On Wednesday I presented at my recent collaborator on YVAN/Corridor publication Resilience is Futile‘s Smizz’s event Phuckuppery 2 at Sheffield Hallam University. Smizz invited me to talk about failure and I honed in on mental health in the arts as something I’m focussing on with my curatorial collaboration Dwell Time.
Amongst several other things, I talked about being a nervous public speaker and performer and that recently I’ve been finding myself both being invited to speak/perform (monologue) and also proposing to do more of this. “It’s terrifying and causes me anxiety but it’s also widely accepted that public speaking is anxiety-inducing. But I continue doing it because I think one day, with practice and reflection, I’ll get better at it. I also think the preparation process of writing is brilliant reflection time.”
I’ve been reflecting a lot on this and the support offered by Compass Live Art and think that I would really like some training in performance. I’m not yet clear what this might entail as I’ve had next to no formal training in this and I recognise that ‘performing’ is probably as vast and wide as ‘sculpture’. Performing dialogue might be a starting point with some basic things like diction, projection and body language/proximity.
In my first mentoring session yesterday with Peter, he articulated that Compass bridges the worlds of contemporary art and theatre with live art so perhaps there are some interesting recommendations Compass can make. I’d be also interested to hear other people’s recommendations of resources and people who may offer relevant training in this area.
