‘Crossing’ 21st February 2020 at Stage@Leeds, University of Leeds

A man crosses the mountains from Afghanistan to Pakistan. He leaves behind everything he loves in order to be free. “Take a last look at your country…” A woman travels from Hong Kong to England: her whole life becomes the food she cooks and sells in her take away cafe in Leeds. A boy steals a toy car from the local shop. Consumed by guilt, he goes back the next day, and returns it to the shelf. An English girl falls in love with a Hungarian boy. There is a wall between them – the Berlin Wall. When the wall falls, their love is finished. Difficult births. Divorce. Heartbreak. Death. New beginnings. Always another chance. Many languages, countries, cultures: and in the middle of it all – ordinary people, with extraordinary tales to tell. These are the moments of our lives: moments of meaning and change. Come with us, in Crossing, across the border, to explore in music, dance, words and silence, what it means to be human in our troubled contemporary world.

The Performance Ensemble. We are a company of older performers. Some of us are writers, dancers, musicians, actors; others are teachers, scientists, social workers, probation officers. We bring to this work a wide range of skills and expertise, and lives that are full of meaning and intent. We aim to share these rich lives with our audiences, through dance, song, and the spoken word. Everyone has a story to tell – and here are some of ours. The Ensemble collaborates closely together, through weekly classes and intensive rehearsals, to create multi-layered performances, based on the authentic, lived experiences of each individual member. All are equal, and equally valued. It is our aim and ambition to work together long into the future, building trust and confidence: making a community of players, in which everyone has a respected and honoured place. Our current project, Bus Pass, is a series of different performances, culminating in an epic outdoor happening, featuring one thousand older performers, as part of the Leeds 2023 celebrations. Whilst there is a core group of committed ensemble members, we constantly spread our net more widely, too, both in and around the communities of Leeds, to include as many older people as possible in the projects we are building. We also invite international artists to join us in our work. This is art with the experience of age: full of vibrant energy, reflection and insight. To use the well-loved mantra of our Artistic Director Alan Lyddiard, invoked at the beginning of every rehearsal – “This is us. We are here. And we are beautiful.”

Barney Bardsley, Dramaturg

'BED' 11th - 13th October 2019 - On the streets of Leeds

‘Bed’ was a co-production between The Performance Ensemble, Entelechy Arts supported by Leeds Playhouse, funded by Arts Council England and Leeds Playhouse via a special grant from Leeds City Council. It was an interactive theatre performance co-devised by a group of older artists (In their 70’s and 80’s) from Leeds. Performers appeared in beds in various public city centre locations, sharing personal stories with passers-by who stopped to talk. ‘Bed’ encouraged people to consider the invisibility older people feel when going about their lives in public places. Stories that go unheard and lives unrecognised.

“Just seen ‘Bed’ the stories are so poignant. Has made me reflect about myself and how I have been feeling recently and about society. We need to talk more to every generation. Loneliness can happen to anyone at anytime.” Audience member from Twitter

It is impossible to say how many people engaged with ‘Bed’ over the weekend of 11th to 13th October 2019 but we gave out leaflets 1632 leaflets describing the project to people who stopped and engaged with the performers. We estimated that over 2000 other people watched from a distance and even the 3000 or so people who walked passed the beds, some stopped for a moment before walking on. It was an arresting sight. What did they think was happening?

The people who stopped and met the performers listen to stories, told their own stories, had conversations about many subjects, shared photos, played chess, brought them coffee and other snacks, helped them in so many ways and started to make beautiful authentic relationships together.

“I was really struck by the interactions with it by young people – a truly fantastic demonstration of compassion and humanity from the city’s young people.” Leeds City Council Officer

“I found there was empathy and generosity and concern from the people who stopped to talk” Peter Gray, performer

“There were many highlights. One I’d like to mention was when a Somalian family came. There were three young children, two older children and presumably the mother. And we got things happening. And I was making origami cups with the little children with water in it and the two older ones were playing chess at the foot of the bed and I was talking to the mother and it was all happening at the same time and and eventually they left and I was enjoying it so much I’m sorry to see them go.” Performer Peter Crane

“ … what struck me most was the generosity with which you mined into your own life stories and experiences… and then how you use that experience and other stories that you had heard, or lived… to create this person who wasn’t you. I remember the first rehearsals felt like it was a negotiation and I was just full of admiration that a stranger can arrive and say ‘Is it OK if you work for 8 days and then you… put your night clothes on and go into a street? Is that OK?’ And it felt like there wasn’t a moment in the whole process where any of you blinked and said “oh I don’t know about this”! Of course you had… when you were very… you were very critical, in a positive sense, needing to know “How can I be supported… How can I be comfortable?” but so just…just the courage, individually and collectively as a company, that you all had was stunning and thank you because it was so powerful to to work with you”. David Slater, Director

“Please God don’t let this be art!” Overheard from a passer-by.

