Hannah Nicklin – Page 30

Post doesn’t really come better than this. Almost ecstatically delighted to tell you all that I’ve been offered a small Grant for the Arts to develop A Conversation With My Father into a full-length tourable solo show beginning in the first week of January next year. The work will be in partnership with 3 major theatres, and I will be mentored throughout the process by the brilliant performer, director, and all-round lovely person, Alex Kelly of Third Angel. I’ll also be receiving some professional development on tour-booking and the like from their general manager Hilary Foster. All of whom/which have provided me with extremely generous support. I’ll blog with full details on the venues, expected process (including work in progress showings) and timings as soon as I’ve been in full contact with everyone, but for now: here’s a little bit about ACW, in case you haven’t heard/don’t remember me mentioning it before. Words, then a rough bit of video – all images and sounds from or of me, and my dad.

A Conversation with My Father is a solo (true) storytelling piece born out of a conversation between an ex-policeman and his protestor daughter. A conversation about fear, grey areas, them and us, duty, and standing up to protect what you think matters. The piece is based around a recording of Hannah Nicklin talking to her father about policing and protest. It is not about which side you should take, it’s a conversation about the problem of ‘sides’ in the first place.

I want to tell you what it feels like to face a line of riot police. Ask you to listen to my dad speak about what it feels like to be that line. To tell you how proud my dad is of me for standing up for things. How thankful I am for the courage he gave me. I want to ask you to think about the stories the media tell about ‘them’ and ‘us’.

It is a story about:

Symbols
Legitimacy
About the power of stories.
About finding better ones to tell ourselves about the world.
It’s also about me, and my father.

“[…] as topical in these days of police ‘kettling’ and undercover provocateurs as it might be timeless in its questioning of the basis of a functioning civic society.” – Wayne Burrows

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about setting out on the brilliant Northern Big Board project. I’m now (somehow, how did that actually happen?) two weeks into the process, and most recently spent two exhausting, brilliant, eye-opening days collecting stories from the people of Shipley Pool. I also learnt to do a basic dive off the 5 metre board, and a standing drop pike (I think I made that name up, but it’s something along those lines) with the help of one of Bradford Esprit’s brilliant, brilliant coaches (turns out, by the way, that I TOTALLY LOVE DIVING, and it’s a really satisfying thing to begin to master). It’s tiring but brilliant. I was a bit nervous at the beginning of the process, as it relies so heavily (like others of my previous work – The Smell of Rain… and The Umbrella Project did) on the stories I’m able to collect from members of the public – totally in fact; I don’t know what I will be making, or how the content might work until I’ve spent a couple of weeks talking to people – that it can seem quite daunting. What if people don’t want to talk to me? What if they insist they have nothing to say? What if they feel like I’m invading their space, or taking their stories in a way that’s not OK? Then you get there. And you take a deep breath, smile earnestly and invite the first person to talk to you, and you remember; people are brilliant. Generous, kind, also angry and difficult and driven and busy and shy, but always extraordinary. I came away from Thursday and Friday with 58 audio recordings, and pictures of those who consented to have them taken. Also with the beginnings of some ideas. More, I suspect, later. But for now, here are the faces of a few of those extraordinary people.

Author: Hannah Nicklin

The development of A Conversation with my Father

The people of Shipley Pool