Platform documentation, 24/01/08

Featuring: Rhiannon Chaloner, Chloé Déchery, Bryony Henderson, Michael Jones, Levantes Dance Theatre and Fay Nicolson Inc.

Funded by Arts Council England

For this platform we traveled up and down the country and met promising local talent to bring the creme de la creme of what there is of young and exciting performance and live art to Bristol. Over the course of an evening, six companies and solo artists enchanted the Cube stage, lounge and bar area.

The show Gin and Satsumas by Levantes Dance Theatre touched and awed the audience in equal measures. Their work, strongly influenced by theatre and live art, blends a variety of performance styles including video, text, audio and both pedestrian and contemporary choreographic material, all contributing to a strong, unique voice.

French Performer and lecturer Chloé Déchery gave a snippet from her series of lectures about stuff you should know. She has a number of tools to help her get her points across including a table, two flowers and a video projector. Useful Knowledge to Know is a humorous and intelligent show that draws on making oneself understood and the challenging task of imparting information.

In the Cube lounge, on several tables serving as assembly lines, Bristol city architecture was rearranged in picture collages manufactured by the audience whilst supervised by Fay Nicolson Inc. The aim was to produce 180 picture collages by the end of the night.

Bristol based love researcher Michael Jones conducted with one audiene member at a time the moment before a kiss. The artist invited the audience to sit with him, whilst following instructions that portray and also schematize one of the most exciting and intimate encounters between people. Following on from this test performance at YaYW Michael became selected to show at My Fierce, part of Fierce Festival 11.

The sole video work of this night explored the mystic and beauty of Mexican Wrestling. Mr. Mexico by Bristol based performance artist Rhiannon Chaloner sensitively approaches the role of Luchadoras (women wrestlers) within Lucha Libre and their more centralized male counterparts, with whom she trained in Mexico City 2006. With focussed attention to detail and articulation of the experiential and sensorial, she attempts to disturb essentialist ideas of the binary woman/man.

In the red thread performer Bryony Henderson presented selected stories that refuse to fit into two year’s obsessive research on theatre audiences. The spectators were invited to listen and pour their imagination into these mysterious and everyday stories.

Feuerzangenbowle (a burning winter punch, 'google' it to find out more) kept the audience warm and cheerful and brought the evening to an elegant close.