October Upon Reflection

October is always a busy one for us.

It's seems as though it's become part of our deal as a company to contribute in some way to ComedyPort, Newport's Annual Comedy Festival, and then two weeks later to create an immersive horror experience in an unusual space.

October always feels good.

This year for ComedyPort we took a step back from our usual offering of Launchpad, a project which has in previous years benefited from Arts Council Wales funding, and sees us transforming an empty shop into an cartoonish immersive environment i.e Rocket Ship, Submarine, Human Brain. This year however, things came about quickly. We had very little time to prep for this event, and knew that with certain members of the company having maybe too much time booked off to travel the world a bit, it'd be a tough task to create a project as large and transformative as Launchpad has and always will be. So, with a £1000 thrown our way to make something happen, we chaotically endeavoured to make something happen.

With very little budget we made the event in collaboration with The Riverfront and fine folks at The Project Space, if you're a South Wales artist of any medium who has yet to tap into the phenomenal resource that is The Project Space, then I'd strongly suggest you click here. National Theatre Wales are currently inhabiting the upstairs for their new project BOARDERGAME.

Anyway,

I digress.

Where was I?

Oh yeah.

TRASH was made rather quickly and on a shoe-string, but surprisingly we saw our largest audience attendance to date. We hosted some of the best performers we've ever had, and overall we had an awesome time in our part-Rubbish part-Wrestling themed venue.

It was a thought to savour as we quickly realised that actually pouring money into something doesn't make the event richer.

TRASH in all of it's Rubbish Glory was a really fun thing to do, and we'll think more carefully about what we make next year, but will try and remember all the feedback from this event.

Leviticus was an entirely different beast.

A small performance piece that invited 4 audience members in to a house.

We collaborated with four South Wales based Performing Artists and Make-up Artist Leah Crystal John. Working for two weeks in the house, Antonio directed the piece with George overseeing the process and me flitting in and out sometimes uselessly.

For me personally it was an amazing thing to see come together. I'd missed the first few days of development, so really had a back seat from there on in. The spirit (no pun intended) of the group was amazing, a really strong sense of collaboration in the air that made every smile and everyone work really, really hard.

You can read our Wales Arts Review article HERE.

Thank you to all the residence who welcomed us to their street. Everyone seemed really excited to know what it was we were doing and the guy across the road told us he wasn't watching his tv anymore, but he'd turned to look at the window and watch all the people leave the house screaming.

It was a beautiful happening, us and that street.

Thanks to everyone who supported the work and anyone who came to see it.

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Mucho

Justin