Dear Phelim……. Your speaking is SO inspired…… words are now flowing onto paper here …. and will be with you in the coming hours/ days….
Your home is coming….. coming home indeed….. with love…. 😊 Romy Romy Shovelton Executive Director Wikima and the 5* Tyddyn Retreat Mid Wales Venue & Holiday Cottages > On 29 Jul 2021, at 15:15, Phelim McDermott via OSList > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Dear Open space friends, > > I’m sure some of you have already seen this but I wanted to share this > invitation with the Oslist from Improbable. As you know we’ve been on a big > journey of invitation with our Devoted and Disgruntled events over the years > and the building of a community who have used and spread the practice of > opening space in the theatre world and beyond. See here if you are > interested. www.devotedanddisgruntled.com > <http://www.devotedanddisgruntled.com/> > > We’ve been in a period of space opening as the pandemic took us into > stillness and then online in the theatre world. Now it’s time to open space > to come home. We’ve decided to do it through Invitation, Art and > Conversation.. > > I’m never quite sure if things copied in appear in the OS list so forgive me > that I’ve included the text twice and also i’ve include the link to our > website if this doesn't come through. Do let us know if you have any thoughts > or straws you’d like to share. > > Lots of Love Phelim > > https://www.improbable.co.uk/posts/the-gathering > <https://www.improbable.co.uk/posts/the-gathering> > > <e39b00b4-af68-4c74-8b13-774299560d46.png> > > <500b71ae-a5c1-31cf-0df1-47c605453d6a.png> > > > The Gathering > > Improbable are moving… > But to where? Maybe you can help us to find out. > > This is an invitation to work with us on the next big Improbable project, > which is taking an unprecedented form. This is surprising for a company that > has explored so many diverse forms to date: we’ve done plays, operas, > puppetry, panto, musicals, big outdoor spectacles, small indoor Impros. What > else is left? Here’s one thing the company has never yet done: created a home. > > We’ve had small offices. Plenty of those. But to do the creative work we have > always rented, begged, borrowed, been asked into, other peoples’ spaces. And > now, after twenty-five years, we want a space of our own. > > Not a venue. Not a ticketed theatre. An Improbable space. A playful one. A > porous one. One that can welcome and hold all the roles - those with tickets > and those without. A place to share the work, make the work, or take a break > from the work and just hang out. > > Why? > > Some of us are getting old. Older. Pushing fifty, sixty. The dream of a home > is the dream of a place to house the practice, so that we can both deepen it > and pass it on. If Improbable were on a hero’s journey, now would be the time > for us to bring the gift back home - but we need a home to bring it home to. > > During the pandemic the only space we had, the office space, had to go > online. We have done a huge amount of work like this - remotely - and now, as > things start to re-open, if we are to move back into a real, embodied space, > we want it to be a creative one. The pandemic has also made us less > London-centric, so we could go, almost, anywhere. But we want to be somewhere > that we want to be, and somewhere that wants to have us. Somewhere other > people would want to come. So, we are thinking landscape - not inside a city > but near enough to one to be within reach. > > But where? > > We do not know, but we are quite good at not knowing. If there is one thing > that we have been practicing these last twenty-five years, it’s that - the > art of not knowing. > > One thing we do, when we do not know what to do is this - we invite in all > the voices, the professional, the personal, the irreverent and the seemingly > irrelevant, the incidental, the marginalised, the dead and gone, the ghosts. > And then we listen to them. This is how we make our shows. Put the voices and > all the things they have to say, all the images they bring with them, into > the middle of the room, making a strange, haphazard collection of stuff, a > great pile of straw, and then we see what we can create from them, what gold > we can spin from them, or - better still - we wait and see what wants to be > spun. This time what we are hoping to spin is a home. > > And this is where you come in. > Because for this project, yours is one of the voices we want to invite in.... > > Much of Improbable’s work to date has centred around building community, > whether that is the temporary community of a show - a group of performers - > or the whole artistic community that comes together at our Devoted and > Disgruntled > <https://improbable.