"Lifeguard" In The Toddlers!
Posted: 8th June 2012 By Andrew Johnson
UPDATE AND FURTHER DETAILS OF PRODUCTION
LIFEGUARD
Created and performed by Adrian Howells In collaboration with Mike Brookes, Minty Donald, Rob Drummond, Nick Millar, Nichola Scrutton and Jane Mason.
Monday 8th October to 27th October 2012 at Govanhill Baths, Glasgow, in association with Govanhill Baths Community Trust and the Centre for Community Practice.
Adrian Howells is creating an intimate, immersive theatrical experience at the derelict Govanhill Baths in Glasgow. His performance will invite audiences to engage with their memories of swimming pools and their relationships with water. In the evocative setting of the training pool in the old Baths, audiences will have the opportunity to enter into a multi-sensory poolside encounter with their own ‘lifeguard’.
Govanhill Baths, an Edwardian swimming pool and wash house, was closed 11 years ago and is now looked after by Govanhill Baths Community Trust whose aim is to preserve and conserve the baths for the public benefit. National Theatre of Scotland is reinstating the training pool for the purpose of this production.
The Learn department of National Theatre of Scotland will also work with primary schools on the south side of Glasgow to create an installation piece, to sit inside Govanhill Baths for the duration of lifeguard.
Adrian Howells says: "Since my childhood I have always been strangely drawn to, and fascinated by, swimming pools. I love swimming and the sensation of my body being buoyed up by the water and I find it thrilling to watch other bodies - diving, cutting through the surface and especially moving underwater, always graceful in their suspension. I'm intrigued by the fact that swimming is such a solitary pursuit, but we're so often doing it surrounded by other people, constantly part of a transient community. And I'm attracted to the layers of paradox that co-exist within the environment of a public pool: they contain ideas of both public and private behaviour; they're intended as centres of pleasure and abandonment, yet they're also places which are highly regulated and sanitised; they promote a celebration of life and living, yet the risk of drowning and death is an ever pervasive threat. Hence the need for, and constant presence of, a vigilant lifeguard.
Adrian Howells is a Glasgow-based performance-maker who creates intimate theatrical experiences in non-traditional performance spaces, often in a one-to-one, autobiographical, or confessional context. He is Artist-in-Residence at the Arches for the next two years and will be collaborating with TouchBase, Sense Scotland, to create work around ideas of touch and tactile communication. He is also currently an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow. His work has been presented in Japan, Singapore, Israel, Canada, Germany, Spain, Italy and Ireland, as well as at many UK festivals. In 2011, his Edinburgh Festival Fringe show at the Point Hotel, Edinburgh 'May I Have The Pleasure...?' which was presented by the Arches, received a Total Theatre Award. His most recent one-to-one work 'The Pleasure of Being: Washing/Feeding/Holding' is a co-production with Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, and was presented at an exclusive One-On-One Festival at BAC in both 2010 and 2011 and by the Arches alongside 'May I Have the Pleasure...?’ at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2011.
National Theatre of Scotland is supported by the Scottish Government. Since its launch in February 2006, the National Theatre of Scotland has been involved in creating over 160 productions in 125 different locations. With no building of its own, the Company takes theatre all over Scotland and beyond, working with existing and new venues and companies to create and tour theatre of the highest quality. It takes place in the great buildings of Scotland, but also in site-specific locations, airports and tower blocks, community halls and drill halls, ferries and forests. The company has performed to over 710,000 people, across three continents.
The Arches, one of Europe's leading cultural venues, is both an arts receiving and production house with an international reputation as an exciting hub of ground-breaking creativity. Housed within seven Grade A listed Victorian railway arches in Glasgow city centre, the venue presents a year-round programme of theatre, performance, dance, visual art, live music, corporate events and club nights. The programming team employs calculated risk-taking in all of its creative decisions, nurturing emergent talent and rewarding bold approaches with a supportive environment for further innovation. The last few years have seen ground-breaking artists and companies such as The TEAM, Derevo, Ann Liv Young, Ontroerend Goed, Akhe, Taylor Mac and Tim Crouch amongst others perform in the venue. In the last few years, the Arches presented a programme of work at its own Edinburgh Festival venue for the first time (featuring Adrian’s one-on-one show Footwashing for the Sole, which won a Total Theatre Award) and the phenomenal Trilogy by Nic Green picking up a Fringe First, Herald Angel and Total Theatre Award.
www.nationaltheatrescotland.com www.thearches.co.uk
For more information "Lifeguard" in the toddlers!
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