Hannah Nicklin

Introducing… Performance in the Pub

I’m stupidly excited to be able to announce a thing I’ve been working on since just before Christmas, the first in a series of DIY performance shows in Leicester, called ‘Performance in the Pub’.

if something isn’t happening where you are, make it happen wherever.

Performance in the Pub began as an idea in my head as I was writing this article for my mate’s punk webzine about what DIY theatre and music can learn from one another. I realised that I’d been complaining about the lack of innovative programming in Leicester’s theatres, but doing nothing about it – and also while sort of knowing that the kind of stuff I thought it was missing don’t really suit massive venues like Curve etc. So, money/mouth is; here I am. Putting on small-scale, DIY and storytelling performance on in a pub.

The first event will be taking place in The Cookie Jar, The Crumblin’ Cookie’s brand new venue in the centre of Leicester. It will be a double bill of solo performance; Tassos Stevens with Jimmy Stewart, and Ira Brand with Keine Angst. BOTH OF WHICH ARE AMAZING. You can find lots more about this first show and the two performances on the Eventbrite where coincidentally, you can also get tickets.

WHY A PUB?

Because I’m so bored of all these divisions between art forms. And big shiny buildings that act like cathedrals to art/theatre/etc. They have their place, but the problem is it’s not a place that’s a part of most people’s lives. The pub, on the other hand, is. That’s why a pub. Single-form buildings only work heavily subsidised by either government (arts council) or large-scale commercialism (cinemas, large music venues), or alcohol (small venues). The latter is way more fun, so let’s fill nooks and crannies of these buildings with theatre, performance, dance, exhibitions, craft, music and more. Make our cities exciting, varied places to be. This is my contribution.

WHAT KIND OF PERFORMANCE?

Just stories really. I mean, that’s what most theatre and performance is. I’m saying ‘performance’ here, because most of it won’t be like a ‘proper play’. It’ll be stuff people made with their actual bodies in a room – trying ideas and stuff out until they found something that worked. Think of how bands put music together compared to how composers do – that’s the difference between ‘performance’ and ‘theatre’ for me. The performance I put on will be small-scale, DIY, and/or storytelling theatre. By turns loud, funny, heart racing, lovely, musical, spectacular, touching, and transporting. I can promise you it will be from some of the most exciting, innovative and brilliant acts in the UK, and as the UK is well good at performance, PROBABLY THE WORLD. Totes.

HOW MUCH DOES THIS COST?

How much does it cost me, or how much does it cost you? Well, basically I, and everyone involved in putting on PitP shows are working for free, I pay for the travel, food and accommodation of the performers, I give myself a pat on the back if I’m lucky. All the promotion, printing, deposit for the venue, website building, and everything is upfronted by me, and hopefully paid back by the money people donate for tickets. That leads us to:

How much does it cost you? Well actually that’s another important thing to me, that you can ‘trial’ this stuff, that if you really don’t want to spend a 5ver or whatever on it, that you can just walk in, and sit down, and see what you think, and maybe pay afterwards if you liked it. Or pay next time. That’s why it’s ‘donation based’ ticketing. If you’re looking for a guide price, though, it costs me roughly £350-£400 to put on each show. If I sell out the venue at £5 each ticket then I break even. More is more to roll forward into more print/acts/etc. So if you want to help more happen £5 or over is ACE, you’re effectively only paying £2.50 per nationally or internationally known performance at that price ;) also; buy drinks. More drinks bought = I get the venue deposit back.

And while you’re still reading, why not follow @performancepub on Twitter, Like it on Facebook, and invite EVERYONE IN THE WORLD to the Facebook event. You can also go onto performanceinthepub.co.uk and check out where I’m horrifically self-plagiarising. Oh yes, and Tickets. Go forth!

Digital Hat? That’s a weird name, what is it?

Digital hat is an experiment in revolutionising how we discover and pay for theatre.

I am a punk fan. Other stuff too, but mostly punk, hardcore, screamo. Guitars, shouting, that kind of thing. I was 14 when Napster was released. My musical maturity was shaped by sharing; it was also shaped by the staring at of progress bars, and never needing to pay.

I was 25 when I started always paying for music.

Because over 2 years or so my whole relationship to music and its worth has changed. For one thing it has become a relationship, social media has, in a big way, connected me to musicians and the work that they do much more fully. For another, the ability to trial music, listen to it on spotify or youtube, means I know what I’m buying, and that friends also share what they like, in podcasts, blog posts, tweets, and playlists. And a final thing; pay what you think it’s worth. Not ‘pay what you want’, I think it’s an important distinction, because I probably (leaving aside the relationship with an artist) want to pay as little as I can, but as soon as it’s framed with the notion of ‘worth’, suddenly I want to pay as much as I can. Bandcamp and social media changed my relationship to musicians, and the music they produce. The trust that ‘pay what you think it’s worth’ puts in me, makes me want to respond favourably. And actually, how artificial is a price point anyway? An album may only be worth £4 to me, it might be worth £20. Don’t you want my money either way? Often I’ll buy an album for a fiver and go and give back more afterwards. How much is the song you danced to at your wedding worth? How about the album that saved your life?

I feel part of a community, one that the web helps me find, and support. And I want to support it.

Over the past two years my relationship to how I discover and pay for new music has been revolutionised. I may not pay much more on average, but I know that it’s going directly to an artist, and I also know that I’m buying an awful lot more. Plus, more awesome music! WINNING.

In the checkout area, how often do we see theatres linking to similar work in other venues?

And while we’re at it, when have you ever used an e-checkout system on a venue’s site that was even slightly bearable?

How often have non-theatre going friends expressed a general interest, but just not known a) where to start or b) if it wasn’t just a bit too expensive?

