Director’s Notes

A process of R&D and multiple scratches to develop concept – probing exciting hybrid performance/digital sound techniques – time to play, collaborate and take risks.

Director’s Notes was my first step into autobiographical narrative and digital voice implementation. Exploring digital sound vs live, Director’s Notes experimented with imaginative ways voice can shift audience perception. After mind-mapping ideas, I successfully applied for an Unlimited early career artist fund/Unlimited Impact Grant Award through Shape Arts, for a series of playful devising sessions, ending with scratch platforms across Torbay. This time and space instigated an exploration into self-referential performance intertwined with sound/creative media techniques. The stimulus of Director’s Notes allowed voice exploration and audience interactions – delving into how we perceive voice and how societal restrictions obstruct the need to play.

With myself taking more of an outside eye role, a small team of collaborators played with perceptions of audiences, in an honest, raw reflection of the reality of a working artist.

Utilising autobiographical storytelling, audience energy, humour, irony, improv and wordplay, this narrative follows a young, brilliantly creative, yet awkward, director as they navigate the harsh reality of societal barriers to creative expression and play. Written as an on-the-level front-on audience orientation, Director’s notes used hidden speakers, amplification and directional sounds to manipulate recorded voice – creating voice from above effects, ‘surrounding’ audiences in broken thought, alternative perception and dreams.

Scratched at multiple venues in Torbay, this funny, emotional and hopeful work was the foundation for other original ideas, a space to play and experiment and the initiations of building relationships with Unlimited and Torbay venues.

Co-collaborators: Luke Grant; Annoshka Bradshaw.
Outside eye: Erin Walcon. Supported by: Unlimited; Doorstep Arts.

Long curly hair actor with glasses in blue jeans and a grey jumper sits backwards on a chair looking at a young man in a manual wheelchair. There is a wooden floor and appears to be an audience-performer relationship with mainly grins on their faces.
Photograph taken from the back of an audience. Two audience members look at a tall actor on stage with long curly brown hair, glasses, grey jumper, red t-shirt and blue jeans. He is standing in front of a cream staircase and seems to be in theatre l…
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