Dear Friends If you followed this blog during its heyday, you’ll know that the Vital Signs project wrapped up back in early 2019 after a wonderful run. We thank you for all your support and interest during that time and since. Some of you will know that subsequently Sarie took up a new post as […]
VITAL SIGNS PRESS
Just in time for Christmas, we are delighted to announce the publication of a free ebook (pdf format) which you can now download from our website, using the link below. The ebook features texts produced by workshop participants during the Vital Signs festival as well as texts that were featured in the performances. It also […]
Vital Signs Wrestling Truth: some rehearsal images by Roger Bygott
Whilst we were doing our final technical rehearsal for last Saturday’s performance of Wrestling Truth, we invited artist, photographer and Five Rhythms dancer Roger Bygott to the New Adelphi Studio Theatre to take some photographs. Here are a few of his excellent images, which give a flavour of some of our performance material.
Vital Signs Festival: some initial reflections by Scott…
Well, we did it! The Vital Signs festival took place over the weekend and proved a fantastically creative and nourishing meeting of words, moves and beings. My prevailing impression at present is how delightfully the chemistry of performances and participants developed over the weekend. Where the performances were concerned, from Camilla Nelson’s intensely focused enquiry […]
Vital Signs Wrestling Truth
We’ve now reached the stage where we are running the whole piece each rehearsal and going back over individual scenes to rework the detail. If I’d ever boldly thought I was getting the hang of this movement performance thing, this passage of work is stretching me to my limits and beyond, and each session is […]
Vital Signs setting the scene
With two weeks left before the Vital Signs festival begins, our studio work has been intensifying, not least as we start to prepare for the onset of the new academic year. But we had a productive week revisiting key passages and making the final sections of the performance – and delighted that we now have […]
Vital Signs making our marks
After a much needed vacation we were back in the studio in earnest this week, accompanied by our dramaturg Kate Adams. We managed to revisit all the material composed so far, identified a few remaining sections to work up in the coming weeks, and created some new material based on our previous explorations. The piece […]
Exciting News Alert!
For all you artists who are interested in our festival, but have barriers holding you back. We would like to help. Today we are opening an opportunity for you to apply for one of our travel and support bursaries. Throughout our careers as artists and creatives, it sometimes feels as though we are hit with […]
Vital Signs Floor it!
Our studio rehearsals continued this week, enlivened by the arrival of a brand new dance floor (well, fancy lino) in the studio — see image above where Scott takes it for a spin. This has transformed the space and made our work a lot easier now that we are no longer struggling to move on […]
Vital Signs Studio Work
We were back in the studio this week rehearsing and meeting with Clarissa – our publicity manager – and Nic – our website designer. We also enlisted the help of Dave Dewsnip – one of our colleagues at the University of Salford and director of Dave D Events – in sourcing some door frames to […]
Vital Signs fifth session with Kate Adams: working on structure
Following the exertions of yesterday’s extraordinary wrestling session with Steven Fowler, we welcomed Kate Adams back to the studio to pick up our dramaturgical work from last month. Also present was Clarissa Smith, our publicity manager, working away in the studio office getting our social media campaign underway and creating some wonderful images for Instagram. […]
Vital Signs wrestling with Steven Fowler
Today we were delighted to welcome the prolific writer and artist Steven Fowler, whom Scott has known on the UK poetry scene for many years, having been involved in a number of the extraordinary international collaborative projects that Steven has made his name curating. Steven has the distinction of having practised wrestling since the age […]
Vital Signs fencing with Szilvi Naray-Davey
Today I had a fencing lesson with Szilvi Naray-Davey, a colleague in the English department at Salford who has been fencing competitively most of her life, as well as being an actor, director, playwright and translator! My maternal grandfather used to fence and I took a single fencing lesson about ten years ago, but recently […]
Vital Signs photo session with artist Roger Bygott
Today we met with artist Roger Bygott, whose studio is near campus at the Hot Bed Press premises in Salford. Scott met Roger dancing the Five Rhythms and previously worked with him on a series of photographs to accompany his book Poems for the Dance. Today’s session was all about introducing Roger to Vital Signs […]
Vital Signs in Paris 9-10 July 2018
The Vital Signs project took a new and exciting turn when we were invited to Paris for two days by Boris Wiseman, director of the Fondation Deutsch de la Meurthe of the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris (CIUP), whom we met in Manchester during our involvement in Aesthetic Enquiry Across Disciplines (a research network at […]
