Heartfelt thanks to everyone whose contributions last year helped us to develop a showcase version in partnership with Riotous Company. It got a great reception (see below) in Tête à Tête Opera’s Cubitt Sessions at Kings Cross in August 2016 - click here to view the showcase trailer.
We’re proud to announce that the production will premiere in Hastings on 5th April 2018. Our partners are MSL Projects in Hastings and Rye Creative Centre.
To do this we need your support! We have secured an Arts Council grant for two-thirds of the artists and creative team’s fees. We still need the final third of the total budget, which will enable us to engage a fourth performer, pay our designer, buy two key pieces of equipment, hire a free standing aerial rig, and cover transport. We are seeking to raise £3500!
Your contribution will allow us to complete the cast, launch a premiere, secure bookings, promote it to promoters, and finally to take it out on the road! Please help us reach our final goal and also to spread the word - without you we cannot make this happen.
Divertimento for Rope and Strings official Premiere in Hastings
Divertimento for Rope and Strings is a playful, innovative performance collaboration between a prize-winning aerial artist (Gisele Edwards) and two eminent classical musicians. It looks at how we experience music three dimensionally, not simply aurally but viscerally, physically, spatially. Playing with themes of body, movement and space, it considers how simple bodies can, through movement, give rise to something as ethereal as music.
Captivating, funny and inventive, the artists play with the musical score, exploring the spaces, the silences, the dots, lines and melody, along the horizontal of the stave and the vertical of the metronome.
People who will attend the premiere in April won't simply get a show: they will be free to roam the performance site, explore the world of the performance, wander through the set, discover the mechanisms of aerial rigging, see how the musicians and acrobats prepare. Come prepared to experience the production as a large art installation and become totally absorbed in the world around you! Then after enjoying the full length of a theatrical, musical and circus performance, the audience will be invited to have a drink with the creative team to discuss their experience.
This is a passionate call-out to all those who enjoy a thriving arts scene, to friends, supporters, community, local businesses, supporters of MSL Productions - to help us please bring this piece finally to fruition and ready for touring and bookings, in the UK and abroad.
Audience reaction to the 2016 showcase performance
The showcase performance at Kings Cross received enthusiastic feedback from the audience, including:
“It was fresh, irreverent, surprising and very funny. I really enjoyed it”.
“I found the fiddle and cello playing absolutely astonishing. And Gisele, she’s phenomenal... It’s just extraordinary to watch the shapes that she creates and the incredible control she manages.”
“It was sort of like a modern representation of opera. It was great the way they matched story with music so well so it gave you two points of focus rather than just music.”
About the team
The team has the following members:
Gisele Edwards – Concept and Creation. Gisele Edwards trained at NCCA, Central and Lecoq in Paris. She is winner of the Festival of Firsts (Royal Opera House) and recipient of the Jerwood Prize for Circus. She is a co-founder of Shunt and has worked with Trevor Nunn (TheTempest), Simon McBurney (Theatre de Complicité), Lucy Bailey, Scarabeus, Anthony Gormley’s Studio, the Dante and Kosmos Quartets, and at the Millennium Dome show among others. In 2009 she was awarded Laureat at the Résidences au Centre international des Récollets, Paris, where she worked with Jos Houben and four baroque cellists. This led to a commission from London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) and Sound UK to create a piece with violinist Alexander Balenescu and accordionist Evelina Petrova, with soldout performances at St Lukes in 2011 (4-stars, The Times). In November 2017 Gisele performed at the Coronet International Festival at the Print Room, London, with a sitar player and tabla player.
Kate Higginbottom – Director. Kate is a choreographer, director and performer with a background in dance and physical theatre. Kate studied at Cambridge Univeristy, École International de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, Paris, Laban London and the European Dance Development Centre in Holland. As a performer and creator she works with many international companies, including Nicole & Martin, Compagnia Baccalà, Herdeg&Desponds, Creation Theatre, English National Opera, Theatre O and Complicite.
Midori Jaeger – Cellist. Midori trained at the Royal Academy of Music. A freelance cellist, singer and songwriter, she performs in classical, jazz, folk, improvisatory and theatrical settings, including, with the Royal Academy Symphony Orchestra, at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and for contemporary composer Jocelyn Pook. Midori tours as the cellist and backing vocalist for Heather Nova and records as a session cellist for Glass Animals. As well as performing, Midori enjoys composing layered cello music for TV, short film soundtracks, and for her band in which she sings and plays cello.
Phillip Granell – Violinist. Phillip is a violinist, violist and artistic director based in London. Committed to playing across the musical spectrum and happy performing both composed and improvised music. He studied with Clare Thompson at TrinityLaban conservatoire where he completed his MA in performance with a distinction and won the John Thompson string quartet prize. He leads Phaedra ensemble, a new music group based in London. As an orchestral player he has worked with The Ulster orchestra, Aurora, London Mozart players, English national ballet, London concert orchestra. 2015 saw him work in the studio with Jamie Cullen, FourTet, Floating points, Bonobo, The F-re collective, blue note recordings.
Joe Keeley - Acrobat. Joe Keeley will work alongside Gisele with the two musicians. He is a contemporary Circus Artist specialising in corde lisse and dance-acrobatics with a strong background in devised/ensemble performance, dance-theatre and artistic gymnastics, Joe trained at Rose Bruford and The National Centre for Circus Arts. In 2012, he performed as part of site specific show “You Me Bum Bum Train” directed by Kate Bond and Morgan Lloyd. He also performed at Brighton Fringe Festival and more recently at Hackney Empire as part of Jonny Woo’s Unroyal Variety Show. In 2017, he collaborated with Upswing Aerial.
Coral Dawson – Rope. Coral is a physical performer who specialises in corde lisse, physical theatre and aerial harness. Having studied at the Circus school, Circomedia and The Drama Centre London, she is interested in combining her skills within performance. Coral has worked for companies such as Cirque Bijou, Citrus arts and Full tilt aerial and performed at festivals such as Glastonbury, Bestival and many more. She also has her own Circus theatre company, AneMoia Circus with her performance partner Tilly Lee-Kronick.
