Drawings on Indigo

May 2023 Ruthin Craft Centre

I worked with ideas and themes from Jeanette Orrell’s exhibition to translate these into ‘creative movement for wellbeing’. Stephen Heaton filmed these 5 workshops and they will be released shortly via Ruthin Craft Centre for you to book onto.

Honestly Honesty & The Comic Spirit 2008

Some more ‘blogging back in time’ …

Obviously back in 2008 when I was beginning to gather ideas for ‘Cupid’s Strongest Bow’ I was listening to all sorts of music … on behalf of Luna of course … ( some of them are a bit cheesy … ) oh and she was thinking about the Moon a lot (as usual) …

Invoking the comic spirit & gestures

Luna has been inspired by lots of new music recently 

Luna’s New Tunes – Top Ten

One Day Like This – Elbow

Questions & Answers – Ben’s Brother

Pencil full of Lead – Paolo Nutini

The Man who can’t be moved – The Script

Shining Light – Annie Lennox

Don’t Upset the Rhythm – The Noisettes

I Wanna Put on my Boogie Shoes – Kool & The Gang


The Freedom of the Moon
By Robert Frost (1874 – 1963)
I’ve tried the new moon tilted in the air Above a hazy tree-and-farmhouse cluster As you might try a jewel in your hair. I’ve tried it fine with little breadth of luster, Alone, or in one ornament combining With one first water-star almost as shining.
I put it shining anywhere I please. By walking slowly on some evening later I’ve pulled it from a crate of crooked trees, And brought it over glossy water, greater, And dropped it in, and seen the image wallow, The colour run, and all sorts of wonder follow. The color run, all sorts of wonder follow. 

LUNA’S TOP TWENTY LOVE HITS February 2008

1. Que Sera Sera – Doris Day 

2. You broke my heart in 17 Places ( Shepherd’s Bush was only one) Tracey Ullman

3. Joe Le Taxi – Vanessa Paradis

4. My First, My Last, My Everything – Barry White

5. Rain on your Parade – Duffy

6. It’s in his Kiss – Neil Sedaka

7. Mister Sandman – The Chordettes

8. Venus – Bananarama

9. Under The Moon of Love – Showaddywaddy

10. My Guy – Mary Wells

11. One of Us – Joan Osbourne

12. Halleluah – Leonard Cohen

13. Wuthering Heights – Kate Bush

14. Non Je ne regrette Rien – Edith Piaf

15. Baby Now that I’ve found You – The Foundations

16. These Boots are made for Walkin’ – Nancy Sinatra

17. Aux Champs Elysees – Joe Dassin

18. Stop in the name of Love – Diana Ross and The Supremes

19. Secret Love – Kathy Kirby

20. Walkin’ back to Happiness – Helen Shapiro

Blogging back in time …

Today I found some of the old blogs about my creative work that go back in time. They are quite interesting to read now some ten years on. I have decided to add some of them here … a sort of historical perspective when I was living back in Birmingham, a City that has been kind to me over the years and that served as the foundation and springboard for my career …

Monday, December 08, 2008 

Generations and generations ….
Current mood:  exhausted

So here’s to generations and generations …. (written after a training weekend with Birmingham Institute for Psychodrama) There was some profound and extremely moving work this weekend. I am exhausted. Thanks and thanks and thanks again to you all. I will really treasure my little wooden dancer.
This leapt out at me from the preface of a book that I am about to read …

“I would that my life remain a tear and a smile.
A tear to purify my heart and give me understanding of life’s secrets and hidden things.
A smile ……
I would that I rather died in yearning and longing than I lived weary and despairing.
I want the hunger for love and beauty to be in the depths of my spirit …… I have heard the sigh of those in yearning and longing, and it is sweeter than the sweetest melody”

Kahlil Gibran
A Tear And A Smile

What a weekend – thanks for the Duffy clip L – Yes, I love the choreography too – I just watched it again. I’m not so sure that’s it’s ever worth raining on someone’s parade though, even if you feel like it – Luna prefers the “Reigning” that she did in “Cupid’s Strongest Bow” and loves the great red shoes!

Nice to chat Dad – and Mum you are right about the aerial work in that song “Rule the World” from your adored boys (Take That) and I am sure that “Geraldine” (Peter Kay) really agrees with you! Well spotted.
Luna didn’t quite do all of those moves in her recent show – she had a go but her heart kept getting in the way! Some zzzzz now …..
More anon
Much Love
xxx

LUNA’S PEARLS ….

“Look in the mirror and laugh!….”

January 2020 & “Gras”

Having returned to my WordPress Blog and now developing website I see that the one and only blog that I have written (in mourning for the loss of all creative blogs regarding past performance projects on the dim and distant ‘Myspace’ page), was in September 2013!

