Hi friends! If you are reading this you have probably already
seen our work and have a sense of what we are about, if not,
perhaps you are a budding philanthropist with a heart of gold. Read
on, esquire!
We are super grateful to have received some funding from The
Wallace Foundation and Auckland Council, which covers our basic
costs - but we are still slightly short.
The team is really excited to bring this play to Basement Theatre;
it's very different to the work we have produced in the past.
Andrew has slowed down to simplify, to make a more meditative and
poetic work with a big heart. Always the perpetual language nerd,
he is geeking out about performing part of the play in Gaelic.
Scots Gaelic is a language you may not have heard before, and may
not hear again after this show, unless you are on a trip to the
Hebrides or Skye any time soon. There are only 53, 000 native
speakers worldwide.
The marvels of modern technology have allowed us to collaborate
with artists on the other side of the globe. We have been fortunate
enough to be supported by award-winning poet and playwright Marcas
Mac an Tuairneir, a foremost writer in Gaelic, based in Scotland.
Marcas is translating historical passages of the script into
Gaelic, and helping co-write the lyrics of several original Gaelic
songs.
We are continuing our working relationship with
nothing-short-of-visionary performance designer Christine Urquhart
from her current base in Toronto.
Back on home turf, we are working with talented folk musicians
Leith Towers and Laszlo Reynolds, and longtime collaborator and
bassist Tom Dennison on original songs and music.
The charismatic Tawanda Manyimo is bringing his vitality to the
piece as director.
We'd appreciate any support you wished to give for the project. If
you're not in a position to donate, you can also share our posts
and whip your friends into an excited frenzy for the season to help
us build the buzz!
...
Love. Bloodlines. The Highland Clearances.
VIOLENT BLOOM is a solo play and song cycle that thrashes
between the intensely personal and the cosmic in a genealogical
freefall.
Andrew begins a scramble through ancient Scotland, Western
Australia and Grey Lynn as he attempts to escape uneasy truths
about himself.
…
Driven through a series of original songs, VIOLENT BLOOM is a
meditation on love and our relationship to our ancestry, performed
in English and Scots Gaelic.
VIOLENT BLOOM
Basement Theatre, Auckland
30 Oct - 3 Nov 2018
Responses to past work:
"a seductive and magnetic experience…unexpected possibility and
surreal beauty." - Pantograph Punch (on POTATO STAMP)
"It's smart, funny and delightfully inventive, and best of all it
ends on a note of such unexpected, preposterous and yet
soul-stirring grace, you'll walk away feeling enlarged, grateful.
Rewarded." - Simon Wilson, Metro (on POTATO STAMP)
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Update - 12% there!
6 MONTHS AGO
Thank you so much for the generous support we've recieved so far! Here's a little video to give you a feel of a slice of Andrew's life in the Pressure Point office / writing studio.
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Violent Bloom Poster
7 MONTHS AGO