Hannah Nicklin

I Didn’t Applaud, Was That Right?

I am so tired at the moment. I am so tired of being angry, of feeling each stupid, ill-thought-out, privileged and destructive decision of the Tory-Lib Dem coalition hit me like a punch to the stomach. Have you ever been punched in the stomach? I haven’t, I spoke to someone who has though, and I think it’s an adequate metaphor.

I went to see Tim Crouch’s The Author, today. I had tried to avoid reading details about it, all that I knew was that it was an interactive-ish play with two lines of audience facing one another, and that it was about writing, and accountability. I also knew people had walked out, fainted, thrown things in reaction to it.

And I was apprehensive. I was apprehensive about doing it wrong, it wasn’t clear how much of it was a script, and how much of it wanted audience input. I knew that it asked for some, but had also read one of the performers bemoaning ‘wrong’ interruptions.

I was also angry. And tired. Which I normally am these days. And I knew that if someone stood up and tried to imply that I did not hold myself accountable to the world, to all that people do to other people, that I did anything other than spend every second I am not (and also some that I am) trying to earn a living or make art; protesting, writing, coding and shouting about the wrong in the world, I would react with violence. Like the image of the Millbank protester kicking the window. I would speak out of turn, and shatter their words.

“I looked at the performers on the stage and I saw that they had imagined me, badly”*

I sat down. The door closed. And as @danrebellato said, it was cleverer than that. It asked you to lean towards it, but it didn’t exploit.

It described some shocking things. But not with the aim To Shock, rather with the aim To Show. Shocking if you have never forced yourself to look, certainly. But it also talked about what looking means.

Here’s something about me: I have never, and will never purposefully watch a youtube video or recording of someone dying. I won’t even watch people breaking bones, or hitting a hard bail whilst skateboarding. Might not sound unusual to some of you, but for most people my age it I am an anomaly. It’s not that I don’t admit the horror or the pain, but rather that I won’t abuse someone’s embodied life by cheapening their death or injury with disembodied mimesis.

This person is not a symbol of the Iran riots, this woman is called Neda, and she is dying, bleeding to death, struggling to breathe, suffocating. She’s not 500,000 google hits. Continue reading…

Then and Now

Image shared on Flickr by somegeekintn via a CC license

I saw two very different pieces this week. Both made me react quite strongly so I thought I’d scribble a few lines about them. (aside: what’s the typing equivalent of scribble? Patter?)

Although really very different pieces, one devised, one scripted, one raucous and difficult, the other anxious and heartfelt, it felt like they were both, in some way about inarticulacy; Ugly the inarticulacy of a potential then, What I Heard About the World about the inarticulacy of being, now. Here are some thoughts:

Ugly

Ugly is a piece touring regionally with Red Ladder Theatre, the script is by Emma Adams and is a really challenging piece which I struggled with. It was only actually by the post-show discussion that it really began to work for me. That’s the first time how I felt about a piece has been changed so dramatically by talking with people involved. <insert something about me being stubborn>

Both the text and the direction was relentless. There were no still characters, no still moments, even moments of (opted) coitus were frenetic and impersonal, the characters seemed to be archetypes left out in the sun too long then fed a combination of amphetamines and ritalin, and the language warped and broke and jarred and choked with swear words. I struggled to hold my attention to it because it rattled on without respite. And I think that now feels like it was the point. It was not structurally sound. It felt like it was too long. And it said big things, at the same time as (with the frequent swears) saying nothing. It was a flawed vehicle about a flawed future. When I got back from Twitter I described it as a mix of Alice in Wonderland and Threads. And as I pile similes and metaphors on you – you hopefully see something, too, of inarticulacy. The experience of the play, not the words or the action, is where the heart of it lay.

But I also think that this play wasn’t really for me – not that I didn’t like it, but that for me, it’s not necessary. It was a piece for younger people, the ones who don’t see beyond now because as yet their life doesn’t require them to, and don’t connect the many news reports to a future. I don’t need convincing climate change is deadly. And I’m not one to be convinced in such a frenetic, physical way. I think it did want for a greater connection to that audience – this came out afterwards – ‘what happened in between’, ‘how did it get to that’ – they needed a glimpse of something they could recognise, to tie them back to their own lives. But it stubbornly refused that. And that’s a point in itself – you won’t recognise anything apart from that these are people. But some of them aren’t even that.

The other Climate Change Play that has stuck with me for a long time is (the lovely) Steve Water’s Contingency Plan. A completely different, very realistic, near-future double bill about flooding somewhere very like my home county and Westminster’s reaction to it. The script was an exquisite piece of almost porcelain sculpture – and as Steve, and like me, cerebral at heart. That was my watershed. But I think for a few people, younger, Ugly might be theirs.

