08 September 2014
The International Workshop Festival Collection (1988 - 2001)
A guest post by Dr Dick McCaw, Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre.
Department of Drama and Theatre, Royal Holloway, University of London.
Let me introduce you to the materials in the archive of an organization with which I had the pleasure of working between 1989 and 2001. It was called the International Workshop Festival and the name describes pretty much what it was – a festival consisting of talks, workshops and demonstrations given by internationally recognised figures in the performing arts. These workshops were designed to offer professionals opportunities to find out about new developments in the performing arts, to reconnect with their training method, or to explore new approaches to training or composition. Some of the workshop leaders were professional teachers; others were eminent directors, actors, dancers and puppeteers, who would share their insights or questions about their respective art forms.
The archive has recently been donated to the British Library. The collection should give you an idea of what used to happen in each year (in the first few years it took place in April but after 1990 it was concentrated on the month of September).
So what does it consist of?
- Videos of workshops
- Videos of talks
- Audio recordings of talks
- Photographs from 1995 to 2001
- Programmes and publicity for each festival
- Articles, reports and other materials (including two T-shirts)
I joined the festival in 1989, one year into its existence, though I was already very aware of it since I knew the founder and Artistic Director, Nigel Jamieson, and a close friend had taken part in one of the workshops in April 1988.
Dick McCaw and Nigel Jamieson, 1994. Photograph © Simon Richardson
Nigel left to live in Australia in 1992 and since I had been managing the festival for three years, I was invited to become its second Artistic Director. One of my first decisions was to document some of the workshops, and in 1993 I met Peter Hulton of the Arts Documentation Unit with whom I was to work from then until the time of writing (September 2014).
The festival would begin with two weeks in London, after which we would undertake projects in a number of cities in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. We worked in Belfast, Bristol, Coventry, Derry/Londonderry, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds and Nottingham. The London leg would typically consist of 10 week-long workshops and the same number of weekend workshops. We therefore needed a venue with plenty of studios and up until 1999 this was provided by the London Studio Centre. The 2000 festival was in the Jerwood Space and 2001 was at the Battersea Arts Centre. With five simultaneous workshops there is no way that all of them could be documented. Occasionally we would have a second person behind the camera but we probably only recorded about 15% of the workshops in any one festival. Peter did not record all the talks, and we would only sometimes remember to bring in a tape-recorder. So this archive offers a selective snapshot of some of our past activities.
In 1997 we received funding from the Arts Council of England to buy digital cameras and authoring equipment for what were then called CD-ROMs. The multimedia format of the CD-ROM offered Peter and me the opportunity to create a different kind of documentation. In addition to the video footage we could include photos and written commentaries. Our first DVD-ROM appeared in 2001 and the seventh and last was produced in 2006. All of our CD/DVD-ROM documentations are in the British Library archive.
Dominique Dupuy, Greenwich Dance Agency, 1996. Photograph © Simon Richardson
IWF was not unique as an organiser of training opportunities: in Wales there was the Centre for Performance Research in Aberystwyth (formerly Cardiff Arts Lab), and based in Manchester there was the Physical State International. But we were the only festival and I found it important to foster its existence as a unique gathering for professionals at all stages in their careers. IWF was more than just an in-service training provider; it was also a social event. But now there is no organization dedicated to continuing professional development or training. Already IWF and these other organisations are a historical phenomenon.
The festival day was packed: before the workshops there were warm-ups, first with the singer Helen Chadwick, and after them there were wind-downs, most often taking the form of a Feldenkrais lesson with Scott Clark. After a pause for a beer we would then have an evening programme of talks. It was a 12-hour day, from 9.30 in the morning to 9.30 in the evening.
‘Archive’ is a grand-sounding word but often it consists of all the materials that have survived, quite often to be found under the bed or stuffed in a cupboard. This archive is no different. After I left IWF I lost contact with the festival management, and six years later it was no more. I have no idea of the whereabouts of the photographs taken by Simon Annand between 1988 and 1994, nor of any written documentations. Luckily, Peter Hulton had kept copies of video recordings between 1994 and 2001. I had some recordings of the talks, but this represents probably about 10% of the total programme. None of the projects after 2001 was recorded.
The photographs in this archive all date from 1995 when we were joined by the photographer Simon Richardson who would travel with us to every project. They are ‘seconds’ that he had kept in his studio. The prints might not be to the quality that Simon would display in an exhibition but they are the only surviving record that exists'.
