Paper Cinema warm up for latitude
This thursday we will be putting out the armchairs and couches to welcome back our favourite live action animating team ’ Paper cinema ’ for an epic warm up sess before they head of to Latitude..
So if you don’t have tickets for the festival join us on thursday night.. 7.30pm for an 8pm start….*
This is also a much needed FUNDRAISER for STK as we have lots of bills to pay to keep the beast going so please give generously on the door.. Suggested Donations £5-10..
thanks muchly in advance for your support.
STK
*no really we will be starting at 8pm so be sure to get there early to guarantee a comfy seat…
Musical Dolphin Night 30th June
“Heartily recommended” ”Ace” - John Kennedy, XFM
- Gideon Coe, BBC 6music
- Pete Donaldson, Absolute Radio
“The pure, delicious art-pop of friendship and love”
- bluewalrus.com (UK)
“a nonconformist treat, delightfully swimming against the tide of current trends and mixing a fine English whimsy with muscular DIY pop. Highly recommended.”
- follyfollyfolly.blogspot.com (UK)
- madmackerel.wordpress.com (UK)
June at STK
2nd JUNE
STARS and their PIES is a talent show/bake off [ in the style of the 1980’s TV classic Stars in their eyes ] with added deliciousness baked in.
Simply the Best tea?
Coming soon to STK, Tina Turner Tea lady! nuff said.
Well Huckleberry Finn is 127 and he’s climbing the ladder to 128.
Since Huck joined Facebook about a month ago he has been amazed at the interest and input people have contributed to his online profile in such a short time. All his ‘friends’ said they were coming and wrote on his “wall”. After all it’s not everyday Huck visits Stoke Newington and throws a party. The party was free if you are Huck’s friend on Facebook with a chance to ride a raft down the Mississippi, a fence to white-wash, hay bales to sit on, grass to chew and Huck’s kind a music.
Huck’s big day was an experiment, of course. Huckleberry Finn & Facebook. The fence never got painted; the grass and hay bales never arrived but most importantly only 9 of Huck’s new 88 friends came to his birthday. However many other friendly people came and it was a lovely evening.
We all know that Facebook “friends” and facts; I mean those relying on your friends’ statistics, are not to be trusted. Huck exploited this on his birthday and threw his new friends’ profile on a screen for all to see. Photos were shown and statements were read out loud. The mood at first felt like some people were a bit exposed or maybe it was just me. But as the evening went on some people wanted their profile (or their friends’ profiles) to be on the big projector screen. It was funny, a laugh for all with a bit of Facebook shame.
A detailed reflection hasn’t taken place yet to analyse reactions or how to further this experiment. We are no experts on this anyway but it sure is interesting and fun to play with.
Thanks everyone for making this happen.
Zekan
STK Summer School?
Since we first removed the last echoes of sweatshoppery and lint dust from the walls of the Airport it has long been on the agenda to run some sort of summer school at STK. For many reasons including festivals and tours it has taken this long before it begins to be a reality. But for the most part I wanted to be sure that I was ready to host a quality week for budding artists and young performers that would be a building block for future creativity and not just an arty daycare club.
I have been lecturing in performance for 6 years. I started without really knowing what to expect but having been thrown in at the deep end I was mostly waving, not drowning and have had great success with my students development and progression. I have a style for teaching that is welcoming, creates a safe environment, and allows me to connect with my students in a way that many teachers find difficult.
Over the last 2 years I have also been Actor in residence at 2 schools. The work in the schools has allowed me time to redevelop my practice with younger minds. In my current capacity as Actor in Res at the Connaught School Aldershot I’m working with 25 students aged between 11 and 16 to create comic history of Aldershot. At the end of the summer term they will tour for the first time. This is my first project at this school and we are growing as a company. The long term goal of the project is to develop the kids into a professional theatre company creating its own work with humour and a conscience.
These experiences have once again made me keen to run the summer school here. So that’s what I intend to do. Dates are still to be confirmed but at the moment I’m hoping to run 2 weeks in July. One week for younger kids and one for older kids. They will work for 5 days and present on the final night and /or maybe the evening after.
So this week I am preparing the scheme of work for the 2 weeks. Writing lessons and workshop ideas that will lead to the creation of a very original summer school piece.
I want this to be an incredible time for those that sign up so if you ever attended one of these sorts of things when you were younger and had an amazing or terrible time it’d be great to hear from you. Email me nick@stkinternational.co.uk with your experiences.