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a5189ca3fc76859d6e74c21e3&id=539685174e&e=98c6fdf648> > Open Space events. We know we cannot do this new, home-making project alone > - it is going to be a big collaboration, our biggest to date. We are not like > Jack - we cannot just go and build ourselves a house. We are going to need > the help of builders, farmers, estate agents, architects, entrepreneurs, > ecologists, funders, artists, children, animals. Trees too. Stones. And we > are going to need help at every stage, including now, at the dreaming, > wondering, questioning stage. > > We are on a treasure hunt. We are on the look out for clues, like strands of > straw, and they could come from anywhere. At the moment, Phelim’s and > Matilda’s son, Riddley, is doing a project at school to build a model of a > shelter, some form of dwelling. Phelim and Matilda went with him to the Weald > and Downland Museum in West Sussex at the weekend and saw some old buildings- > thatched roofs, wattle and daubed walls, as well as a beautiful gridshell > construction > <https://improbable.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a5189ca3fc76859d6e74c21e3&id=a6259c96e4&e=98c6fdf648>, > like an upturned ark - that felt like a clue. > > On the way back, driving in the car, they slowed down, seeing something in > the road - it was an owl, perched on the ground, staring, having just killed > a rabbit. It flew away with the rabbit in its claws. That felt like another > clue. > > We don't know what any of these clues mean. We do not need to know that yet. > As with a show, at present we are simply searching, gathering. We’ve been > having conversations with other artists, other home-owners, inviting in > different voices, collecting clues. This, now, is us widening the > conversation further, to include you, whoever you are reading this, however > you have or haven’t engaged with Improbable till now. Because you might have > a clue. It could be a place you know which you love that you want to tell us > about. It could be a memory you have from a show we once did. It could be a > dream. It could be a photo. It could be a book. It could be you - you could > be a clue. > > Imagine we are all sitting in a circle, a growing circle, like at an Open > Space event, like every show we have ever made has started. If you have any > clues, any strands of straw you wish to add to the pile in the middle please > do - leave a comment on our website > <https://improbable.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a5189ca3fc76859d6e74c21e3&id=e1687f3832&e=98c6fdf648>, > or get in touch - email [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=The%20Gathering>. We need all the > straw we can get - we have a big dream, a whole home to build. > > Phelim, Lee, Matilda > July 2021 > > <dark-facebook-96.png> > <https://improbable.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a5189ca3fc76859d6e74c21e3&id=91193633d6&e=98c6fdf648> > <dark-twitter-96.png> > <https://improbable.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a5189ca3fc76859d6e74c21e3&id=fc1c583103&e=98c6fdf648> > <dark-instagram-96.png> > <https://improbable.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a5189ca3fc76859d6e74c21e3&id=3b38260a89&e=98c6fdf648> > <dark-link-96.png> > <https://improbable.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a5189ca3fc76859d6e74c21e3&id=386fee4239&e=98c6fdf648> > <749494cb-bd86-48d5-b1c0-9dfd8ba7890a.png> > Improbable is a National Portfolio Organisation of Arts Council England > Copyright © 2021 Improbable. All rights reserved. > You have received this email because you are on the Improbable Mailing List. > To update your profile or unsubscribe, please follow the links below. If you > have any queries, suggestions or complaints, please email > [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>. > > Our mailing address is: > Improbable c/o PopHub, 41 Whitcomb Street, London WC2H 7DT, United Kingdom > > The Gathering > > Improbable are moving… > But to where? Maybe you can help us to find out. > > This is an invitation to work with us on the next big Improbable project, > which is taking an unprecedented form. This is surprising for a company that > has explored so many diverse forms to date: we’ve done plays, operas, > puppetry, panto, musicals, big outdoor spectacles, small indoor Impros. What > else is left? Here’s one thing the company has never yet done: created a home. > > We’ve had small offices. Plenty of those. But to do the creative work we have > always rented, begged, borrowed, been asked into, other peoples’ spaces. And > now, after twenty-five years, we want a space of our own. > > Not a venue. Not a ticketed theatre. An Improbable space. A playful one. A > porous one. One that can welcome and hold all the roles - those with tickets > and those without. A place to share the work, make the work, or take a break > from the work and just hang out. > > Why? > > Some of us are getting old. Older. Pushing fifty, sixty. The dream of a home > is the dream of a place to house the practice, so that we can both deepen it > and pass it on. If Improbable were on a hero’s journey, now would be the time > for us to bring the gift back home - but we need a home to bring it home to. > > During the pandemic the only space we had, the office