Cast-Off Drama blog, 2002-2018: ARCHIVE (original) (raw)

Abstract

Artistic Director: Dr Nina Kane From 2002-2018 the Cast-Off Drama updated its activities in a blog which it has now archived. It offers a useful record of community theatre-making and performance art in municipal art galleries, and of contemporary theories and practices of life-modelling and life-drawing exchange. The archive is still being updated and most sections are incomplete, nevertheless it offers a significant body of work for scholarly and practitioner consideration. About Cast-Off Drama The Cast-Off Drama Project (known generally as Cast-Off Drama) is a respected pioneer of 'life-modelling theatre' offering new roles to life-models as perfomers and to artists as 'notators' and audience members. It recognises life-modelling and life-drawing as interdependent art forms involving both model and artist in dynamic creative exchange. It is the initiative of Dr Nina Kane and has progressed under her artistic and strategic direction since 2001. "We see life-modelling as a theatre-based art form, and the life-drawing space as a space for theatre. In addition to life-modelling theatre, we work with street and community theatres, creating powerful, people-centred productions. We work with live performance art interventions in public gallery spaces, and are developing new methods of making work with actors internationally using digital technologies." Artistic Director The project began as a self-funded community research exploration of female life-modelling and the theatre potentials of the life-drawing space. It drew initially on Nina's experiences as a life-model, community theatre-maker and women's sexual health worker and centred on the theories of Augusto Boal (theatre) and Luce Irigaray (feminist philosophy). Inspiration for the project came to her during a 'dreamtime' meditation session with the artist group Naga. Based in Holmfirth, UK, Cast-Off Drama works with itinerant and community art in galleries, studio theatres, community centres, festivals, outdoor locations and in cyberspace. It operates as a not-for-profit arts umbrella relying on small public arts and community grants, commissions from galleries, workshop fees from schools and community clients, voluntary donations from participants, partnership working, resource sharing and volunteer time to offer workshops and performances to the public free-of-charge. The project commits to making new theatre and maintains an innovative and ever-growing repertoire of performance works, dramaturgies, devised texts and original playscripts. We also stage works written by published authors. Our partnerships in community and education seek to maximise use of municipal, public and community resources, enabling access to arts-making opportunities for all. We maintain an active relationship to diverse communities in the North of England through our dynamic participatory programme; successfully engaging new audiences, whilst extending existing ones. We create exciting education work for schools, colleges, universities and community centres. Since 2013, the project has provided space for internships and 'artist-in-residence' places on our workshop programmes for people looking to develop careers in arts education in collaboration with gallery partners. See under 'community and education' for more on this. In 2017, Cast-Off Drama was made a core partner alongside Pyramid of Arts, the WEA and East St Arts (Community) of Leeds Art Gallery Learning and Access team. "Our all cannot be projected or mastered. Our whole body is moved. No surface holds. No figure, line or point remains. No ground subsists. But no abyss either. Depth for us is not a chasm. [...] We have so much space to share. Our horizon will never stop expanding; we are always open. Stretching out, never ceasing to unfold ourselves, we have so many voices to invent in order to express all of us everywhere, even in our gaps, that all the time there is will not be enough. We can never complete the circuit, explore the periphery; we have so many dimensions." Luce Irigaray, Philosopher, 'When Our Lips Speak Together' in This Sex Which Is Not One "We have an active commitment to generating arts research" Artistic Director, Cast-Off Drama Cast-Off Drama in and of itself is a major piece of action research under continual practice-based development by its lead artist Dr Nina Kane. True to its Irigarayan parametres 'our horizon will never stop expanding'; it is, in feminist philosophical terms, 'a kiss between women'. To progress our overall enquiry, we structure the arts practices and questions we wish to explore into smaller, time-bound projects, grouped and numbered under the acronym PACE - Public Arts and Community Education. PACE projects usually last from 1-5 years, and combine performances, workshops and the ongoing presentation of findings in public forums. They are usually undertaken with at least one key collaborating partner. We have an international relationship with artists and theatre makers in Japan, China, Germany, Italy and France, and collaborate with partners in those countries to develop exchange productions and research opportunities. The project creates new platforms for research through developing conferences and symposiums with our arts and education partners, and we disseminate new ideas through artist talks, seminars and publications. See under 'Bookshelf' for more on this. Beyond performance-making and education outreach, our dramaturgical approach offers a unique way of reading artworks differently through uses of the body and drama and this has proved a useful tool for art historians and curators charged with cataloguing and developing public gallery collections. WILMA - Women into Life-Modelling Arts Cast-Off Drama offers a unique and specific programme for female and male life-models which is run solely on a volunteer basis. WILMA - Women Into Life-Modelling Arts exists as an advocacy, networking and creative development service for life-models. It is not an agency. WILMA is Trans*-welcoming and we support any participant's self-definition of their gender and choice of workshop programme. Ocarina Nina Street-Theatre and Singing The project has a commercial arm - Ocarina Nina Street-Theatre and Singing - which provides singing walkabout acts for festivals and fortune-telling for cabaret gigs. The Ocarina Nina performances are not grant-supported and use no public or community funds. Ocarina Nina operates solely as a fundraiser to support the wider costs of the Cast-Off Drama research. Artistic Director Statement: "Our aesthetic and dramaturgy moves from the sublime, lyrical, physically engaging and beautiful to the naff, ridiculous and frankly, at times, embarrassing. It embraces a broad spectrum of human emotions and experiences, challenging the viewer with both seduction and alienation. Our work is deeply crafted; it comes from dwelling in and on spaces, places, artworks, texts and people. We embrace the open space of the gallery and the auric fusion of art objects and visitors with impulsive bodies. 'What the fuck am I doing? Why am I doing this? I don't have a clue what I'm doing but I'll do it anyway!' Such is our initiation into performative action. We are clowns and nude performers. We're weird and queer. We take risks. Our work succeeds brilliantly and fails beautifully in ways we don't expect. It comes from a place of love. It's promiscuous, polyamorous, earnest, flippant, political. At times, it's painful to watch. We only ever offer a fragment of the wider performance - the rest is created by the audience; a dramaturgy of encounter. Everyone is welcome. It's fine to come and go." Dr Nina Kane CONTACT US For all enquiries, please email: castoffdrama@outlook.com