‘They Moved The Chairs to Give Me Passage’ Ageless Festival,

Yorkshire Dance – 25th October 2019

First Performance at The International Solo Theatre Festival, Sarwanam Theatre, Kathmandu, Nepal – April 2018

“The Chairs Were Moved To Give Me Passage” Is a collection of personal stories interspersed with movement/dance sections. Stories of journeys made and journeys about to start Now and yesterday A performance for people who are interested in people.

PERFORMANCE | STORIES | DANCE | MUSIC | LIFE

A Solo Show from the performer/choreographer Tamara McLorg – Directed by Alan Lyddiard

First Performance Sarwanam Theatre, Kathmandu, Nepal – April 2018

Recently at Ageless Festival, Leeds – September 2019

‘Bus Ride’ Sunday 16th September 2018 – Queens Hotel, Leeds

‘Bus Ride’ was a large-scale performance piece made by older people from Leeds. In the Summer of 2018 we met with over 300 older people to listen to their stories. We wanted to connect with a number of older people, who were living by themselves, and accompany them on a bus journey. We had some great conversations, got to know each other and shared a snack or a cup of tea.We recorded lots of stories and conversations and published some of them on our web site. The philosophy underlining the project was to sustain long lasting and caring relationships between participants, artists, volunteers and support-workers that will extend well beyond this project. It is based on the belief that the telling and listening to stories from people is an act of generosity.

The final performance was created from the material we gather on the bus journeys. It was performed by a cast of 93 people. The performance was a rich, unique and vibrant performance full of music, dance, stories and gentle moments of life as lived by older people. The participants presenting themselves becomes the central text of the work; their stories, their concerns, their aspirations. Considering life through the lens of contemporary old age is a truly radical act. It reframes values and debates. ‘Bus Ride’ celebrates older people living in the ‘here & now’ and creating their own future.

It was directed by Alan Lyddiard, choreographed by Tamara McLorg, original music by Christopher Benstead with special guests, the Citizens Orchestra, led by Adam Smith.

Anniversary September 2018 – Co-production with Leeds Playhouse

Anniversary’ was performed at The Courtyard Theatre at Leeds Playhouse from 14th to 17th September

“Considering life through the lens of contemporary old age is a truly radical act. It reframes values and debates. It repositions individuals in relation to society.

Questions previously long fingered for another day become instantly foregrounded or irrelevant. Time shifts. Legacy rather than career comes into play. Emotional articulacy. Care. Friendships. It is not a time for living in the past or the future but living fully in the moment.

And we mark out those moments with anniversaries. Anchors in time.

But human “old” does not run on an industrialised timepiece. We don’t all clock on at the allotted start time. It’s organic and arrives by accrual. Its affected by poverty and happiness, by loneliness and location, by diet and career. We find ourselves there, or nearly there, certainly more nearly there than we were before, definitely older, but never quite arrived at being, old.

Perhaps “old” is measured by a yardstick of loss. A loss of mobility, a loss of ambition, a loss of connectedness. The loss of friends and family members. A loss of muscle tone, a reduced of sharpness of vision, a blurring in hearing, a fuzziness in thinking, some change in clarity.

Yet that’s only half a story. We have collected. We have gathered. We have seen, we have listened, recorded and we have understood. We are the experts of our own experience and became so simply by continuing. We embody the extended past in the present. We are the living libraries of our own knowledge. We can do breadth and depth of understanding. We can accept two emotions in the same incident as a true reflection of life’s capriciousness. Bittersweet and Happy-sad. The Glorious Temporary. The mundane everyday exists in porous exchange with an infinite magic as we reach the edge of our own individual transition back and forward to unknowingness. Ashes to ashes. Dust to Stardust.

