Ian Breakwell exhibition in Derby - Unword (Swansea 1970)

The QUAD in Derby currently shows a retrospective of the late British artist Ian Breakwell.
Breakwell presented a number of performance pieces in Wales in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including UNWORD 4 at the Swansea University Arts Festival in 1970. A film documentation of the seminal UNWORD series, made with film-maker Mike Leggett, is on show at the QUAD.

Ian Breakwell: The Elusive State of Happiness
QUAD Gallery, Corridors and Digital Screens
13th February 2010 – 18th April 2010
http://www.derbyquad.co.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/ian-breakwell

For information on UNWORD 4 go to:
http://www.performance-wales.org/english/archive/1970/1970.htm

Interview with Christine Kinsey, co-founder of Chapter Arts Centre

Christine Kinsey, along with Mik Flood and Bryan Jones, founded Chapter in Cardiff over forty years ago.  Chapter has become an important site in Cardiff for the arts, and one of Christine's (many) roles was in programming the gallery spaces, along with renovating the building, working behind the bar, designing publicity, managing the administration and a host of other jobs.

Rebecca has been to interview Christine this week about the founding of Chapter and the early years, the arts scene in Cardiff at the time, and the experimental work that flourished in Chapter.

Thanks to Christine for her time and sharing her memories. A transcript summary will be posted on the project website in the near future.

First Group Interview - Aberystwyth Arts Festival 1968

We held our first group interview last weekend with five former Aberystywyth University students who had been on the organising committee or attended Aberystwyth Arts Festival in 1968.  The '68 festival brought Fluxus to Aberystwyth with a three-day happening organised by Brian Lane, Rainbow Day and the First Dream Machine.  It included a concert of experimental electronic music, poetry events and a Fluxclinic, where particpants had their body-parts weighed, measured the capacity of their mouth and were tested for x-ray vision.

The amount of material on the festival that the group has kept was wonderful, including original leaflets from Brian Lane's 'Leaflet Concert', responses to requests to be patron of the festival (including Cecil Day Lewis, Raymond Williams and Jennie Lee), letters from Brian Lane and lots of posters. Topics covered in our conversation, apart from the Arts Festival itself, included art and politics, the 1960s underground scene, the student revolt of 1968 and links between the anarchist movement and Welsh-language activism at the time.

We are now adding all this material to the database and working on a transcript summary of the interview, all of which we hope to make available soon.

Thanks to Bob, Ian, John, Jonathan and Steve for returning to Aberystwyth and for sharing your memories, and for organising it all back in 1968. 

Finishing theme one and moving on...

The first theme of the project, performance and pedagogy, is nearly complete (well, the collection part at least).  Beck is putting the final touches to the database having processed the huge amount of material we collected from John Gingell's archive - over 1800 images!  Hopefully, we'll update the online database this month, and this material will be available on the website.  It includes many performances that we didn't know about before, along with photos and information about all manner of work carried out by John Gingell with his students and the ZOO group during the late 1960s and early 1970s.  We're indebted to John's family for giving us access to the archive, and for their help in piecing things together.  Thank you!

And on to theme two...  We're now going to be looking at networks, internationalism and student politics, and are beginning by holding a small reunion in Aberystwyth next Saturday.  We have invited a few former students who were involved in the Arts Festival in 1968 and are looking forward to hearing their memories of the events.

If anyone else has any information about, or attended, the festival, please get in touch with Beck and Heike at mail@performance-wales.org

Lecture in Leipzig

Heike presented a lecture, entitled Eventful Evidence: Between Memory and Archive, as part of the ARCHIV/PRAXIS Arbeitstagung Conference, Tanzarchiv und Universität Leipzig, 10–13 December 2009.

For future presentations visit http://www.performance-wales.org/english/events/lectures.htm

The Gingell archive - continued

In the past week, we've finished working through John Gingell's archive, collecting the final few photos and scans of documents and also going through a huge number of negatives of performances, mainly from the early 1970s. Now, Rebecca is going to begin contacting Zoo Group members to arrange a reunion. If you were a member of the Zoo Group and you'd like to be a part of this, please get in touch.

We have also been given a TV documentary from 1975 on Llanover Hall, which includes some wonderful footage of John Gingell building his tower beside the hall, and talking about the ideas behind it. The tower was unfortunately pulled down and replaced by a car park. The picture here shows Mike Pearson marking where the original tower stood, long gone, but not forgotten.

Sited Interview: Mike Pearson in Cardiff

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We organised our first Sited Interview today with Mike Pearson. Mike took us back to a number of performance sites in Cardiff that were active in the late 1960s to the mid-1970s and spoke about his memories of works that he saw or performed there. These included the lecture theatre in the former Arts Block of Cardiff University, now the Law Building (where the Pip Simmons Group once performed); the School of Engineering (where Geoffrey Axworthy programmed a season of experimental theatre work in the early 1970s); the former Casson Theatre; Llanover Hall in Canton, home to numerous workshops and summer schools; and the Sherman Theatre, which opened in 1973 with a special performance by Welfare State. Among the sites that have since disappeared is the shop in Queen Street (now buried under the Capitol Shopping Centre) where Christine Kinsey and Bryan Jones organised art events in 1969, prior to opening Chapter.

Full video documentation of the site visits with Mike will be available soon.

Barry Summer School

Heike and Rebecca met up with Eira Moore today in her house in Barry for cake and a chat about the legendary Barry Summer School. Eira's late husband, Leslie Moore, was Vice-Principal of the School during its most important period in the 1960s and 1970s. Then, the Barry Summer School was a place where tutors such as Tom Hudson, George Brecht, Robin Page, John Epstein and many others pioneered new approaches to art education. Eira herself, who trained in movement with Rudolf Laban, taught at the School for a couple of years.
If you were a student or teacher at Barry Summer School, please get in touch with the project!

Tom Hudson at the Barry Summer School 1965, introducing a programme of happenings.

Research Seminar at York St John University

Heike presented a research seminar, entitled 'Performance (in) History – Archives, Memories and Re-enactments', at York St John University on the 23 November 2009.

Research Seminar at Surrey University

Heike presented a Research Seminar, entitled 'Eventful Evidence: Performance Historiographies', at the Department of Dance, Film and Theatre at Surrey University on the 20 November 2009.