So we are back, we are landed, and we are taking stock.
We’ve had a little post-pause; pause… as it were.
I have overseen workmen coming and insulating my flat, walked around Strood on a sprained ankle, and spent time working on events production and planning with teens in Maidstone.

Pause over.
So lets reflect…
…We think we can call the weekend we spent at Derby Festé a nice, big, juicy success.

It went like this… (Excuse me while I shake my brain to make sure it comes out in the right order…)

Friday - Rick, Daisy and Laura head up to Derby with 4 large wheeled suitcases, 1 box of flat-pack shelving, two large holdalls and an umbrella.

Saturday - Two gazebos, deep pink in colour and carpeted inside, are erected on Market Place opposite an enormous green blow up slide featuring The Hulk and charging £1.50 for 5 goes. (Apparently 27 makes you too old to have a go)
5 jars in each gazebo
1 bookcase in each gazebo,
2 chairs in each gazebo,
1 rug in each gazebo,
1 performer in each gazebo…
11 o’clock rolls around and it begins:
In couples and alone people start to book in and fill up our 5 minute sessions up.
Allowing for 12 sessions an hour (6 apiece for the 2 performers) bookings overtake walk-ins very quickly… we were kind of anticipating a warm up period, maybe some dips and lulls in audience attendance throughout the day… Nope…
In fact, so popular did Audio Treatment, Complimentary Therapy, Burden loss Treatment, Transportative therapy and Achievement treatment appear to be… that we stayed open for nearly an extra hour at the end of the day.
I’d call that successful.

Sunday - More of the same… though this time in the pleasant park land in front of Derby Cathedral… fittingly named Cathedral Green.
Oh, and for 2 hours less into the evening. We had to pack up the various cases, bags, boxes and brollies and hot foot it to the train station for the trawl home.

In all we saw 170 people, giving away as many happy endings. Our hands were feeling a bit drunk from all the alcohol-based antiseptic hand wash, our eyes needed some time to adjust to a world that was not pink. We turned away nearly 150 people as we just couldn’t fit them in… next time it’ll be 3 gazebos…

BUT…..
Lists and flippant descriptions aside though, that’s only half the story.
Statistics, timings, bookings, gazebos, rugs and jars…
There’s some video to be posted on good ol’ YouTube and we’ll keep you posted on its posting… as it were…

In the mean time, I have yen to explain how magical, sweet, bizarre and soothing the whole experience was…

During a ’group session’ of Complimentary Therapy I saw an 8 year old boy burst into tears when his Dad paid him the compliment that “I really love spending time with you and love how great it feels to be with you…”
This was not about exploitation, nor was it about encouraging big emotive gestures (though it did not actively discourage them either). This was about offering clients a chance to remember how it feels to hear nice things said to them. This was about offering a client a chance to remember how it feels to say nice things about someone close to them.
“I love the backs of you knees..” (giggles from both)
“I love that you make me try new things”
“I like your domestic pottering, cos I like domestic pottering too”

As with happy endings, a compliment for one person can mean nothing to another.

Watching people smile as their burdens were swallowed up and taken away was warming. I never knew what people wrote on their little slip of paper. The paper had a line, a word, an image that summed up their burden, the one they wanted to be rid of. This was burden loss…
Watching someone go from concentration on their most burdensome of burdens to a smile, a giggle, a full on laugh… seeing how somebody, everybody, changes they way they sit, move, emote once they have laughed or smiled. That’s a nice thing to witness.
This was probably, and maybe unsurprisingly, the most popular of treatments. By the end of the weekend I almost felt I owed those clients something. A thank you for sharing that moment with me.

I don’t really want to talk through all the therapies here. I need to balance my literary drive with theatrical mystique and avoid further descriptions…

I will say though, that simply sitting in a tent with a person, sharing a lose proximity, even for 5 minutes, seems to offer surprises and shocks and even those dangerous warm fuzzy feelings we’ve mostly learnt to be suspicious of… maybe it was the pinkness of it all…

R

pause; (in rehearsal)

Earlier this evening we had a major rehearsal for pause; (yes, that's right, the semicolon is part of the title).

As you might already know, from looking on our newly redesigned website or because you are friends with us on Facebook, pause; is a reworked version of Present Tents (which we showed on 11th July 2010 at Lounge on the Farm Festival, as part of PANeK's Showcase at 'The Playhouse'). Present Tents took place in a small two-an tent and was a short yet intimate one-to-one encounter between a performer and an audience member. A few days after the festival we were contacted by ArtsAgenda (a production company based in Brighton), and they asked us if we wanted to show the piece at this year's Derby Festé (a festival they are programming). Of course we were ecstatic! Not only for getting a chance to perform outside the South East, but because the festival includes such established artists as Ant Hampton (Rotozaza) and Metro-Bouldot-Dodo. However, being perfectionists as we are, we were not content to present exactly the same work (in the state that it was then).

So, as I said at the beginning, we have had a major rehearsal to rework the piece. Now, I would not like to give too much away (spoiling surprises at this stage would be a shame). All I will say is that it was a long but very productive meeting. We tightened the aesthetics, we discussed and walked through the audience's experience, we developed some of the therapies/treatments we already had and devised some new ones, and we worked through our personas. If you want to find out more you will have to come to Derby on 25th and 26th September, and experience pause; yourself. Of course we are also planning to document the piece with photographs and hopefully video too, so later on this autumn/winter you should be able to see some updates on our main website.

I bought these glass jars from a corner shop near my house (it had been bought by new owners and they were refurbishing the premises). They used to contain old fashioned sweets and we liked the way they looked and felt (allowing for both associations of sweets/treats and medicine/apothecary). The jars will contain the props and objects needed for each of the therapies/treatments that will be part of pause;.

This is Laura (posing as an audience member) and Rick (as the 'trained therapist') going over the introductory exchange. It involves gentle and soothing speech, as well as antibacterial gel and a hand massage.

As our blurb for pause; says: we are looking forward to treating you.

Pablo

Introducing: Laura McGrath

Dear All,

We figured it was about time we formally introduced Laura McGrath, who will be working with us on a number of projects. Like us, Laura is a University of Kent graduate, who specialised in dramaturgy during her final year. As part of her studies, last autumn and spring, she observed and wrote about the preparation and delivery of i am small THE WORLD IS BIG (and did in fact lend more than a helping hand!). Building on the successes of this informal and initial relationship we thought that we'd ask if Laura wanted to work with us again. Thankfully she accepted! Laura will be taking a number of overlapping roles (from administration to community liaison) for the new version of i am small THE WORLD IS BIG which we are preparing for 2011 (thanks to substantial funding we have received from Kent Count Council's 'New Recipes Programme'). But don't think we are letting get off lightly... Later this month, on 25th and 26th, Laura will actually be performing alongside Rick and Daisy during pause; (Derby Festé 2010). We are also hoping that she will come on board as a dramaturg when we take everyONE's looking for someONE back into the studio this autumn. So, as you can imagine Laura is going to be one busy girl. But that's just how she likes it.

As you can see for yourselves, she is quite chirpy (and obviously has a thing for comfy, coloured jumpers and beautiful countryside). So, welcome to the team!