Table Reading Marks Debut Of ’Man in Motion’

News from The Malibu Times of a new play about Muybridge:

By Jimy Tallal / Special to The Malibu Times

Posted on May 28, 2014 by MalibuTimesEditorial

In an unusual move, the new play, “Man in Motion,” written by local stage and television writer D. Paul Yeuell, will be introduced to its first live audience in the form of a table-reading at the Malibu Playhouse this Saturday.
Yeuell chose the format as “a good way to determine whether the material is ready for full production and maybe generate the interest of a repertory company with resources to get the play on its feet.”
Eleven actors will sit onstage facing the house and read directly from the script. Real-life Malibu married couple Jamey Sheridan and Colette Kilroy, both veteran actors, are taking on lead roles alongside a cast that includes TV/film actor Gil Bellows and eight others.

Kilroy plays a professional midwife “in an incredible predicament, being witness to the complications of the household.” Although she’ll be acting next to her real-life husband, she said, “Jamey and I will not rehearse together beforehand – we’ll see what happens in the group. I steer clear of talking about characters with actors, even my husband … For me, it’s best to discover in the playing together.”

Normally, a “table read” is a behind-the-scenes step in the pre-production process attended only by staff, with the actors bringing their characters to life for the first time behind closed doors. At this event, the audience will be folded into the process.

“It’s a great story that Paul skillfully unfolds, interweaving Muybridge’s debut of amazing footage of animals in motion at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair with his murder trial. The testimony at the trial is the device for telling what happened the night of the murder. It’s a great story, and that’s what draws me into projects,” said Malibu local and successful producer Randy Olson.

Yeuell hopes to learn from the live reading whether any parts are too long or too difficult, and gather feedback from the audience at the reception afterwards.
The production team is renting the Malibu Playhouse for the event on Saturday, May 31 at 6:00 p.m. Godmother of Malibu will cater the reception following the reading. Tickets are available online only for $25 at brownpapertickets. com/event/699090.

 

Posted here by Stephen Herbert

Human Locomotion in Prague

Muybridge and his work as a stage experience isn’t new, as we’ve seen in previous posts. But an entirely new take on the subject is now running in Prague, Czech Republic, at the National Theatre. Jesse Seaver at Huffington Post provides a review:

Human Locomotion Theatre in Prague: The Story of Eadweard Muybridge

The Huffington Post
by Jesse Seaver

Photo Courtesy Národní divadlo

The New Stage of the National Theatre in Prague is small, but once the show begins, surprisingly capable of providing it’s guests with a truly entertaining evening. The seats are a bit worn, but comfortable, and the building itself inspires architectural awe with its winding staircases, and glass walled multi leveled cafes. I am here tonight to see Human Locomotion, the latest multimedia production of Laterna Magika at the Narodni Divadlo. This iconic National Theatre house is near the city center, sits on the edge of the Vltava river and is a must for the lovers of the arts who visit this culturally rich city.

Led by directors Martin Kukucka and Lukas Trisovsky (SKUTR), the show brings more to the table than let on from the promotional flyers and website descriptions. The set, the lights, the music, the dancing and the acting were all well worth the four curtain calls worth of applause the cast received at shows end.

A beautiful, and humorous rendition of “You Are My Sunshine,” begins the melodic journey from Petr Kaleb that transports the audience, smoothly, through the use of an elaborate set and projection by Jakub Kopecký, with help on costumes from Jana Morávková. The storyline is well written, performed in a mix of Czech and English, but always with English subtitles projected. The show tells the story of Eadweard Muybridge (Marek Daniel), the British inventor who had a critical impact on the world of photography and beyond. His most famous work captures a horse running using multiple cameras, and represented the invention of Chronophotography.

This troubled man, and genius, dedicated his life with obsession to his invention, but not at little cost. As he is tormented through his genius, he consequently destroyed his personal life and marriage to his beautiful wife Flora (Zuzana Stavna). She was pushed away into an affair with Major Harry Larkyns (Jakub Gottwald), a dashing, purple tuxedo-wearing troublemaker slash magician. Eadweard eventually shoots the Major, and is tried for murder, but is let off on grounds of justifiable homicide and allowed to complete his work.

