Cupola Bobber Summer School

Good News!

I am returned from the Cupola Bobber Summer School at Lanternhouse International in Ulverston, Cumbria. Cupola Bobber are Steven Fiehn and Tyler Myers, and you can check on their doings here.
An great week, well-organized, well-structured, with an excellent group of participants - Ian Abbott (Elusive Camel Productions and a former Sundayer), Eilidh Macaskill (whom I met at Neil and Simone's DIY4 last year, half of Glasgow-based Fish and Game, and one whole of Eilidh's Daily Ukulele Ceilidh), Stacy Makishi, Vic Ryder,Claire Blundell Jones (just returned from Luxembourg n a residency and another former Sundayer), Simone Kenyon (Brief Magnetics), Rommi Smith, Zoe Collins, Jenny Lawson (Escape), and Dr. Alice Booth (of the Nuffield Theatre, Imitating the Dog and Hauser).

Monday morning I saw Jenny by chance on the train up, and we arrived well before 11, got the tour, ate something, I forget what, and went into a first exercise, having been assigned a space in the Lanternhouse, we described a site-specific performance that would take place there in the future. Later in the afternoon, more exercises, then a great veggie chilli and lots of red wine. We read our letters introducing ourselves to the group, before some very accomplished and informative ukulele action and a bit of a dance. Can't believe how fresh I felt the morning after.
On Tuesday morning a walk up Conniston Old Man was canceled due to poor weather conditions but we went instead for a three-miler down by the sea, having been issued the instruction to note down three presences and three absences.
My presences were also my absences, because I was trying to be clever, but for the record they were:

1 You all, in earshot 10
2 You all, in view 9
3 flash of bright orange light 8
4 stunning bright blueness 7
5 three horses 6
6 clicks of beating wings 5
7 our ragged... 4
8 shore line, slowed 3
9 last night's rain, a residue, in the dips in the road 2
10 slip 1

We had to go away and write two A4 sheets about 2 one of our 'presences' and one of our 'absence' that somebody else had picked for s, having half an hour or so for each. I struggled, finding it hard to write so uch about something so little, but that, of course, was the point. From the big mess I made on the page I cite the following, for the 'shore line' bit:

centime, ragtime, old boat, shoal, rope mender, rope maker, slingshot, bottletop, masthead, light, fallow field, washerwoman, fleet, (...) the light falls on you handsomely, the stomach of a young woman (...) a body brought from the shore, cracked, how beautiful we will be when we forget how to count (...) you rest your bones in a language I have not yet learned to speak (...) here I am, a land animal, I stoop to pick up a set of good reasons and crumple them in my palm

Nothing I'm particularly happy with, but there it is.

In the afternoon most of us went for a second walk up a hill with a monument to a man whose name I can't remember. It started off sunny (I was by then slightly sunburnt, like the Englishman I am) but quickly turned to rain, then thunder, then lightening. The monument drew lots of Phallus comments from those of us with university degrees, and whilst the weather was slightly rough, it was certainly bracing. We trudged home gladdened by the the thought of dinner. Ian made everyone pancakes.
That night we had to write a letter to a collaborator who we would be working with for the rest of the week. I wrote verbosely, quite heavy stuff, the following morning, (the Wednesday). At the end of the week Zoe, who I got partnered with, quoted a line from it: "I'm not ready for you yet, I'm still trying to deal and to cope with the last one".
After we had been assigned to our pairs, we were given the brief to pick a space in or around the building and to devise a performance lasting 5-10 minutes.

We chose a roof garden (so-called, mostly flagstones, with a box-structure, a sky-light into the music room, a shed home now to pigeons (I will try to get pictures from Steven and Tyler ASAP).
By the end of the afternoon we had tp show a 1-minute performance, but I cannot for the life of me remember what we showed.

On the Thursday morning, an exercise, go outside (onto mine and Zoe's roof garden, incidentally and pick out 12-5 things that the clouds remind you of).

Mine were:

1. A Mackerel skin
2. The skin on hot milk
3. Thousands of floating specks of light*
4. The colour of a dog I know. N.B., She used to live here
5. A turbulent sea
6. Grandad
7. The Last of the Mohicans
8. The speed of sound
9. 2 days ago, the thunder
10. The Ashokan Farewell
11 Flood in my eyes
13. The dirty whites of Dad's eyes

*They aren't in the sky they are in my eyes.

Then a full day of work, resulting in five ten-minute showings. Zoe and I had a proliferation of ideas, spen 2 hours supposing, ten minutes panicking and fifty minutes making a piece, a choreography for the other eight participants and for Steven and Tyler in or roof garden doing various activities ranging for durations of between two and five minutes, then a feedback session.

On Friday we cut this down to a line walking one step forward, two steps back, one step forwards, two steps back, a turn, to overlook the Lanterhouse gardens and a few streets, a church, and a block of flats. We handed a pair of binoculars down the line and whispered fragments of text from our writing process, documenting all the devising we had done, with a few reflections of our time there that seemed pertinent. About halfway through this an old woman from the flats across noticed the line of bodies, started shouting something to us, then waving, we all waved back, tried to explain what we were doing, but something about that chance encounter, something about being watched ourselves, was very pleasant and I think the other participants will remember it fondly for that.

We had a further feedback session, then goodbyes. Before we said them, Steven and Tyler came up with a performative response sitting one in front of the other in the stream that they had, as Americans, falsely supposed to be a Canal, saying something like: "Perhaps the river will become a canal if we have a boat that is small enough", lauching a paper boat that, for a moment, got stuck behind a rock before the water carried it under a bridge and away. Choked for a moment, I said goodbye to a genuinely warm, friendly, supportive and encouraging group of people whose work was inspiring to see. Hopefully some new friendships will emerge out of this, and maybe some working relationships too. Matt Fenton drove us to Lancaster station, we got stuck in a traffic jam but it worked out well, managed to get a the only direct train to Manchester, then hopped on the New Mills Newtown for home.