space, had to go > online. We have done a huge amount of work like this - remotely - and now, as > things start to re-open, if we are to move back into a real, embodied space, > we want it to be a creative one. The pandemic has also made us less > London-centric, so we could go, almost, anywhere. But we want to be somewhere > that we want to be, and somewhere that wants to have us. Somewhere other > people would want to come. So, we are thinking landscape - not inside a city > but near enough to one to be within reach. > > But where? > > We do not know, but we are quite good at not knowing. If there is one thing > that we have been practicing these last twenty-five years, it’s that - the > art of not knowing. > > One thing we do, when we do not know what to do is this - we invite in all > the voices, the professional, the personal, the irreverent and the seemingly > irrelevant, the incidental, the marginalised, the dead and gone, the ghosts. > And then we listen to them. This is how we make our shows. Put the voices and > all the things they have to say, all the images they bring with them, into > the middle of the room, making a strange, haphazard collection of stuff, a > great pile of straw, and then we see what we can create from them, what gold > we can spin from them, or - better still - we wait and see what wants to be > spun. This time what we are hoping to spin is a home. > > And this is where you come in. > Because for this project, yours is one of the voices we want to invite in.... > > Much of Improbable’s work to date has centred around building community, > whether that is the temporary community of a show - a group of performers - > or the whole artistic community that comes together at our Devoted and > Disgruntled > <https://improbable.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a5189ca3fc76859d6e74c21e3&id=539685174e&e=98c6fdf648> > Open Space events. We know we cannot do this new, home-making project alone > - it is going to be a big collaboration, our biggest to date. We are not like > Jack - we cannot just go and build ourselves a house. We are going to need > the help of builders, farmers, estate agents, architects, entrepreneurs, > ecologists, funders, artists, children, animals. Trees too. Stones. And we > are going to need help at every stage, including now, at the dreaming, > wondering, questioning stage. > > We are on a treasure hunt. We are on the look out for clues, like strands of > straw, and they could come from anywhere. At the moment, Phelim’s and > Matilda’s son, Riddley, is doing a project at school to build a model of a > shelter, some form of dwelling. Phelim and Matilda went with him to the Weald > and Downland Museum in West Sussex at the weekend and saw some old buildings- > thatched roofs, wattle and daubed walls, as well as a beautiful gridshell > construction > <https://improbable.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a5189ca3fc76859d6e74c21e3&id=a6259c96e4&e=98c6fdf648>, > like an upturned ark - that felt like a clue. > > On the way back, driving in the car, they slowed down, seeing something in > the road - it was an owl, perched on the ground, staring, having just killed > a rabbit. It flew away with the rabbit in its claws. That felt like another > clue. > > We don't know what any of these clues mean. We do not need to know that yet. > As with a show, at present we are simply searching, gathering. We’ve been > having conversations with other artists, other home-owners, inviting in > different voices, collecting clues. This, now, is us widening the > conversation further, to include you, whoever you are reading this, however > you have or haven’t engaged with Improbable till now. Because you might have > a clue. It could be a place you know which you love that you want to tell us > about. It could be a memory you have from a show we once did. It could be a > dream. It could be a photo. It could be a book. It could be you - you could > be a clue. > > Imagine we are all sitting in a circle, a growing circle, like at an Open > Space event, like every show we have ever made has started. If you have any > clues, any strands of straw you wish to add to the pile in the middle please > do - leave a comment on our website > <https://improbable.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a5189ca3fc76859d6e74c21e3&id=e1687f3832&e=98c6fdf648>, > or get in touch - email [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=The%20Gathering>. We need all the > straw we can get - we have a big dream, a whole home to build. > > Phelim, Lee, Matilda > July 2021 > > > <open.php.gif> > > > _______________________________________________ > OSList mailing list > To post send emails to [email protected] > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > To subscribe or manage your subscription click below: > http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org > Past archives can be viewed here: > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
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