What appears at first view to be a static backdrop is transformed into a multi-story, multi-level deep set, complete with animations skillfully painted across the stage using multiple HDX projectors. The entire set is designed to be inside of a camera, so to speak, I presume so that the audience is always peering into the life and view of Eadweard. Flora and Major Henry share an amazingly well done love scene, from inside a box, again meant to be a camera, while the audience is shown the actors passion through magical projection onto a dancer positioned on a five sided screen. The bending, waving light, along with the perfectly selected soundtrack, and Eadweards’ character slumped at the far other end of the stage, made this the most powerful scene for me. An elevated, slow motion fight scene, was also extremely well done. Many examples of choreographer Jan Kodets’ masterful ability to tell a story with her dancers combined itself well with the score, which was full of emotion, and the perfect amount of space to allow the actors to intersect and participate. All in all, the production of this show was a real treat, and a great Saturday evening out in Prague.

If you are a lover of modern dance and multimedia theater you should add this show to your list to try and catch. It will show again in Prague in March and April, and if the rest of the world is lucky, it will go on tour.

Jesse Seaver

re-posted here by Stephen Herbert. More here:
http://www.novascena.cz/en/repertoar/1079.html
Trailer from YouTube, below.

Credits:

Stage – Directors: Skutr (Martin Kukučka, Lukáš Trpišovský)
Choreography: Jan Kodet
Stage-design: Jakub Kopecký
Music: Petr Kaláb
Projections, programming: Jakub Kopecký, Lunchmeat

A lecture by Eadweard Muybridge, this Saturday

 

http://www.othercinema.com/calendar/index.html

ANALOG CHURCH SAT 12/8: ROURKE + WOOD + KATELUS + RADIOPHONICS +
Indulging our love for forgotten formats and media archeology lore, Jeremy Rourke & Co. debut two live musical performances, The Biography of a Motion Picture Camera and The Paperman May Charleston. Ben Wood, in the apparel of none other than Eadweard Muybridge, affords us a charmed glimpse into those halcyon days of the Magic Lantern. Doug Katelus, as Hammond organist for the night, offers his 16mm Help Keep Film Dead, on the last days of Monaco Lab. Lori Varga, as high priestess for tonight’s “church,” powers up her 4 projectors in Beyond the Frames of Light and Strange Sound. PLUS Russ Forster with an in-person tribute to Bill Lear, inventor of the eponymous jet AND the 8-track tape! AND a half-hr cut of the BBC‘s Alchemists of Sound, on the UK Radiophonic Workshop, boasting Doctor Who composer Delia Derbyshire.*$7.

[Now that’s what I call a “mixed programme”.]

Posted here by Stephen Herbert

Little Triggers

Too late I’m afraid, as the last performance takes place as I type, but for the record there was a new Muybridge play in London this week.

This, edited from The [good] Review website:
“The Good (Inte)review – Sean Rigby and Alex Vlahov
Posted by Kieran James on 13/08/2012
Soggy Arts Theatre Company was formed by final year students at LAMDA earlier this year, and over the next week they will be performing their debut piece Little Triggers (A Myth About Photography) at the Old Peanut Factory in Hackney. The play documents the adventures, inventions and rivalry of two spearheads of the motion picture industry. … To help provide a little more information about the play … we caught up with Writer/Director Alex Vlahov and one of the stars Sean Rigby to ask them a few questions.

