On Saturday 5th November the main disruption event will take place.

Using art as a tool to make people and our surroundings a better place, DISRUPTION will take the form of a series of small performances/gestures by our team of ‘POSITIVE DISRUPTORS’ and will take place on the city’s main commercial shopping street, DISRUPTION will demonstrate how a series of breaks from the daily routine can have a positive impact and make the environment in that part of Swansea a better place to be.

Expect storytelling, random acts of kindness, communication, mass participation, performance, and song, and everything in-between!

Some of the artists and arts groups performing in DISRUPTION will be :

ShellShock Theatre | British Racing Green | Leah Edwards | Craig Wood | Paul Jeff | Kim Fielding | Mr & Mrs. Clark | Clare Prosser | Katie White | Frances Trace | Nervous Tension | Alfie Scheinman | Carol Evans | Elena Videnova | CL*WNS | Nicolas Hughes | Alison Hughes | Yael Sherill Mohilever | Donna Males | Louise Bird | Natasha Tresadern-Hill | Tiff Oben | Helene Roberts | Kieron De Silva Beckerton plus more to be announced

FIND OUT MORE!!

I started research in January looking at the  idea of reclaiming public space through performance.  I think that performing in public space has the potential to transform areas, especially city centres designed for shopping, into spaces of contemplation, expression and catharsis and as you don’t need a ticket to stand on Oxford Street, the potential is there to get many sections of our community involved.

As part of my research I plan to  investigate new sources of inspiration and forms of expression in Swasnea city centre. Please follow our facebook page for updates and details of how to join us for interactive theatre performances and street games which will be taking place throughout the 2011 and beyond.

Best wishes,

Stephen

Housed in Kirkgate Market, the project  investigated and mapped the happiness of Leeds’s residents on a giant interactive 3D map.

The project  also played host to artists from around the UK who staged happy interventions in the areas that were generating the least memories, which is why we popped along with our friends Mr Dean of Biscuit Head and the Biscuit Badgers and Mr Brent aka DeXtArt.

HiddenCity is an interactive theatrical experience which sends the audience on a mission through Swansea’s streets to find a city within the city. Entertaining and thought-provoking, it challenges perceptions of Swansea‘s heart, contemplates its purpose, and reveals a side of the city you’ll have never seen before!

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During the summer of 2009, we began devising HiddenCity, a show which took place throughout Swansea City Centre. The audience was sent onto the city streets to find some questionable characters who helped them examine the areas regeneration and contemplate its purpose. It was performed as part of the Dylan Thomas Fringe Festival in 2009.

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A review of HiddenCity from the National Theatre Wales Website;

‘Are you in Swansea on Saturday 7 November?

Because I was in Swansea last Saturday 31 October to participate in ShellShock Theatre’s lovely pervasive theatre experience: HiddenCity.

ShellShock Theatre are Stephen Donnelly and Sian Stuttard, two really exciting and enterprising performers who are based in Swansea.

HiddenCity was a theatrical experience devised by the Company with four actors. Divided into three teams we were given a series of clues that took us on a journey of discovery through Swansea city centre.

We travelled through a series of encounters with various Swansea residents who encouraged us look at the city and our relationships within it and with it. Very interesting for me to investigate my relationship to Swansea as a Cardiff girl. The last time I went out down Wind Street was as a teenager with an older boyfriend whose sister got into a fight with a nightclub bouncer. I remember biting and headlocks. That is my image of Swansea.

The journey accumulated in a lovely community “happening”, where we all got to come together and share our ideas and thoughts on the city of Swansea. There were ideas for regeneration, for creating utopia and retreating back to the past. There were people who loved Swansea and people who couldn’t wait to get away to somewhere else. It was fantastic swapping attitudes and prejudices with other audience participants, most of whom knew the city much better than me!

Continuing the spirit of playfulness, Esko and I bought sherbet Double Dips as we drove out of Swansea and back to Cardiff. (Thanks Esko for the photos in this Blog!)

I thought that having a playful theatrical experience that made me think about social issues and local themes by engaging in my environment, rather than having a worthy didactic performance to simply watch, was a really clever way of getting me to learn something new and challenge my own opinions of Swansea.

Then I dropped the sherbet Double Dabs open in the car, spilling pink and orange fizz everywhere. And I was back down to earth and apologising for trashing the place. It was like my ex-boyfriend’s sister all over again.’

http://community.nationaltheatrewales.org/profiles/blogs/are-you-in-swansea-on-saturday

Posted by Catherine Paskell 2 November 2009.

With advances in genetic technology soon the world will be full of body shops and not the ones you buy your make up from! We’re offering you the chance to take a tour around one such shop and take a look at what the future holds for our society.

BodyShop is a contemporary, devised theatrical experience exploring the future of human evolution and the possibility of shops that sell body parts! BodyShop is a darkly funny and intense production that is not suitable for children or the feint hearted!

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Original Cast -

Donna Males

Owain Roach

Steve Grey

Tim Pottinger

BodyShop was first performed in 2008. This was directed by Sian Stuttard and devised with fellow students as a final year showcase piece, part of their Swansea Met degree course. After graduation, Sian and the cast were invited to perform the show at last year’s Dylan Thomas Fringe Festival.

BodyShop was developed further for a new space and performed again at the Cardiff-based gallery and studio tactileBOSCH in 2009 with a larger cast which included Brent Morgan and Gordon Griffin.

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‘BodyShop is a provocative and unsettling experience. Mixing humour and social comment in an intimate setting. It’s definitely worth a visit!’
Fern Smith, Volcano Theatre Company

‘…a short but powerful experimental performance…’
Jo Mazeli, local author and illustrator

‘Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You…’ is an interactive audience participatory exhibit which, with the help of an old Bakelite phone, sent the audience on missions around the the streets of Edinburgh to find secret locations where they witnessed and took part in site-specifies performances which were littered throughout the city.

‘Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You…’ was experienced and discussed by Paul Morley on the BBC’s Review Show. Here’s a clip.