How often have you carried a piece with you for weeks, months afterwards? How much do you think that’s worth?

I think that there is a bandcamp for theatre. Not bandcamp exactly. Not Spotify, or Amazon, not twitter, not just a recommendation site, a place to buy stuff, not a review site. Though it may look a little like all these things, it may not necessarily be just an online or web based system, it could borrow a lot from physical things like Oyster cards or loyalty systems. But a way of regulating, sharing, exchanging, standardising, offering, equalising, and making easy the act of finding, going to, and paying for theatre.

Seth Honnor and I are going to r+d this. We want to look at the data generated from ticket sales – the sharing of that data in a way that the theatre-goer is completely in control of, and benefits from (rather than just the ‘untick mailing list’ box). We want to look at changing the experience of paying for theatre, work on a scalable model that could be used by any size venue, that had room for recommendations, sharing, simple video or audio trails, and that are used by many venues. Imagine only needing to remember one password for every theatre checkout system in the UK. Imagine syncing tickets with your smartphone, so you don’t need to have it delivered, or pick it up. Imagine subscribing to the arts events calendars of friends, or certain venues. Imagine a system that allows you to put a deposit on a ticket, but doesn’t take the money until after you pay, after which you are able to pay what you think it was worth. Throw your money in the hat; that’s why ‘digital hat’.

That’s where we want to start thinking. digitalhat.co.uk/ Let us know if you want in, what you would want from it, or if you think it already exists. We’ll let you know soonish about our next steps. Early days, but exciting ones, I hope.

DIY Music and DIY theatre

So I wrote this thing for my mate’s punk and comics webzine. It’s about DIY punk, and DIY theatre. And mostly how we can learn from each other. You should go and read it, it’s over here. Go on. What are you waiting for? It has swear words and lots of semicolons. WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT. Clicky. Also, when I was writing it, James of ace performance duo Action Hero sent me some of his own thoughts on being ‘DIY’ in theatre. Just after I sent my finished article off, but I’m reposting them here, with his permission, because they say a quite similar but still really useful thing.

“I think a comparison between DIY music and DIY theatre is long overdue. Not least because theatre suffers so much from an identity crisis and I think it could benefit from the association!

I would identify the work that Gemma and I do as Action hero very much as DIY but there’s an important distinction to made between two ways of using that terminology. There is much talk in theatre of a ‘DIY aesthetic’ and its a phrase often used to describe our work (I think we even use it to describe ourselves on our website) but the DIY element of our work is not ‘an aesthetic’ it comes from a genuine do it yourself approach. We sometimes do make decisions to deliberately use things that are lo-fi because of the way it changes the relationship an audience has with the work but more often than not its a genuine response to trying to make something with very few resources. So not an aesthetic choice as such. What interests me more is the punk use of the term DIY which doesn’t mean ‘ooh look their set is made from cardboard’ but is about an approach and a way of working that deliberately avoids mainstream modes of production. Continue reading…

What was #Dust?

This is tweaked copy that Nikki and I handed out at our first experiment in making something explicitly ‘splacist‘ yesterday. A bit more of an explanation, hopefully.

#Dust was a first artistic response to the Splacist Manifesto. #Dust was a collaboration between writer/theatre maker Hannah Nicklin and artist Nikki Pugh. #Dust was a commission by MADE. #Dust is a fragment of a city.

There were two main components to #Dust, first the Dust Balls, and secondly the Dust Motes.

The Dust Balls are large fragments of the city. They are formed out of open source electronics, clay, hope and optimism. They begin by introducing themselves to the listeners, and instruct them to point the device in different directions in order to ‘pick up’ stories of individuals in the areas surrounding them. Depending on the timing and direction in which you are facing, different stories will be heard.

They are heavy, and designed to be listened to by two people at once – the weight and bulk of the object meaning that two are required to support it. The two people sharing each experience of overhearing the stories should be strangers.

The Dust Motes are small fragments of the city. Memories, secrets, and moments lost, dropped, found, discovered, gifted, stolen and spread throughout the city. All are from Real People. Be very careful with them. Select ones you like the feel of. Keep them safe.

These motes were spread around the area surrounding the carpark where the first section happened. Groups of 3 went out to collect Motes, which they were then asked to look after carefully. At the end of the walk back to MADE’s office, they were asked to make a decision. Keep it, or crush it and see if anything was inside.

Why Oh Why: This collaboration started with a number of aims; challenging Nikki and Hannah as artists (Hannah to work with more fragmentary narrative directly augmenting a city, Nikki to work with narrative and examine interfaces), challenging the perception of how space is inhabited, considering Birmingham as inhabited architecture, picking up the fragments that you often walk by, to consider our ways of getting at the world; a consideration of the map view and the street view. As well as responding to the Splacist Manifesto, which is concerned with these things and more.

The Brief: After starting with the manifesto and the aims above, we wrote ourselves the following brief. Out of this the idea for #Dust emerged. “Make something that examines interfaces and how to create resonance in space and place. Looking at fabric pre-woven and overlaid; of narrative/moments, that heats and lights and races hearts.”

Fragments and the city. Cities are made up of the people who move through them; without them they are like crab shells. In this metaphor, we are the crab meat. And to confuse it. Crab meat made up like that bar of soap your grandma used to make out of all the ends of other different coloured soaps. Maybe we should dispense with the crab soap. What I’m trying to say is that we are everything that a city is. That cannot be reduced to a map or a single path through the place. #Dust aims to bring to life (in a very small way) a very small part of the patchwork of experiences, moments, breath, that is being-in-the-city.

Read more: We are also dedicated to being open about our processes, so to follow the blog posts that accompanied the making process, head over onto npugh.co.uk/tag/dust/ and hannahnicklin.com/tag/splacist