Gojo Nasanosuke, London Studio Centre, 1998. Photograph © Simon Richardson
Just before I took all the printed material to the British Library, I laid it out on my bedroom floor so that I could easily make an inventory of it all. While away on a weekend break there was a water escapement from the flat above and my bedroom was flooded. The paper documents were badly damaged but thanks to the Library’s conservators all were salvaged, though the colour is washed out and they probably still smell a bit. As I say, an archive is what, by chance, has survived.
Apart from the printed documents there are Word documents which contain reports by Nigel or myself on each festival. There is a certain amount of correspondence, and funding applications. Nigel’s festival reports offered a fine-grained description and analysis of the year’s activities, and I followed him in producing these each year. I have never re-read these reports (some of which were really long) but remember writing them with some pleasure. They were an account of everything I had learned in that year. Someone keen on studying the management of a festival like IWF might want to dip into these files.
If you are interested in professional training and development, if you want a snapshot of what was happening at the more experimental end of the performing arts spectrum in the 1990s, you might want to spend a few hours browsing through these materials. I hope you have an interesting journey!
NB. The collection is listed on the Sound and Moving Image Catalogue under the collection number C1526.
24 April 2014
A Long Forgotten Poem by the Admirable Crichton
James Crichton, known by the appellation the Admirable Crichton, was the epitome of the cultured Renaissance man. Perhaps for many, the name the Admirable Crichton is more familiar from the 1902 play by J M Barrie ‘The Admirable Crichton’ or its subsequent film and television adaptations. However, these have little connection with the historical figure apart from portraying a highly talented individual.
So who was James Crichton? He was born in 1560 in Dumfriesshire. His father was a lawyer and land owner in the service of Mary Queen of Scots. On his mother’s side he could claim royal descent from the House of Stewart. As a child he displayed a prodigious intelligence. He was educated at St Salvator’s College, St Andrews gaining a BA in 1573 and an MA in 1575. Two years later, in 1577 at the age of just seventeen, he left Scotland for the continent and continued his education in France at the Collège de Navarre and, according to some sources, subsequently spent two years in the French army.
The Admirable Crichton. Source: Wikimedia Commons
In 1579 he travelled to Genoa and then a year later to Venice where he was reputed to have wooed crowds with his skills in oratory. In Venice he also made the acquaintance of the influential printer Aldus Manutius who became a great friend and promoter of Crichton’s abilities. By this time Crichton was said to be a skilled horseman, swordsman, accomplished dancer, man of letters, debater, and to be fluent in ten languages. For many he was regarded as the perfect gentleman with elegant social graces and enviable good looks. From Venice he travelled to Mantua where he entered the service of the Duke of Mantua and seems to have been well established within the court by 1582. However, his popularity was not universal; in particular he seems to have aroused the jealousy of the Duke’s son and heir Vincenzo Gonzaga. This resentment came to a head one summer’s evening in July when an angry altercation took place in the streets of Mantua which resulted in the Prince mortally wounding Crichton. He was buried the following day in the small graveyard of the church of San Simone in Mantua.
Photogravure © Norman McBeath
It was Crichton’s first impressions of his arrival in Venice, combined with the compelling majesty of the city, that inspired his most accomplished poem ‘Venice’. The British Library is delighted to announce it has acquired the first English verse translation of Crichton’s Latin poem. The book is a new collaboration between the poet and academic Robert Crawford and the photographer and printmaker Norman McBeath. The source of the text is taken from the two volume anthology of Scottish-Latin poetry Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum (1637), a copy of which is held at the Library at shelfmark 1213.a.7. Robert Crawford’s impressive translation will hopefully generate wider interest in this sadly neglected poem. The poem is accompanied by eight evocative photogravures by Norman McBeath which perfectly capture the enigma and splendour of that fascinating city.
Venice is published by the Edinburgh based Easel Press in an edition of twenty copies and will be available to consult in the Library’s reading rooms shortly.
02 April 2014
Happy International Children's Book day!
As today is International Children's Book day I thought that it would be a good time to highlight examples of children's literature in the English and Drama collections at the British Library.
The Library holds copies of printed children's books which have been received under Legal Deposit. In addition we also have a number of archive and manuscript items relating to children's literature. Perhaps the most famous is the original manuscript, Alice's Adventures Under Ground, which would later be published as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Charles Dodgson (under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll) in 1865. The manuscript, which took Dodgson two years to painstakingly write and illustrate, has been digitised and can be found on the Library website. In addition to the manuscript the Library also has nine of Dodgson's diaries which include references to the creation and publication of the famous tale from the July day in 1862 when Dodgson first told the story to Alice Liddell and her sisters.
