Stories Beneath the Surface: Presentation

For the last session of the Stories Beneath the Surface, every participant gave a presentation on what we are all doing next and how the sessions have helped our practice.

To begin, I wanted to give a brief explanation of my research as I came to the workshops to help my headspace for my research so I didn’t explore the same themes as other artists. Some explored the possibility of having an artistic invention at the Shugborough Estate and others explored the archives and oral histories.

 

I explained that my research involves Theatr Clwyd, their renovations and their public arts programme. The research themes were agreed by the university and theatre long before I applied and that it has been an interesting journey to find myself within those parameters and that was one of the reasons, I wanted to do these workshops.

​I described the theatre and where I am currently up to:

Theatr Clwyd is currently undergoing a redevelopment programme costing over £35 million. It was originally built by the local authority in the 1970s to 'provide cultural opportunities for people living in North Wales'. ​It is the only producing house theatre in North Wales employing over 120 people.

The management team at the theatre want the renovations and the public arts programme to follow key principles: sustainability, playfulness/joy, community engagement and contribute to well-being of the community. These are all themes in the Well-being of Future Generations Act that are important to the theatre. They are thinking about the long term impact of their decisions on the community. ​ I am exploring these key principles in my research, mainly where the renovations and public arts programme are involved.

 My aims include:

• To identify how the public arts programme enhances well-being​

• To understand how the arts programme upholds its principles​

• To document the renovation​

• To understand how visual arts sit within a performing arts setting, especially where the theatre's renovations ​are concerned

My first steps have been to get ethical approval for staff questionnaires. I needed to explore how the staff define the terms.  I developed a questionnaire that was sent to all staff and after 2 months of repeated emails from management, I have only received 12 responses out of 120ish staff. Not the best sample size to be honest. But this is just one of the ways I have been discovering how the theatre operates. It has been interesting to delve into an organisation in a state of flux. They have recently become a charity and completely changed their ethos. They have a permanent staff mental health counsellor for starters which is great and progressive. The team I have been put with, have gone from 4 members of staff to 15: the Creative Engagement team who run all the community workshops, go into schools with different projects etc. The Artistic Director has recently been head hunted by the RSC and will be leaving in March so again the theatre continues to be in this state of flux; needing to find a new artistic director and also having the renovations done. The renovations are massive, currently one of the theatres is operating from a big tent and the next phase, after panto season, will see our big theatre, the Anthony Hopkins theatre, shut and move into an even bigger tent for 2 years.

My research is a mix of qualitative and practice-based exploration. The theatre wants me to record the renovations through my own practice. This is where I’ve been a bit stuck. The theatre has only just completed stage one of the renovations which involved the asbestos being removed-that has taken 6 months. So, I haven’t been able to actually go into the building during that time.

Whilst we were visiting Shugborough, I was thinking about the theatre and the importance of the community exploring spaces. I have received ethical approval to take some of the community groups the theatre works with, into the theatre to explore the space now it has been stripped. My plan is to get them to react to the space within their own discipline and then through a visual arts medium. The community groups are writers, actors and dancers. Whilst facilitating the groups, I will be reacting to the spaces myself. This will be the first opportunity to start making something and record the process of renovation. My plan is to follow each phase of the renovations with the same groups exploring the spaces as they develop, culminating in an exhibition when the theatre reopens. We will inhabit the new space with the reactions to the development as it happened.

From the first session with Jaqueline, I decided to interview a member of staff at Theatr Clwyd. I hadn’t really entertained the idea of interviews as part of my research but through learning the skills, I wanted to discover a person-centred history of the theatre so chose a member of staff I know quite well and has been there for over 16 years. There are already numerous interviews from actors about the theatre but not the staff or community. I managed to interview him and the stories were intriguing.

After visiting Shugborough and listening to the session with Matt about Flux. I was thinking to myself that Theatr Clwyd doesn’t really have a hidden history that’s negative. It was originally a local authority run theatre, only recently becoming a charity. However, through the interview I discovered a historic complex politics within an organisation that has been changing since the member of staff I interviewed started working there. I’ve always been quite interested in politics and my artwork is usually political in some way, so this has really intrigued me. Getting anything done in the arts seems to be a massive uphill struggle. Even getting ethical approval from my own university was a battle. The committee questioned my methods. It has opened a whole other perspective on the realities of getting anything done within the Arts and I have a whole new respect for the staff members involved in getting the renovations to this stage.

On this note, I think I need to go to our local archive and look at the written history of the theatre from the local authority’s perspective. I want to compare the personal history to the official history. I would also like to see the original plans etc.

I don’t know where any of this will take me but it quite exciting especially reacting with the community groups to the building as it changes.

Each participant was given feedback from one of the artists (Jacqueline, Matt or Paul), this was decided randomly by pulling names out of a hat. I drew Jacqueline. She was a little confused about the research and didn’t really get it at all, which was disappointing. Luckily, Paul stepped in and it turns out he did a similar project with the theatre in Keswick. We had a good chat and he recommended that I need to be selfish now and do what I am interested in and run with that.

I am going into the workshops next week to introduce myself to the groups and sort out the paperwork. The following week we will be going into the building to explore the space. It is going to be a strange experience, especially, as there is no electricity so we will be walking round with torches. Unfortunately, due to the theatre’s timetabling, I will only be able to explore the spaces through visual mediums with the writing group as the dance and acting groups are preparing for a Christmas performance.