteurs

This weekend ushers in the end of The Arches Behavior Festival for 2013. A heady five weeks of completely new work for the stage from Scottish and international artists. Eclectic and contemporary as only the Arches can, even the term "stage" is only applied loosely. This year saw a new creative partnership come to fruition between the Arches and NTS, which I am very indebted to have been involved in from early on.

The project gave five rising Scottish devisers an opportunity to research, incubate and perform new work at the festival. Each with their own developing trademarks and disciplines, some of them out and out rogues, but all of them auteurs of their craft. Having had the chance to meet them together for the school portrait lineup for a feature in The List, I was brimming to shoot all of their performances individually over the course of the month.

First was Gary McNair's brilliantly referential investigation into stand-up comedy: Donald Robertson is not a Comedian.

Kieran Hurley explored notions of community and ideals of Scottishness in, effectively, a living room jamboree. Intimate and foot tapping: Rantin

Claire Cunningham's ongoing curiosity in the body brought her to and back from Cambodia to begin a work meditating on the effects of landmines. A framework of disability through which the indiscriminate excess of war can be viewed from a humble perspective: Pink Mist

Finally, Rob Drummond's centenary revisiting of Stravinsky's Rites of Spring, through a screen of contemporary dance and music as well as recent societal dysfunctions. Leaving the outcome in the hands of the audience: The Riots of Spring

There have been heaps of great writing documenting the Festival, but for a succinct in house perspective check out Rosie's blog.

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Big Day In

Sunday is classically the day for putting your feet up and doing nothing. It's not often you find an offer good enough to have you on your feet doing everything. Sunday at Edinburgh's Electric Circus saw a raft of great music dominate the entire day from the early afternoon playing live into the early morning.

Having some great work up our sleeves from an earlier shoot with Discopolis, this was my first chance to see the guys play. With Dems and Dutch Uncles also on the roster, it was really a no brainer where my Sunday was going. Easy knowing it was a bank holiday...

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