 
Alright Boys?
ALEX: Fine thanks!
SEAN: Aye grand.
Tell us about Little Triggers.
ALEX: I guess it’s a historical black comedy. About two real photographers, Eadweard Muybridge and Etienne Jules-Marey, swashbucklers of early motion picture. They are dropped into a provincial English village in the 1880s for a Midsummer Festival competition.
Who do you play?
SEAN: I play Eadweard Muybridge. A renowned Photographer, inventor and showman who has arrived in the English countryside to claim the top prize in an invention competition.
ALEX: I’m the writer/director/coffee-boy.
How have rehearsals been going?
ALEX: It’s been an absolute pleasure. I’m constantly astounded by the cast’s commitment but I also laugh so much during rehearsal.
SEAN: Great. Alex has imbued the entire process with a sense of play and freedom. No one is precious with their work in the slightest.
How did this production get started?
ALEX: I took a history of film class at UCLA in 2009 and we learned about Marey and Muybridge before they screened the silent films. They were both pioneers in the new art form of motion-picture, but I was struck by Muybridge’s violently wild life, his murder in California, and I got to thinking about cinema’s bloody origins. There’s a culture of death and film, you only have to look at Sal Mineo or Natalie Wood or John Belushi. Following this idea after a couple of revisions, plus living in England for three years, I thought it might work better as a lie-fable. Is lie-fable a word?
SEAN: I said yes.
Has it helped being so familiar with the rest of the company?
ALEX: Oh yeah, there’s a shorthand there.
SEAN: Yes, but there are a few people in the cast whom I haven’t worked with before so that has been a real treat too.
How can people see the show and where can they find more information?
ALEX: There are about 30 seats per performance, plus standing ….  August 16th-18th, 7:30 PM (The Old Peanut Factory, 22 Smeed Rd., Hackney, E3 2NR).
Any plans for Soggy Arts following this?
SEAN: Hopefully producing more new writing. Having found such a unique and wonderful space in deepest darkest Hackney, Soggy Arts will continue to produce exciting new work all over London. I know they are releasing a short film at the start of Autumn, so watch this space.
ALEX: Rumour through the grapevine has it that Soggy Arts is dedicated to producing original work and providing a unique twist on overlooked texts. For specifics on the company, talk to Barney Mcelholm and Laurie Jamieson.
Will Do! Who is your favourite actor?
ALEX: Robert Mitchum. Tilda Swinton.
SEAN: Brendan Gleeson. Frances McDormand.
If you could have any part at any theatre what would it be and where?
ALEX: Edmund in a Wooster Group production of King Lear.
SEAN: I’d play Caliban at the Chorley Little Theatre.
The Good Review would like to thank Alex and Sean for their time, and wish them and the production all the very best. For more information about Little Triggers or to book tickets to see the show please click here.”

http://thegoodreview.co.uk/2012/08/the-good-intereview-sean-rigby-and-alex-vlahov/

Posted here by Stephen Herbert – with thanks to the [GOOD] review!

Undance, Sadler’s Wells, review

A new Muybridge-related dance piece is currently being performed at Sadler’s Wells, London – unfortunately, until tomorrow only. Here’s a review by Sarah Crompton.

Undance, Sadler’s Wells, review
Mark Wallinger, Mark Anthony Turnage and Wayne McGregor collaborate in Undance, at Sadler’s Wells.
The Telegraph
By Sarah Crompton
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/dance/8932270/Undance-Sadlers-Wells-review.html

The tendency of most dance is towards flattering beauty, towards the lovely act rather than the uncompromising action. One of the many heroic qualities of Undance, this fascinating heavyweight collaboration between the artist Mark Wallinger, the composer Mark Anthony Turnage and the choreographer Wayne McGregor is that it isn’t always gorgeous: it has the knotty complexity of an idea being weighed and examined.
The concept in the balance was Wallinger’s. He placed Eadweard Muybridge’s pioneering photographs of human movement and the verbs he made his models enact (to jump, to run, to walk etc) alongside Richard Serra’s more theoretical list of action verbs for sculpture (of entropy, of equilibrium). Then he added in “UN” – the initials that stand for a plea for redemption, a chance to undo what we have done.
This web of thought is reflected in a set, beautifully lit by Lucy Carter, which recreates Muybridge’s measuring grid at the back, and pictures of UN compounds at the sides.
It is echoed too in Turnage’s sumptuous score in eight movements, a network of oppositions, full of breezy, heavily-accented woodwind, bluesy brass, and running strings, beautifully played by the specially created Undance Band, conducted by Tim Murray.
The piece opens with the ten dancers from Random Dance Company, in flesh coloured costumes which make them look like Muybridge’s naked models, lining up against the grid, then moving forward to perform the iconic poses. A film runs behind them, slightly out of sync.

Then, as the music unfurls, so does the piece, with McGregor’s characteristically graceful distortions that fold back on themselves seeming to demonstrate not only actions – at one point the dancers run under strobe lights, looking exactly like the figures on Muybridge’s glass discs – but also thoughts. In one section they seem to push through time as well as space, as the film runs in the opposite direction to the steps we are seeing.
What we see is sometimes ugly, or angry, or confused, but it finds resolution by returning to first positions. The dancers literally do this: posing like Muybridge’s pioneers in an expectant diagonal line, ready to begin again. It’s both stringent and richly complicated.