How to share these experiences? How to enrich our understanding of this period of being alive? How do people gathered in a room begin to acknowledge and exchange all this complexity? To bear witness to their own growing understanding at the moment of its continuous lived occurrence?

Is this not reason enough for theatre?”

Dominic Campbell, Dramaturg

‘Anniversary’ was directed by Alan Lyddiard, choreographed by Tamara McLorg with original music by Christopher Benstead. Performed by Alex Elliott, Barbara Newsome, Christopher Benstead, Connie Hodgson, Hum Crawshaw, Maureen Willis, Namron, Pat White, Sally Owen, Tamara McLorg, Villmore James.

‘Anniversary ‘Work In Progress

“Dancehall of Dreams”

Last Wednesday my new company, The Performance Ensemble, performed a piece, “Dancehall of Dreams” on the Quarry Stage at West Yorkshire Playhouse. It was the culmination of a three month project working with people over the age of 60, exploring how to make contemporary theatre for audiences of all ages, working in the space between professional, amateur and community theatre practise.

We started this project in Mytholmroyd in the Calder Valley and finished it in West Yorkshire Playhouse, collaborating with hundreds of individuals and many organisations across West Yorkshire in the process

We created the Calder Valley Performance Ensemble, a new performance company, of performers over the age of 60 that will continue to create performance work locally.

We worked with Heydays, a long standing institution of the West Yorkshire Playhouse’s community programme, working with people over the age of 55.

We formed a collaboration with Citizens’ Orchestra, established in 2009, which offers older musicians – of all abilities – an opportunity to enjoy playing music together.

We delivered 3 performances in Mytholmroyd as part of The Hebden Bridge Arts Festival to an audience of 200 people and one at West Yorkshire Playhouse as part of their Open Season programme to an audience of 175.

Activities began in Mytholmroyd at the beginning of April 2014. Working with established community groups. Joe Standerline, who lives in Mytholmroyd and myself met with a range of people over the age of 60 across the town. We made contact with Calderdale Council Neighbourhood Scheme, Elphin and Elphaborough Sheltered Housing, Tea Dances, Hebden Bridge Arts Festival, Mytholmroyd Community Centre, Amateur Theatre Societies as well as a number of community groups.

At first there was a degree of suspicion about what we were doing. Older people sometimes can find new ideas unsettling and it was difficult to engage at first. It was important for us to build relationships with people with no agenda. We needed to listen and to be open to people in environments where they felt secure. Sometimes it seemed as if we were intruding into their lives so we needed to wait and allow people to come to us. We just were always there offering cups of tea and an opportunity for a chat.

The collecting of stories from older people became easier. We went to social events and met people on their own terms and soon we were getting, literally, dozens of stories. They were happy to meet us and even looked forward to our visits. We set up a little team of local story gathers to explore the community for more stories and eventually we were inundated. All these stories will eventually be published on a new web site in Mytholmroyd.

I also worked every Wednesday from 23rd April until 9th July with the Drama Group of Heydays at West Yorkshire Playhouse. This group was well established and had members who had been attending sessions for nearly 20 years alongside people who had joined recently. This created a complicated dynamic at times with some people resistant to change and others who were hungry to learn new things. I worked on a methodology that encouraged people to present themselves in front of an audience rather than playing a character. My intention was to make theatre based on their own stories, memories, thoughts, aspirations and fears. This of course made many people feel vulnerable. Some of the ‘old guard’ left the process but well over 30 people remained throughout the process and on July 9th we shared the work with other Heydays groups. I was amazed at the response to our 20 minute piece. The audience was genuinely moved by what they saw.

This sharing was one highlight of the project in that it reaffirmed my belief that ‘community/amateur’ performers were capable of creating deep and meaningful performance work that was equal to any other performer.

My ultimate aim is to create work that cannot be simply described as community arts, but rather to create performance that transcends labels – I don’t want to make professional theatre, or community theatre or applied theatre or any other type of theatre – I just want to make high quality contemporary theatre that engages audiences/spectators. I felt that the sharing performance went a long way to achieving this goal.

