Tag: live

Swim Litany at 37 Looe Street

Swim Litany: A score and a performance

Swim Litany is a visual text and spoken word score published as an A3 poster. One side presents a range of information sourced from diary records of my swims from mid-summer 2025 to mid-summer 2026. This data includes references to place, to bodies of water, to those I swam with. On the other side textual material is organised into three areas, each section having a different character, with the potential for performance by one, three, or more voices. 

Swimming is something that I do, it is part of my life, and I fit it around other things – weather, work, travel, health. Senses of rhythm, of repetition, of the social activity of swimming are evident in the printed poster and in performance. Interruptions to the rhythm and variations in the text record the impact of the rest of life on my swimming, while the writing acknowledges my appreciation of access to safe water and my physical ability to swim regularly.

For a live event on August 27th, a group of performers will read from the text, their voices mixing, blending, bumping against each other as they navigate the three sections. Rhythm, repetition, overlap and silence will depend on the character of the sections, and the speakers’ responses to the words and to each other. 

Performance:  1800hrs (6.00pm) on Thursday 27th August 2026 at 37 Looe Street, Plymouth, PL4 0DQ  as part of the Bathing Places exhibition. 

‘Bathing Places’ exhibition at 37 Looe Street, Plymouth

I will present ‘Swim Litany’, a new text / spoken word / poster piece, as part of Bathing Places, the summer show at 37 Looe Street in Plymouth. The exhibition, with work from 28 artists runs from June 12th to mid-September (the summer bathing season at Tinside Lido).

Swim Litany is a visual text and spoken word score. Its core material is the diary records of where I swam in the twelve months from mid-summer 2025 to mid-summer 2026. This data is layered with additional references and associations. The A3 score organised so that it offers the potential to be performed by one, two, or more voices.

There will be a live performance of the work at 37 Looe Street in late August. Date to be confirmed. More information can be found at the 37 Looe Street website.

reflection on collaboration on Research Catalogue

Shelley Hodgson and I have published an essay and documentation reflecting on the collaboration and making process that went into our performance, radio and participatorary series of works ‘twiceness’ to ‘thriceness’.

You can read the text and see the supporting materials at: ‘from twiceness to thriceness: a performance writing collaboration‘, Research Catalogue (2026) https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/3704189/3704190/0/0

review of Alchemies of Theater now live online

My review of a new publication on the work of Dick Higgins, Alchemies of Theater: Plays, Scores, Writings edited by Bonnie Marranca, is now live on the Leonardo Reviews site.

Marranca’s focus is on performance theory and history, and she frames each of the four sections with a short prefatory essay. These give some historical and critical context for the works, and offer background information on productions, or publication, gathered from the archive, or through correspondence with collaborators, performers, family and friends of Higgins.

The book introduced me to works by Higgins I was unaware of and gives a sense of the range and variety of his practice. You can read the review at:

https://leonardo.info/review/2025/07/alchemies-of-theater-plays-scores-writings

between twiceness and thriceness: a conversation on collaborative making

For CAMP’s Online Talks Series, Shelley Hodgson and I will present a performative conversation that examines our work together over the past two years. Resulting in a performance, a radio show and a public conversation, our collaboration has generated material, raised questions, and prompted reflection.

In our zoom conversation for CAMP, from two locations, Shelley and I will focus on questions of collaboration. Talking about how we have found a way to work together, how we make work that is jointly developed. Discussing how we use strategies of scores, timing, and our different skills, to make work that feels properly collaborative. A lot of this depends on trust, on communication, and on being OK with things that don’t ‘work’. We will use flash cards, some recorded sound, a dictaphone, and there will be sonic interruptions and obscure gestures.

The event will be accessible live online on Tuesday 8th April 2025 at 1830hrs via the CAMP Mighty Network.