There’s a video clip here, for a limited period:

http://www.sadlerswells.com/standalonevideo.php?video=712407530001,1224377398001&show=4016&more=1

Posted here by Stephen  Herbert

Muybridge in Three Movements

Films and New Dance in San Francisco…… (Thursday, 26 May)

Muybridge in Three Movements  

Catherine Galasso, choreographer/director
Steve Polta, artistic director/archivist, San Francisco Cinematheque
Rebecca Solnit, author

Phyllis Wattis Theater
7:00 p.m.
Mark Wilson, Motion Studies, 1995, 4 min., 16mm
Hollis Frampton, INGENIVM NOBIS IPSA PVELLA FECIT, 1974, 15 min. excerpt, 16mm
Ken Jacobs, Le Prince: Leeds Bridge 1888, 2005, 6 min., video
Bruce Conner, BREAKAWAY, 1966, 5 min., 16mm

In conjunction with the exhibition Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change, we present an evening of Muybridge-inspired dance choreographed and directed by Catherine Galasso; Muybridge-inspired short films chosen by San Francisco Cinematheque’s Steve Polta; and a Muybridge-driven conversation on cinematic space and time led by author Rebecca Solnit.

Source: http://www.sfmoma.org/events/1886#ixzz1NXeYJmx8
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

http://www.sfmoma.org/events/1886#ixzz1NUa2KpZZ

Posted here by Stephen Herbert

Fish Tank Tuesday

This video on YouTube, Fish Tank Tuesday, captures  some of the recent nocturnal moving image projections in Muybridge’s birthplace, Kingston. The goldfish swimming on the front wall of the Rose Theatre are just yards from Muybridge’s childhood home (the building on the left in the top photo, now a computer shop).

On the evening that this video was taken, just across the street from what was, in the mid 19th century, the dwelling of the Muggeridge household is a giant silhouette of a running deer – a moving image produced from Muybridge’s own animated pictures.

 

And this animation alternates with a sequence showing the frozen successive positions of a galloping horse, advertising the current Muybridge show at Tate Britain, and a poster for the exhibitions of … Muybridge in Kingston. Strange to think of the young Edward in the 1830s and 40s, peering out of those windows at no.30 but never, in his wildest flights of fancy, imagining that in the distant future the immortal results of his own life’s work would be visible as giant, glowing, living pictures on the walls of the buildings in his own hometown High Street.

Posted here by Stephen Herbert

Muybridge in Kingston: new website

Another new website, Muybridge in Kingston, has been launched, to provide information on the exhibitions and events planned in Muybridge’s home town from this summer, and the Kingston Museum Muybridge Collection.

Muybridge in Kingston is an exciting collaborative research and development partnership between Kingston University and the Royal Borough of Kingston that is celebrating and investigating Kingston Museum’s world-class collection. This ongoing partnership aims to broaden access to, and understanding of, the collection through a programme of innovative research projects including special exhibitions, publications, web-resources, conferences, symposia and other public events.

http://www.muybridgeinkingston.com/home.html

Website sections include:

Kingston Museum – Muybridge Revolutions

18 Sept 2010 – 12 Feb 2011

Lantern slide, Kingston Museum

This exhibition focuses on arguably the rarest surviving Muybridge objects within the Kingston Museum collection, the beautiful hand-painted glass zoopraxiscope discs. Numbering nearly 70 discs, these objects comprise an astounding collection of items, which straddle the disciplinary boundaries between photography, art, animation and cinematography.

Informed by true photographic sequences, the discs were designed to confirm the validity of Muybridge’s moving image work, which he sought to achieve through an extensive, world-wide lecture programme. Compared to Muybridge’s photographic work, these are possibly the least well known or understood part of his career. As such, they are sometimes overlooked in terms of their significance. Displayed alongside the discs will be some of the original photographic sequences that informed them, represented as albumen prints, collotype prints and images on glass. The relationship between the original photographic sequences and the discs form an integral part of a new interpretation of his work, the result of new research into the Kingston Muybridge collection.

Stanley Picker Gallery – Contemporary Commissions

Muybridge’s groundbreaking work remains a key inspiration to practitioners across an array of interdisciplinary fields. …. the Stanley Picker Gallery is celebrating his lifetime’s achievements through the eyes of two contemporary artists who have been given privileged access to rare material held at the Kingston Museum archives. These new commissions provide us with twenty-first Century perspectives on a world-class historical collection, and explore new ways to consider the ongoing impact of Muybridge’s influential work.

Trevor Appleson 18 Sept – 13 Nov 2010

….ambitious new moving-image and photographic works inspired by Muybridge’s famous collotype sequences of human figures. As part of a residency at The London Contemporary Dance School, the artist has invited dancers to reinterpret gestures and actions that relate to the various visual narratives that Muybridge himself built into his original motion studies.

