Run away, embrace your circus
On Monday 17th July 2023 Mental Fight Club Presented: “Run away, embrace your circus”. A free arts events day at St John’s Waterloo, as part of the Waterloo Festival. The theme for this year’s festival was “Circus”. With this theme in mind, we curated a day of varied and exciting events to spark everyone’s interest.
To kick the day off with a burst of energy we were joined by The London School of Samba for a Samba workshop exploring different rhythms and songs in the Garden of St John’s.
Following on from this exuberant start to the day the London School of Samba lead participants through a performance of the material learnt in the workshop.
Moving inside after the Samba performance we were joined by theatre practitioner Lee Hart, puppet performer Russel Dean, prop maker Jonny Dixon alongside musician Mike Simmonds to begin our 4-hour workshop “Exploring the Uncanny Valley”. Our workshop leads encouraged our participants to work together to create pieces of work inspired by the circus being a space where those who have not historically been embraced by mainstream society find alternative places of belonging and creating.
During this workshop there were opportunities to explore theatre, music, puppets and prop making. To conclude this workshop, we invited participants to share the short performance pieces that were created over the course of the day.
Mental Fight Club would like to thank all the participants that enjoyed and engaged in our workshops. Our activity leads for joining us on the day and hosting out workshops and finally St John’s Church Waterloo for facilitating the event and having us to be part of the Waterloo Festival!
Here’s a sneak peek into our day:
Our Timetable:
11:30am: Our day begins! Come and find us at St John's Church in Waterloo.
12pm- 1:30pm: Big Top, Big Drums - The London School of Samba with support from Danceworks
An interactive Samba workshop exploring the tradition of informal and improvised performance on circus grounds. Come along and learn the basics of playing samba.
2pm – 2:30pm: That Big Celebratory Samba Sound - The London School of Samba in collaboration with Danceworks
A relaxed performance. Come along, relax and listen to The London School of Samba play. You can even join in with a Samba Dance Llesson if the mood takes you.
3pm – 7pm: Sitting in the Uncanny Valley - With Lee Hart, Russell Dean, Johnny Dixon and Mike Simmonds.
A half day exploration which brings together some of the best theatre, mask, and music artists in the UK.
The uncanny valley is the negative feeling felt by people when faced with a Robot, Puppet, Mask, or any imperfect human replica which is extremely similar to a human, but different in an unsettling way. This societal push to expel those who are different, and the wonderful things that can happen when those who are cast aside find a home and a place of belonging is the theme of our days experimental work.
You are encouraged to come along and stay for the whole workshop. There will be plenty of breaks, and opportunities to join in during the course of the workshop.
Over the course of this experimental workshop, participants will be invited to join award winning theatre practitioner, and friend of Mental Fight Club, Lee Hart who will use games and play to explore ensemble building, shared physical dynamics, and the building blocks of devised performance.
This work will then be built upon by acclaimed mask and puppet performer Russell Dean from Strangeface Theatre company. Working together with Lee and us all, Russell will begin the process of telling the stories we’ve devised using props while accomplished violin and fiddle player Mike Simmonds improvises accompanying music.
7pm – 8pm: The moment in which we sit in the Uncanny Valley
The day will conclude with fragmentary presentations of some of the work made during the workshop. It will be experimental!
4:30pm – 7pm: Table Top Circus - with Jonny Dixon
Making Table. Drop in any time and explore the art of prop making with curio animator, prop maker and puppet performer Jonny.
Biographies
Russell Dean - Russell Dean is artistic director of Strangeface Theatre Company. He is a writer and maker with a particular interest in cognition and what masks and puppets reveal about the way we perceive the world. He has made masks and puppets for Trestle, Geese, Vamos, ITV, Channel 4, and is responsible for the large Mrs Thatcher puppet in Stephen Daldry’s Billy Elliot. After touring nationally and internationally with Strangeface, his recent work has focused on using puppets in workshops with vulnerable adults, families with children in hospices and fathers in prison.
Lee Hart - Lee Hart is a director, devisor, and practitioner, making ambitious theatre experiences with, and for, some of the hardest to reach members of our communities. Since 2012 Lee has worked closely with the Theatre Royal Plymouth to develop, deliver, and creatively direct the Our Space project – a theatre making programme working with adults who may have faced challenges involving homelessness, isolation, mental health issues, substance misuse or re-offending. Lee Hart was the recipient of the Arts Foundation Theatre Maker Of The Year 2022.
Mike Simmonds - Mike is a multi talented musician and violinist, just returned from Glastonbury festival with an impressive résumé having toured with Nick Cave, The Levellers and Quantic Soul orchestra amongst many others. Mike has a wealth of experience in creating and writing music for theatre, film and community projects.