It is now January 2020 and the beginning of a new decade. Since writing the last blog here many things have happened in my life … most notably moving back home to North Wales to a tiny cottage in a tiny village called Llanfihangel Glyn Myfyr. Local folk call it ‘the village of the laughing angel’ which makes me smile. I feel very at home there and was recently invited to read an excerpt from ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales’ in St. Michaels’ Church as part of our Christmas Carol concert 2019. We then all packed into the tiny Vestry that lines one side of my back garden adjoining the Chapel in the village to enjoy mince pies and cups of tea. I had never seen so many people pinched into that wooden hut enjoying Christmas cheer.

‘That wooden hut’ has been very useful in that I have hired it for rehearsals of ‘Pin, Curl & Dyesome’ in May 2017 (a Larval Mask Performance piece that I made for Hijinx Theatre Company). This show toured nationally and we enjoyed outings to Germany Festivals also. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj543x09Rio

Throughout 2018 I hired the hut for a mask-making project that I ran for Adults with Learning Disabilities that brought together participants from my Hijinx group in Prestatyn and my group in Ellesmere Port.

I have also used that space for the odd rehearsal of ‘In The Psalm of Her Hand’ later to be called ‘Ei Chalon’, which finished touring in July 2019 at L-Fest in Llandudno.

It now remains to be seen if I continue to develop my new performance project “Gras’ there … so far I have been trundling down to St. Mary’s Church Hall in Betws-y-Coed.

‘Gras’ is the new performance project for 2020. It is a commission from Bishop Andy John of Bangor Diocese. He saw ‘In The Psalm of her Hand’ at The CODA Festival in Llanidloes in 2018.

Comments on ‘In The Psalm of Her Hand’ Bishop Andy John July 2018

He then asked me to think of something for 2020 to celebrate a 100 years of The Church in Wales. To date the piece has been crafted but there are still details to develop and the HAND needs finishing. It then needs working and playing so that it can grow into itself. I will be back in the rehearsal space soon. So watch this space for more news soon as 2020 unfurls … Jane xxx

Artistry, Alchemy & Adventures …

This is my first blog here since my other creative blogs spanning January 2008-June 2013 disappeared into the aether courtesy of myspace! They have still not reappeared … what a shame because even though I have copies of many of them I don’t have them all. There is a lesson here. If anyone out there has any of them please, please send them to me …

There has been all of the above (Artistry, alchemy and Adventures) recently … Artistry in the shape of ‘Another Time Another Place’ performed by my group of Year Six students from The C.of E. Bluecoat School in Walsall. Our day at Wolverhampton Art Gallery on July 3rd complete with an exhibition, book and DVD as well as a very appreciative audience and lovely lunch was extremely well received.

The ‘Reds’ press call in and around Birmingham on 16th July made the BBC Midlands Today twice and there are some great photos … and as it is now almost a month since I began this draft, I am waiting to perform ‘Reds’ again this weekend in Birmingham as part of ‘The Four Squares Weekender Festival’. I look forward to it. My new ‘Red’ Hairdresser character is coming along well. She even has a new red bob wig.

Alchemy for me exists on a daily basis; whether it is in the scent of honeysuckle and roses in my garden, the ebb and flow of energies of friends that I see, the creative work that I do or even in the smell of horses and their tack. Today I have been out with Henry (horse). It was so lovely to meander around the lanes and bridle paths in the sunshine. I saw dragonflies, trout and rabbits, all wild and free. He didn’t put a foot wrong but didn’t like the noise and sight of the yellow digger near the railway bridge. I spent the evening with my friend Linda and her son Leo to edit, tweak and generally sort various items on my computer. We had a very productive evening and there is some fantastic filmic work to post soon.

I have had many adventures since my last blog post and the disappearance of the other blogs from myspace on June 12th. I am not quite sure that I can quite capture all of the last two-to-three months here just now but at at least I have started. My trip to Colombes and Paris in August has been a highlight. We ‘did’ Paris, Jane, my friend and I and her two teenage daughters. They also continued down South near to Bordeaux whilst I did Paris on my own via flea markets for ‘Red’ costume, Tango in The Luxembourg Gardens on a Sunday afternoon, Le Marais for browsing rich things, ‘Paris Plages’ along The Seine for reading some of the numerous books that I had loaned from Colombes library, visits to at least two of the places (St. Michel, Rue St. Jacques and 75006 Rue Stanislas ) where I had lived  … What else:- Pain du chocolate, brioche, du cafe, couscous, Cergy-Pontoise, Pontoise, La Tour Eiffel, Sacre Coeur, Pere Lachaise cemetery, lovely Nair and her sister, Gilbert from ‘Betty Books’, Frederic and Jean-Marc in the library and much more as well as lots of sunshine …

Too tired now so must zzzz

xxxXxxx