Continue reading…

Home.

My mum walking alongside the River Witham in Lincolnshire.

A brilliant and hectic week has just passed, highlights of which include the Playful Festival on Friday – where I learnt about the wonders of Minecraft, that games ≠ points, and about games people’s frustrations at badges and the ‘gamification’ of brands/sites, as well as getting a teensy bit grumpy at game designers’ propensity to play with and challenge all rules apart from those pertaining to gender-; a performance of Brian Duffy’s Modified Toy Orchestra after a spectacular Artists’ Brunch Sunday at the Edge in Birmingham; and a top meeting with the Nightwalk York music people - Lantern Music - ahead of our trip to reccy the area around the Minster at the beginning of October.

Saturday evening, as you may have seen, I had the immense pleasure to take part in Stoke Newington Airport‘s Live Art Speed Dating. An absolutely brilliant event, incredibly welcoming and supportive, and having spent 3 or so years in the West Midlands I can say an incredibly valuable effort by Fierce to get Live Art out into the heart of the Black Country. Having primarily hid behind pen and paper for the past 5 years, performing again was a bit strange, but mostly good. The piece I decided to do in the end was a very simple one, and probably still a bit writerly, but the base ideas of which are something which I think I’d like to work up further. All of the other artists’ work looked and sounded brilliant brilliant, and my main regret of the night was not getting a chance to see any of them!

‘Home’.

My ‘date’ happened down the back of the stage, in a dingy and dark little corner. It was lit by a lamp and a green emergency light, was called ‘Home’, and consisted of an audio track of me speaking for 3:30 about the fact that the growing consensus on sea level rise puts my county mostly underwater in 50-100 years, and what it feels like to understand that you might never be able to return to the landscape that to you, is home. This was listened to over headphones, whilst I spoke about 2 seconds behind the recording with the idea of disorienting the listner. The iPad I was playing it on (longest battery life available to me, 3 hours action, left it at 96%[!]) had a picture of the tree I centered the speech around on it. The final thing I did was to give them 30 seconds to write down the ten things they’d take with them if being evacuated, they could then leave that with me, or take it with them. The text was pretty short so I’ve included it at the end of the post if you’re interested.  Continue reading…

Imagine

Imagine if the land and housing in Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincolnshire, Essex, the East Riding of Yorkshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Cumbria, and Durham was entirely wiped out by flooding.*

That’s what Pakistan is dealing with, 1/5th of it, “ravaged by floods“

“The water was up to my neck, then my nose, I only survived because our men took me by the arm and lifted me up,” she told me. “We walked for two hours like this. Ever since the running away my belly has hurt all over. I don’t know if the baby inside me is alive or dead.” Saeed Bibi from the Punjab

DONATE HERE

Meanwhile the hottest weather on record in Russia has wiped out ONE THIRD of their grain crops.

They’ve had to impose a ban on grain exports, which will raise prices across the world, hitting the poorest, hardest.

That previously linked article comes with a handy explanation on how both are caused by a shift in the jet stream, the instability of which has been linked to climate change:

“The World Meteorological Organization says this “unprecedented sequence of extreme weather events … matches IPCC projections of more frequent and more intense extreme weather events due to global warming.”  NASA says July 2010 is “What Global Warming Looks Like.” ” (source)

Even the DAILY FREAKING MAIL has changed it’s stance to ‘global warming is happening, and it is our fault‘

Donate to Pakistan relief efforts, because you should. Donate, because you can. Donate, because this will soon be us. Donate because Western lifestyles have contributed directly to this. For whatever reason, whatever you believe, please, reach out, £5, whatever you can. Donate.

And all this comes as the so-called ‘green’ Coalition government are side-stepping their promises on climate change action, including an incredibly damaging broken promise RE power provision, and the mooted selling off of our conservation land and country side. Not only will reneging on green policies like this mean being hit severely by EU penalties, if the coalition government carries on like this a greater cost will soon be at their feet. The sooner and better we act, the lower the human and monetary cost the world is hit with. The later and more half heartedly they act, the greater the risk that  it’s not long before we won’t have to do any imagining.

*that’s one fifth of England, mind, I don’t know how many counties there are in the UK. Also, it’s 1/5 of counties, not of land, I did try to pick coastal ones, as we’re more likely to be affected by storm surges and sea level rises. They’re also mostly low-lying. But I will freely admit this may not be exactly 1/5 of land or population. I hope you accept it as a quick way of making a point, if not, feel free to do the maths and I’ll happily amend it.

[images off the BBC, via the linked articles, I always try to use CC images, hopefully these will be seen as 'fair use' as quoting the referenced articles, however I will take them down if wished]