From 14th July we spent 10 days putting our final performance together. Working every day, both in Mytholmroyd and Leeds we put together a new version of “Dancehall of Dreams”

“Authentic” is an overused word which no longer bears the same meaning and power when it is uttered. Maybe I can use honest instead. I have experienced your ‘this is me, I am here, and I am fine’ exercise and understand how powerful its transformation ability is to me as a performer. The performers had not hidden under a mask or a character. It is not about acting. It is about being themselves. It is not about being their everyday selves. It is about being a heightened self, a persona on stage which come from life but higher than life. This brought an interesting relationship between the two sides of the proscenium. There was no superstars or divas in the performance. It was not about performers on stage showing off what they can do and audience sitting in the dark admiring super humans on stage. The 70 minutes was as much a time for the performers as it was for the audience. Performers utilised theatre to breath life into their own persona, by doing so lived a life that is higher than everyday life.

Audience benefited from the stories that were imparted by the performers. The ensemble’s honesty make them strong and vulnerable at the same time. By this I do not mean: “look, how brave they are to be honest!”, I think I mean they were “daring” us audience members. They looked at us as who they are, do we dare looking back at them in their eyes as who we are, not as critics, not as admirers, not as charitable patrons, but just as who we are? This is what make this ensemble aesthetically pleasing. What was on stage was a variety of human existence with brilliance, and we are, again another overused term, all equals. There was a mutual respect between human beings. I did attempt to find a story or narrative to this piece in the beginning. Soon enough I found myself being totally happy with the discourse. Fragments of conversations/ stories/ soliloquy were strung together in a fine balance between room for interpretation and suggestions for direction. I guess the discourse formed something like a starry night, where we can put lines to join up individual stars to make star signs. I have heard fond memories, laments, anecdotes, nostalgia. But at the end, we are not trying to go back to good old times, or making wishes for a better future, it is just what it is, the here and now. Now I suddenly realized it is all about “this is me, I am here, and I am fine”! Thank you again for a wonderful piece, please pass on my thanks to your team. Thank you for welcoming my sharing, this gives me really good opportunity to reflect and learn.

Joyce Nga Yu Lee Resident Director Mind The Gap Theatre

‘In The Kingdom That Danced’ – Dunfermline Fife 2014

The Fife Performance Ensemble (FPE) was established in September 2013 and in its first year successfully engaged a group of 30+ over 60s in creating a performance and installation in collaboration with Internationally renowned artists. The resulting work was performed at Pathhead Hall in Kirkcaldy in October 2013, in conjuction with Luminate, Scotland’s Creative Ageing Festival.

The success of this first programme resulted in the development of ‘In the Kingdom That Danced’ which sought to build on the first programme and delivered a high quality performance piece which worked between community, amateur and professional arts practise engaging people over the age of 60 from the heart of the community and creating site sensitive and immersive, performance work in which the audiences contributed to the performance.

The creation of this new piece of site sensitive performance work was performed 3 times over during the Luminate Festival in October 2014 at The Glen Pavilion in Dunfermline. We involved over 150 participants aged over 60 over the period of the project. Starting in June 2014 we ran 42 workshops to encourage new participants to get involved. We ran a week-long summer school in August which attracted 35 participants and then rehearsals 4 times a week from the end of August in different locations until the performances. 38 people were in the final performance.

We ran a workshops programme in Dunfermline, Lochgelly, Glenrothes and Kirkcaldy with the Summer School in Kirkcaldy and the rehearsals in Dunfermline, Lochgelly and Glenrothes encouraging people over the age of 60 from a wide location in South East and South West Fife. We gathered over 100 stories from the community participants, which has been collated into an art installation by local artist Alan Grieve and published on social media. We worked with Fife College Media College on sound recording and photography.

FPE’s way of working is designed to create a new style of professional/community contemporary theatre that emerges slowly from a community. Successfully occupying the space between community, amateur and professional arts, recognising that each sector has a lot to learn from the others.

We want to continue to engage older community participants in high quality artistic processes which will provide them with personal and social fulfilment. In this phase of the project, we wish to engage more participants and create further outputs from the project which will lead to an enhanced experience for the community participants and the professionals involved.

FPE created an ensemble of equals with everyone encouraged and supported to contribute their unique view of the world where they can celebrate those small, seemingly insignificant moments of life and express their meaning in a word, a touch, a glance or a movement. We will use the project to advocate to partners the opportunity to develop a lasting legacy establishing FPE as a permanent company

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