Rayguns Look Real Enough
Gideon Conn
The Blysh ice cream bike. Special flavours include: Raspberry Ripple, Popcorn and Marshmallow.
Sweets!
Tuesday, 26 July 2011
Monday, 11 July 2011
Name That Tune / Ovine Imsomnience
I might not have been here, but by all accounts the first weekend of Blysh went down a storm with hundreds of people enjoying watch Fraser Hooper and George Orange. And after all that excitement, Blysh is taking a week off and is back on 19th July with Les Enfants Terribles Edinburgh hit The Infant. Also coming up...
Ukulele Project/Gaudy Orde
I can't embed the video for some reason (it's a YouTube thing rather than my technical ineptitude), but here's a video on YouTube of the fresh-faced Ukulele Project plucking away on a TV show presented by a rather shouty Popstars star Michelle McManus.
They talk about the revival of the ukulele and you can play along in a game of Name That Tune.
Catch them at Blysh on 20 July in the Weston Studio. More info here. You can also catch Gaudy Orde on the Glanfa stage before the show. I can embed these videos, so here's a little one from their performance here at the Centre last year. It's about a sheep who can't sleep.
Ukulele Project/Gaudy Orde
I can't embed the video for some reason (it's a YouTube thing rather than my technical ineptitude), but here's a video on YouTube of the fresh-faced Ukulele Project plucking away on a TV show presented by a rather shouty Popstars star Michelle McManus.
They talk about the revival of the ukulele and you can play along in a game of Name That Tune.
Catch them at Blysh on 20 July in the Weston Studio. More info here. You can also catch Gaudy Orde on the Glanfa stage before the show. I can embed these videos, so here's a little one from their performance here at the Centre last year. It's about a sheep who can't sleep.
Tuesday, 5 July 2011
Blysh Day #1
I'm back again, logging on for day one of Blysh 2011. It's a bit rainy outside, so we're trying to drum up a summery feeling indoors instead. Just don't look out of the window.
On the Glanfa stage, there’s a huge Blysh banner complete with fairground horse (and while I was out there, a group of pre-schoolers playing giddy-up on the stage – it was like some kind of tweeny live art piece – I loved it). And upstairs in the Weston Studio, the VSA’s (Visitor Service Assistants) are learning the ropes of Il Pixel Rosso’s immersive video-goggle experience And the Birds Fell From the Sky. I just did a test run – it’s disconcerting, funny, decidedly odd and disorientating. Don’t go if you have Coulrophobia.
And now I’m back at my desk with a cup of tea and having a look at what’s coming up over the next few days.
So here’s the good news. Apart from And the Birds… which is a snip at £6, everything else coming up until the end of the weekend is completely, absolutely free. From Hijinx’s The Snooks Brothers, to an opportunity to show everyone how mal-coordinated you are at a nofitstate circus skills workshop, to clowning from George Orange and Fraser Hooper. It’ll cost you nothing.
I think that having free stuff in a festival is essential. It kind of binds it all together. A bit like adding an egg. If it was financially viable, I’d make everything free. But if you’re commissioning work by Damon Albarn, Victoria Wood, Willem Dafoe and Marina Abramović, then it probably can’t all be complimentary. Then again, if you completely re-invent the model then you can work with extraordinary artists with no money exchanging hands at any point in the process.
Free things mean that people see more, are willing to take risks, are more open to new things, and I would wager are then more likely to pay up for a ticket if they enjoyed themselves. Artists have a better time because they have friendly, relaxed audiences who aren’t worried about ‘getting their money’s worth,’ whatever that means and the producing team has a better time because they’re not freaking out about ticket sales the whole time.
Whenever I walk through the foyer space here at Wales Millennium Centre there seems to be some kind of band, school group or dance piece happening, and there’s always an audience. It makes it all a bit more fun.
I’ve got to go back to Bristol today until early next week so I’m going to miss the weekend jollities, but I’ll be back with more inane ramblings very soon. I bet you can hardly wait. Oh, and keep it here for news of that giddy-up infant live art show. I might call it They Play Horses Don’t They? (Work-in-progress) What do you think?
On the Glanfa stage, there’s a huge Blysh banner complete with fairground horse (and while I was out there, a group of pre-schoolers playing giddy-up on the stage – it was like some kind of tweeny live art piece – I loved it). And upstairs in the Weston Studio, the VSA’s (Visitor Service Assistants) are learning the ropes of Il Pixel Rosso’s immersive video-goggle experience And the Birds Fell From the Sky. I just did a test run – it’s disconcerting, funny, decidedly odd and disorientating. Don’t go if you have Coulrophobia.
And now I’m back at my desk with a cup of tea and having a look at what’s coming up over the next few days.
So here’s the good news. Apart from And the Birds… which is a snip at £6, everything else coming up until the end of the weekend is completely, absolutely free. From Hijinx’s The Snooks Brothers, to an opportunity to show everyone how mal-coordinated you are at a nofitstate circus skills workshop, to clowning from George Orange and Fraser Hooper. It’ll cost you nothing.
I think that having free stuff in a festival is essential. It kind of binds it all together. A bit like adding an egg. If it was financially viable, I’d make everything free. But if you’re commissioning work by Damon Albarn, Victoria Wood, Willem Dafoe and Marina Abramović, then it probably can’t all be complimentary. Then again, if you completely re-invent the model then you can work with extraordinary artists with no money exchanging hands at any point in the process.
Free things mean that people see more, are willing to take risks, are more open to new things, and I would wager are then more likely to pay up for a ticket if they enjoyed themselves. Artists have a better time because they have friendly, relaxed audiences who aren’t worried about ‘getting their money’s worth,’ whatever that means and the producing team has a better time because they’re not freaking out about ticket sales the whole time.
Whenever I walk through the foyer space here at Wales Millennium Centre there seems to be some kind of band, school group or dance piece happening, and there’s always an audience. It makes it all a bit more fun.
I’ve got to go back to Bristol today until early next week so I’m going to miss the weekend jollities, but I’ll be back with more inane ramblings very soon. I bet you can hardly wait. Oh, and keep it here for news of that giddy-up infant live art show. I might call it They Play Horses Don’t They? (Work-in-progress) What do you think?
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