Tag: Theatre

Posted on by — 1 Comment

Ironman is go!

I'm in there somewhere, swimming

I AM MAKING A SHOW ABOUT SPORT IT IS EXCITING.

This is a long overdue update because most of the updating on this has been via a new subdomain I set up for Ironman especially. And all my new writing is going in Zines or on tumblr blogs. But basically I am currently in Newcastle in the first week of making (provisional title, and probably not the final one because it’s a trademark and stuff) IRONMAN. Which is my latest bit of work about the physiology and psychology of endurance sport. IT FEATURES ME ACTUALLY DOING A REALLY BIG BIT OF ENDURANCE SPORT.

Here’s what I’ve written about the show in that way where you write things before you know what the thing will actually be:

Ironman is about our bodies in a world that transports our minds places bodies can’t follow. Ironman is about the physiology of endurance – when our brains tell our bodies to stop – and the psychology of carrying on. A 2.4k swim, 112 miles of cycling, then running a marathon. It is about how the thing that shocks people the most is when you tell them you’re not allowed headphones. Just you, alone, body and mind, and the next moment. For 12 hours (or more) It’s also about things like my friend who died, John. About the marathon I ran in his memory. It’s about the reasons I cycle, swim, and run. 

I’m working with a documentary maker Niall Coffey, Alex Kelly as designer and dramaturg, 3 whole scientists/psychologists, a coach, at 4 theatres, and with support from 3 different funders. I’m EXCITED.

If that’s interesting sounding to you, you can COME TO A WORK IN PROGRESS SHOWING. There are two next week in Newcastle on the 12th (6pm) and 13th (3pm) of Feb showing very early days two weeks of R&D. It’s totally free to attend, but you do need to book. I’ll also let you know when it’ll be in Sheffield, Stockton, and London further down the line.

And you can follow my training/making process as I blog it at ironman.hannahnicklin.com

172 days until the event. Eek.

 Also I did some other things recently, which you might find interesting:

Other things! Since I last blogged (blimey this was a long time ago), Fun Palaces came and went and was a great big bit of fun. I’m really proud of the work I did as ‘Digital Champion’ on the project

I did an interview with Eleanor Turney at The Space about that work, and generally things I think about how we think about ‘digital’. Said article saw the coining of the nickname ‘Digital Grinch’ for me which I am totally down with.

I’ve also been trying to get better at poetry still, by putting things up on xpoemxday.tumblr.com as and when I write them. I’m quite proud of this poem about my mum.

I performed Songs For Breaking Britain as part of the All Change Festival and it got a lovely write up on Exeunt: “the voices that Nicklin has collected speak of unemployment, of despair, of fear and lack of inspiration. But there is also joy and hope and huge generosity.” – Catherine Love

I made a new thing – a durational performance game called ‘Games We Have Known And Loved’ which collects stories of games and play that debuted at GameCity 9 in October, and which also went to Dialogue Festival in November.

I also wrote a 20 minute piece of spoken word out of all of the stories I collected for the closing party of GameCity – It had a lovely write up in Rock Paper Shotgun and you can buy it in Zine form on my new exciting ‘shop’ (I’m going to put up a first zine of collected poems soon* too!). It’s cheap. You should buy it and then wait ages for me to post it because I’m in Newcastle right now, come on, pay attention.

*at some point.

And finally, I’m enjoying working more in and around games, particularly advocating for games in culture/arts/funding spheres – I’m currently doing some associate producing with The Space and have written an article on the bits of games that cross over with art/performance in the UK. 

Great things that my friends are doing that you should check out too.

  • The Lifes & Loves of a Nobody by Third Angel (half of whom I’m working with in Newcastle right now!) is at The Albany in Deptford until Saturday
  • Everything Harry Giles does, generally, most recently FarmForm and this lovely Twine gamepoem
  • And check out these two gamepoems from @v21 and Holly Gramazio
  • Plus the Pornography For Beginners blockpushing game that Holly made in reaction to the UK’s porn updated (outdated) legislation.
  • Adam Dixon‘s frankly cavalier promise to make a new game a week this year is throwing up some lovely stuff.
  • Jack Bennett is currently touring with Too Much Too Young which I’m excited to see next week.
  • Unfolding Theatre‘s Lands of Glass is touring too, which looks much fun.
  • I’ve played The Quiet Year recently and found it totally mesmerising (only $8 all you need is 6 dice, some counters, and a pack of cards to play).
  • Also, lots of new stuff coming up at Sprint Festival at CPT, including a new work in progress from Action Hero, and My Mate Pat Ashe‘s night of games and performance Beta Public. Which will probably be OK (it always sells out).
  • Finally, Olympians have a new record coming out SOME TIME. Like, it’s taking ages, but just before the end of the year they released a single from it. Why not round your evening/morning/afternoon off with Brunch Cannon?