Aside from Alice we also have drafts of The Jungle Book and the Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling and a nonsense story by the Victorian writer, Edward Lear among our collections.
Interestingly the Library has also recently acquired the manuscript of a 19th century morality tale for children entitled 'Poor Cecile and her Little Chicken' -
The fair copy manuscript tells the tragic story of Cecile who suffers the ruin of her family, the deaths of her employers and later her husband and children. In old age she faces destitution when her brother squanders all the family's savings. Redemption comes in the form of the little chicken which Cecile cares for and money given to her by a relation of one of her long dead employers. The message of the story that God provides for everyone and that just reward will be provided in Heaven is rather different from messages which we find in children's literature today. The manuscript is an interesting example of its type particularly as its author, Mrs William Johnson, was better known as a writer of songs and ballads.
One final item relating to children's literature that I would like to highlight is a personal favourite of mine which is included in the Ted Hughes archive. The archive includes letters and photographs sent to Hughes by children who had read his books. This material includes a wonderful photograph taken in the 1970s of a group of school children dancing around their very own Iron Man -
Unfortunately the name of the school was not included so I am not sure where the photograph came from but it is a great illustration of just how inspiring children's literature can be. I would love to hear from anyone who recognises the photograph!
As an add-on to my original post I should also mention that there are lots of images from children's literature on the Library's flickr site. Many thanks to a colleague for pointing these out to me.
10 March 2014
English literary treasures back on display - for free
On Saturday the Sir John Ritblat Gallery, Treasures of the British Library reopened, a lot smarter, a bit brighter, and with some previously undisplayed items in addition to gallery favourites.
Going on display for the first time is a copy of Oscar Wilde's A House of Pomegranates which contains a hand-drawn caricature of Wilde by the artist Max Beerbohm.
It's also an opportunity to see Lewis Carroll's handwritten first version of the book that would become Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - this version of the story was called Alice's Adventures Under Ground and was presented by Carroll to Alice Liddell. Here you can see it in its new exhibition case. Either side are the manuscripts of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, and Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy.
The display starts with the earliest surviving manuscript of Beowulf, and ends with one of our newest acquisitions, a diary written in 1992, from the archive of Hanif Kureishi.
The literature cases have slightly changed location (we swapped with Music) but they are still on the left as you enter the gallery, and now have a snazzy green backdrop.
It's completely free to look round the Sir John Ritblat Gallery and you can find opening times here.
24 January 2014
Hanif Kureishi on why he deposited his archive at the British Library
On Wednesday we announced the acquisition of Hanif Kureishi’s Archive at the British Library’s Cultural Highlights preview for 2014.
Hanif Kureishi Archive. © Hanif Kureishi
Hanif kindly agreed to join us for the press launch. An early start meant an improvised breakfast in the staff canteen, but over eggs and hash browns he shared his thoughts with me on how he thinks his archive will be used in the future and why he was so keen for it to find a permanent home at the Library. Click on the link below to hear the interview:
Hanif Kureishi interview at the British Library
The archive includes drafts and working material relating to all of his major novels, as well as over 50 notebooks and diaries spanning four decades. The collection also includes electronic drafts of his work in the form of Word files, including some relating to his new novel, The Last Word, which will be published by Faber next month. The Last Word tells the story of the relationship between an eminent writer and his biographer. It raises some interesting questions about identity, posterity and the inter-dependence of the writer and those who attempt to write about him, both of them being re-made in the process.
The first diary in the collection dates from 1970 when Kureishi was just 15 years old. As well as recording everyday events and reflecting on his writing projects, the diaries are deeply philosophical in places and highly introspective. They give some fascinating insights into the workings of a restless, questing mind which is always driven to know more; as he records of his friend and hero David Bowie, at one point, his is a mind that’s “interested in everything”.
Entry from a diary of Hanif Kureishi’s describing a meeting with Shabbir Akhtar, 13 May 1992. After the controversy following the publication of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses in 1988, Akhtar acted as spokesperson for the Bradford Council of Mosques. © Hanif Kureishi
Along with the drafts of Kureishi’s best known writing, such as My Beautiful Laundrette and The Buddha of Suburbia, are those of some lesser known ones and some surprises. The archive holds, for example, a draft of his adaptation of Brecht’s Mother Courage (written for the 1984 production at the Barbican with Judi Dench in the leading role) along with an adaptation written with his long-time collaborator, Roger Michell, of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, which was never realised.