Becky Beasley 24 Nov – 5 Feb 2011

Taking inspiration from ambiguities in his life-story… an installation of new works that reflect upon the end of Muybridge’s life after his truly epic experiences in the American West. Beasley has attempted to trace an origin to a myth that, at the time of his death, Muybridge was constructing a scale model of the American Great Lakes in his back garden in Kingston.

(Do take a look at the website to see the accompanying artists’ photographs.)
http://www.muybridgeinkingston.com/gallery.html

Plus: links to the new Defining Modernities web portal, and (forthcoming) information on Events.

Posted here by Stephen Herbert

Corcoran Muybridge Lectures

The first lectures to tie in to the exhibition Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change, are:

Muybridge and the Evolution of Landscapes

Wednesday, April 07, 2010    7 p.m.

A fascination with the American West inspired Eadweard Muybridge in the 19th century, as well as acclaimed photographer Mark Klett and celebrated essayist and noted cultural historian Rebecca Solnit in the 20th and 21st. To complement the exhibition Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change, Klett and Solnit discuss their collaborations on projects that probe and re-examine Muybridge’s photographic explorations of the changing physical and cultural landscapes of the West.

The Places In Between: Arachne Aerial Arts
Tuesday, April 13, 2010 7 p.m.

Arachne Aerial Arts takes Cirque du Soleil’s astonishing acrobatics and makes them relevant. –Kim Rinehimer, Washington City Paper

In the spirit of Muybridge’s studies of motion and bodies in space, Washington’s award-winning acrobatic duo, Arachne Aerial Arts, returns to the Corcoran’s atrium for an evening of breathtaking suspended artistry. Combining the drama of aerial acrobatics with the artistry of dance, they perform selections from their new full-length show, The Places In Between, which conjures places real and imagined, and the spaces in between. The company is joined by Washington’s dynamic chamber ensemble, Kenyon Piano Quartet.

Members: $35.00 Public: $40.00

Interpreting Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 7 p.m.

While best known for his studies of human and animal locomotion, 19th-century photographer Eadweard Muybridge was also an innovative landscape artist and pioneer of documentary subjects. The enormous impact of his photographs can be measured throughout the course of modern art, from paintings and sculptures by Marcel Duchamp and Francis Bacon, to the 1999 blockbuster film The Matrix. Join Philip Brookman, the Corcoran’s chief curator and head of research, and curator of the exhibition, as he discusses Muybridge’s life and career, the artist’s relationship with the Corcoran, and the incredible relevance of his artwork today.

Members: $0.00 Public: $10.00

Corcoran Gallery of Art

500 Seventeenth Street NW Washington, DC 20006
Gallery:  (202) 639-1700
College: (202) 639-1800

More here:

http://www.corcoran.org/helios/related_programming.php

What is  Muy Blog?

Muybridge-inspired Audio

The Five Lives of Helios

The Five Lives of Helios

performed at UCSD’s Conrad Prebys Music Center: March 11th, 2010. (Percussionist Ross Karre.)

And now for some modern audio pieces, with which I am well outside my comfort zone.

“The Five Lives of Helios is a work inspired by the life and work of the late 19th century photographer Edward Muybridge (who used many pseudonyms, including Helios). The piece functions as a wordless oration of Muybridge’s work as a pivotal figure in the photograph’s ability to stop time (with increasing shutter speed) and liberate time (via the horse motion sequences presented by the zoopraxiscope, magic lantern, and, eventually, cinema). In this piece, the bass drum serves as a development bath where a sonic, instead of chemical, fixing process distills Muybridge’s story.”

http://rosskarre.synchronismproject.com/Site_5/Helios.html

Too much ‘steam train’ and not enough horses’ hooves, it seems to me. Bring on the coconut shells.

***

Proof: Galloping in Sound by Floor Van.

“Proof is a piece inspired by the work of Eadweard Muybridge (1830—1904), an eccentric English photographer, known primarily for his work with use of multiple cameras to capture motion.”

http://theunobserved.com/art/proof/

What do YOU think? Please leave a comment below.

And for more Muybridge music, check out the links for Philip Glass’s The Photographer, from here:

http://www.stephenherbert.co.uk/mCDsDVDs.htm

Stephen Herbert

What is Muy Blog?