More details to follow.
Terrific.
Comedy Scratch Night
Y’all know Scratch right? Allegedly invented by BAC 12 years ago as a way to test new performance work - performing it before an audience before it’s even ready. Risky huh? Sort of. Scratching new stuff is a necessary step in experimentation, indeed, it is the experiment itself, right? Whether or not the artist chooses to do this for a paying public audience or a selected group of useful peers is down to them. Having tried many scratch formats, venues and approaches, from sharing a tiny idea to touring a work in progress, I prefer the selected peer approach mostly because putting something before a public audience can’t help but infer a kind of finishedness on the work. This is a bit of problem when your work trades on chaos and surprise - the visceral effect of potential failure, being greater at earlier stages, leads possibly to arrested development of the idea. Although, that’s really only a problem if you believe in the concept of ‘finished’.
It could have been Kandinsky (but it may also have been Gorky, Boulez, or, er, Blair) who said:
“If you can’t think what else to do, it’s probably finished”
Comedians tremble not at such conundrums, the answer is simple: if someone’s laughing when you stop speaking, the joke is finished.
I discovered this on Tuesday night at the Alternative Comedy Memorial Service or #ACMS at the New (and now finished) Red Lion Theatre Pub. This is a night where a revolving group of comedians test out their new material or dance or speed eating or whatever brilliant junk pops into their heads. The audience are briefed with permitted heckles - “We appreciate what you’re trying to do?”, or “That’s a Tim Vine joke, surely”. They are generally a warm crowd, being made up of mostly comedians and their friends and the sort of people that like to watch experiments. I wouldn’t describe myself as a comedian at all, which is probably why ACMS asked me to do a spot, and I’m glad I did, it was a quite a joyful experience, maybe because the expectation is set deliberately low by the hosts, and certainly because the chosen acts knew how to fail fully and properly. Where it differs from the scratch night is that whether you want it or not, the feedback is instant and unequivocal. Is the joke finished? Is anyone laughing? Experiment concluded.
GM
Reflections on Only Wolves and Lions at STK last week
We have digested the food from Leo Kay’s Only Wolves and Lions, but the experience still lingers. You can read Leo’s comments on it through the link above.
It is a beautiful event, strangers sit around a large table with a pile of food in the centre, each of us has brought something. Leo tells us that as resources become scarce and relationships less physical, something changes in us, we begin to fall out of love with life and ourselves. His co-host Unai introduces us to the concepts of the Greek philosopher Epicurus who preached peace and a life surrounded by friends (pleasure = good, pain = bad). He also considered all to be made up of atoms, floating in space, bouncing off one another in a random way. Just as I was wondering about the word Epicurean, and if that has any… A story happens, a story about a kid who goes under the table at a wedding, looks up the skirts of his family, then falls asleep in someone’s lap. We, the guests then take this story on and reveal some things about ourselves. It seems clear there is a great lamentation for the lack of family dinners alongside the veg on the table.
Then the ‘Show’, as Leo keeps calling it, transforms into an exciting mix of Ready Steady Cook, and Masterchef. We break into groups and try to come up with showy recipes using the food collection. I want to make celery soup, preferably on my own. Eating together is nice and so is cooking, as long as no-one stirs my pot.
The dishes are served in record time, and we eat and drink together. It is convivial, complimentary. Towards the end of the meal we are encouraged to think about the show and what we have achieved together as a critique of Capitalism and consumerist culture, but the conversation is stilted. I thought Epicurus would return and help us through, but he was not called upon.
The show finishes with a song and a dance courtesy of Brazilian emigres longing for their home, Angola.
I had a great night, met some new people, did an ok soup, soaked up some wine and learnt about the recreational habit of the bonobo primates. I suspect we were supposed to take a bit more away from it than that, and I wanted to know more about how and why Leo and Unai had been channeling Epicurus, how they think humanism can combat individualism, and how they plan to keep their atoms together long enough for them to come into focus.
Looking forward to the next stage of what is a fantastic idea.
And Now Dinner
Z goes into the kitchen and fries some street garlick. His son is coming home soon, apparently he’s walking, stomping. Nick’s on his way over, Gary’s on his way over. It’s like the old days, only thankfully we are in a house as the airport is just too cold these days. Stay tuned for news of our Please Help us Afford Heating Campaign.