We’ll be starting work to catalogue the collection in the next few weeks and expect to be able to make it available in the Library’s Reading Room by the end of the year. Hanif Kureishi will be headlining the Library's Spring Festival at the end of March which this year focusses on the art of screenwriting. You can find more details on the Library's Events web pages at www.bl.uk/spring
26 June 2013
Newly acquired W.H. Auden Journal
Image © Peter Mitchell/Faber Archive
The English and Drama Department made an exciting new addition to the British Library’s literary collections last week. At the Christie’s auction on 12th June, we acquired a fascinating journal of W.H. Auden’s, which was kept by the poet during August to November 1939. The unpublished journal, one of only three he is known to have kept, has been in private hands since his death in 1973. Auden, whose influence on a generation of later poets is incalculable, has been described by his editor, Edward Mendelson, as “the first poet writing in English who felt at home in the twentieth century”.
In the January before the journal opens, Auden, along with Christopher Isherwood, had left England for the United States. This act - portrayed in the British media as shamefully unpatriotic as the outbreak of war threatened national life - for a time made the writers deeply unpopular public figures. It caused a decline in both the critical reception and the sales of their books and even occasioned adverse comment in Parliament. Auden began the journal in August 1939, on his return from from California to New York in August 1939, after what he described as ‘the eleven happiest weeks of my life’ after the beginning of his relationship with the American poet Chester Kallman. Auden had met Kallman at a public poetry reading. The meeting proved to be instrumental in Auden’s subsequent decision to remain in the US and become an American citizen. A fascinating juxtaposition of personal and political preoccupations, the early pages of the journal are written in the light of the joyful intensity of his new relationship and in the shadow of the impending outbreak of war in Europe. The entry for 1st September 1939 comprises an extended narration on his activities and preoccupations on this date, which sheds light on his famous poem of the same name.
As well as diary entries, Auden used the journal to record his reflections and observations, along with snippets of overheard conversations. In its latter pages the journal becomes a commonplace book of poetry. He also notes his reading and his opinions on other writers (with John Steinbeck coming in for particular criticism). The manuscript also includes drafts of Auden’s own poems, the word-play and metrical games worked out in these pages offering interesting insights into his compositional methods.
The acquisition builds on the British Library’s existing Auden collections. Two Auden poetry notebooks were acquired by the Library in the 1960s under the auspices of the Arts Council’s National Manuscripts Collection of Contemporary Poets. The Library also holds further manuscript drafts of Auden’s poetry and prose, including from his long poem The Orators (1931) and from his late sequence About the House (1966), along with correspondence, including letters to John Betjeman. Rare live and studio recordings of Auden reading his own work are also held in the Library’s collection of drama and literature recordings.
We are going to display the journal in the Sir John Ritblat Treasures Gallery at the British Library from August 2013. You can read a good piece on the acquisition on the Guardian newspaper website.
Auden’s collaborations with the composer Benjamin Britten feature in the Library’s new Folio Society Gallery exhibition, Poetry in Sound: The Music of Benjamin Britten. Among the items featured are a film extract from Night Mail (1936), a documentary for the General Post Office made in 1936, and a brochure relating to The Group Theatre, which produced the plays The Ascent of F6 and On the Frontier (written by Auden and Christopher Isherwood, with music by Britten, between 1935 and 1938). Sandra Tuppen, one of the exhibition curators, has written a blog post about the Auden-Britten collaboration, which you can read at http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/music/2013/06/poetry-in-sound-exhibition-britten-and-auden-in-the-spotlight.html
24 June 2013
The 'Sacred' seasons of live art at the Chelsea Theatre
The 'Sacred' seasons of live art and experimental contemporary performance were started at Chelsea Theatre, London, seven years ago by Francis Alexander, the Theatre’s Artistic Director.
Located in front of the World’s End Estate on the King’s Road, the Chelsea Theatre presents itself as the only London theatre dedicated to the production and presentation of live art performance. Each year Sacred brings together performers and practitioners from all over the world for a programme which also supports early-career artists.
Frontman
Action
Hero, 2011
Over the years themes and formats have varied, from one-to-one encounters, late-night cabaret, dance, promenade performances and installations. The 2008 season even included shows taking place inside an old Routemaster bus parked in front of the theatre.
Sacred also provides a place for discussion and engagement in the form of keynote addresses, artist-led workshops, symposiums, talks, lecture demonstrations, post-show talks and interactive critical debates including researchers and members of the public alike, often with an impromptu element.