Posted on by — 2 Comments

No More Heroes

a picture of the 199 bus
a picture of the 199 bus
Image shared by Nico Hogg on flickr via CC

I am sat on a bus. Except I’m not. Because actually my charger broke for my phone a day ago. So when I’m having this thought, I’m on a bus. Even though right now, literally right now, I am sat on a patchwork quilt that took my mum 4 months to make with a slightly too hot soya hot chocolate next to me. But I am also sat on a bus. And I am thinking about heroes. I’m listening to a Radiolab episode. I managed to dig out an old phone that will hold audio even though I don’t have a sim card that will work for it and I don’t have the time to add anything but a single podcast before I run for the 225, earlier. I stand on the doorstep and watch the download icon swing to 360 degrees. I run. I run in that way that’s always not right because I’m not wearing running shoes and I worry it makes me look pathetic. I miss the 225, anyway. So I walk to Lewisham High Street instead and I intend on getting the 47 but I look at the orange lit sign and there’s a 199. I know the 199 will get me to the same place but it goes a slightly different way and that’s not the problem the problem is I haven’t got on the 199 since Tom broke up with me. Somehow, though, today that’s OK. I had my hair cut. I’m going to see some old friends from Leeds. I’m going to drink beer with people with accidental beards and proper consonants. So I flag it. I get on. And I sit in my usual seat, top deck front left. I decide not to waste the audio, and I read a book instead.

I am sat on a bus. Another one. This bus is 3 hours later and this time I wait longer than necessary but find a 225. I am sat on this bus and I am thinking about heroes. Radiolab is talking about Nihilism, and really it’s a philosophy that rankles with me. I struggle with it. It’s dirty. It says everything is mud, and aren’t we clever for writhing in it. Aren’t we clever for throwing it, we’re not making it worse. Look, I built a mudman out of it. Here, here’s a carrot for the nose. It touches on Dada, which I know enough about as I did a bit on it in my PhD, and then there’s Beyonce’s husband in the desert. I can’t remember his name when I write this. But apparently he’s in the desert with a denim jacket on that says something like ‘in the dust of this planet’ and they’re talking about the appeal of nihilism in an era of climate change. And then the costume designer, the costume designer who put Beyonce’s husband in the jacket, says that to her, for her, the jacket wasn’t about saying ‘there is nothing and that’s ok’, to her, it’s saying ‘there is nothing, and I am not afraid.’. For Jad Abumrad on radiolab that jacket is now about being a hero. And I think about the broken construct: hero. How I always want to be one. How the thing some of the best interactive theatre often shows me is that I’m good at leading but when I lead I’m not necessarily good. How when I daydream, it’s always me saving people. I dream of saving people I love but haven’t told yet from traffic. I dream of becoming an accidental viral image at a protest. I dream of saying a thing that will be whispered all around the country. And when I dream at night, I dream in the genre of apocalyptic, or mystic, or fantastic thriller. I’m always surviving, just, always fighting back, always escaping some half-known villain. Hero. Hero. Hero. And today I think “maybe that’s the last bit of Tomboy that I need to drop”, I think “heroes do not save us in the situations that face us, climate change cannot be solved by one person, or one state. Notions of collectivism always dissolve in the loss of the heroes who put it in place. Gamergate is founded on the fundamental notion: we are the heroes, not you.

I am sitting on a bus. And I am thinking about heroes. About how it’s time to let them go. How it’s time I stopped wanting to be one, and other people stopped waiting for them and we find a new way to tell stories, to listen to them, to be a part of them. And then I find my stop (Thornford Road), and get off. Walk home. I make myself a slightly drunken hot chocolate. I try to drink it. It is too hot. So I write this. Post it. Edit the mistakes. Click ‘update’.