These events have touched so far on the subjects of socially engaged performance, participation, performing the real, the make-believe world of performance, and most recently, in the current season, on hopes, dreams and predictions for future practice through the Wishful Wednesdays series of artists’ talks.
Ron Athey and Franko B in discussion, 2009
Audience involvement is not excluded from the shows and it can take many forms too. For example as a part of a performance in 2008 the duo Leibniz invited spectators to donate a drop of blood to be used as ink in the writing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into a thick, leather-bound book. And in 2010, performer Sara Juli put $5000 into the hands of the audience for her show The Money Conversation.
What Tammy Needs to
Know Lois Weaver, 2008
Since the beginning of the first Sacred, in autumn 2006, the British Library has been documenting all the shows and events. Seven seasons later this has resulted in a unique collection of over a hundred and forty video recordings. See BL reference C1214 in the Library’s online Sound and Moving Image Catalogue.
At the British Library we document performances from the audience point-of-view and we never see the shows in advance. Videoing under these conditions can sometimes be challenging. The results are made available for viewing, unedited, in the Reading Rooms.
BLACKOUTS:
Twilight of the Idols Dickie Beau, 2013
The collection is a comprehensive guide to the contemporary live art scene and its players and includes shows by Franko B, Goat Island, Ron Athey, Dominic Johnson, Kazuko Hokhi, Stacy Makishi, David Hoyle, Karen Christopher, Julia Bardsley, Helena Hunter, Sheila Ghelani, Action Hero, Dickie Beau, Peggy Shaw, Natasha Davis and Robin Deacon among many others.
The Chelsea Theatre’s partnerships with international venues such as brut from Viena in 2009 and PS122 from New York in 2010 brought to London the work of Jan Machacek (you delay), Richard Maxwell (ADS) and Young Jean Lee’s Theatre Company (Pullman, Wa), to give just three examples.
The current season is about to end. You are still in time for the last two shows: The Red Album by Rubix Collective on 27 June 2013, and Anarchitecture in the UK by Richard DeDomenici on 6 July 2013.
04 June 2013
The Keepsake Kiss
The Library has been very fortunate to acquire a copy of The Kiss, a poem by Paul Roche with a line drawing by Duncan Grant. The poem, published by the Keepsake Press in 1974, is part of the Keepsake Poems, a series published between 1972 and 1979.
The Keepsake Press was established by Roy Lewis and even though it published over a 100 books and pamphlets it is the Keepsake Poems for which it is chiefly remembered. The press was active up until the death of Roy Lewis in 1996. The Keepsake Poems include works by notable poets such as Vernon Scannell, Christopher Logue, Charles Causley and George Szirtes. The series numbered 39 in total, of which The Kiss is number 23. The final publication was Walking in the Harz Mountains by D J Enright, illustrated by Madeline Enright. The Kiss is elegantly produced with simple tan wrappers in crown quarto containing one folded sheet with the printed text of the poem offset to the top right and Grant’s oval illustration in the centre. The chapbook was published in an edition of 180 copies.
Duncan Grant first met Paul Roche in London in 1946. This was the start of a relationship which was to last over 32 years until the death of Grant in 1978. Roche began modelling for Grant and was used by Grant as his model for Christ in his murals for the Russell Chantry at Lincoln Cathedral. In later life Roche was to become a noted poet, novelist, and translator of classical texts. Duncan Grant provided illustrations for some of Paul Roche’s publications. Grant provided the illustration for the dust-jacket and the chapter decorations for Roche’s first novel O Pale Galilean (1954, British Library shelfmark NNN.5238). A portrait of Paul Roche by Grant was used for the dust-jacket of All Things Considered (1966, shelfmark X.908/7703) this portrait was additionally reproduced as the book’s frontispiece. Grant also provided the design for the dust-jacket of Roche’s collection of poetry Enigma Variations And (1974, shelfmark YA.1991.a.160054).
Duncan Grant died at Paul Roche’s home in Aldermaston on the 9 May 1978. A month later in June a memorial service was held for Grant at St. Paul’s Cathedral. In 2004 the Library was able to purchase a copy of the Order of Service (shelfmark RF.2004.a.131) in which is printed Roche’s poem ‘The Artist’ which he read at the service. This new acquisition is a fitting addition to the Library’s collections and complements delightfully our existing holdings of collaborations between Duncan Grant and Paul Roche.
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