Banff Tales flyer.... I'm so nervy and excited...
Friday, April 29, 2011, 07:24 PM

It's 1254 Mountain Time, we're doing the tech run-through in 30 minutes and doors open at 1500.

There's a greenscreen poemfilm, a song to improvised fiddle music, numerous audience surveys, a historical re-enactment of the first Theatre and Creative Writing programme at Banff School of Fine Arts, 'Which Superhero/DragQueen Would you Be?' a Smudging by Elder Tom Crane Bear and a Wedding. Oh, and of course, an Election.

Got to go get some lunch.


I'm in Canada...
Monday, April 11, 2011, 04:49 PM
... at the Banff Centre on an artist residency, to develop the digital side of London Tales.

Just about to head over to the New Media Cetre, to have my first meetings with the production team.

I arrived on Saturday and discovered I had the wrong adaptor for my mac and phone, so I headed to the mall, to buy one.






I thought I was a sea person, but now I'm thinking mountains. They do deliver instant awe and insignificance.

Since arriving here, I've been feeling such intense freedom. Or loss.

Thinking of my babies so far away, of being completely on my own terms, utterly untethered. Abandonment is what I feel, a blade-thin line of joy and terror. Do you know what I mean?

Having said that, yesterday I bumped into the gorgeous Regie Cabico, who I met at the Nuyorican Cafe years ago. It turns out Regie is a faculty member here on a Spoken Word residency. Of course, he has instantly welcomed me into the spoken word scene here.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Regie-Cabico-Spoken-Word-Theatre-Artist
Barcelona, Kosmopolis
Wednesday, April 6, 2011, 11:39 PM



foto by carlos@cazurro.com
http://www.cazurro.com

I went to Barcelona, to the amplified literature festival, Kosmopolis, to do two performances and a workshop at the architecturally spanky British Council offices, which are on the posh mountain/side rather than the low-down, 'fun' sea/side.



I travelled with Chris Redmond, who is, like Barcelona, very cool but not at all intimidating. I really liked hanging out with Chris. He is a dude.

I hung out with Ajo, a Madrilleno micropoetess, who I have hung out with before. She is effing marvellously orbiting multiple teeny tiny micro-airports at any one time.

I met D'bi Young from Jamaica/CapeTown/Canada and Malika Ndlovu, from South Africa - wonderful performers, very different energies, both so full of grace and friendship. If you get the chance to see them, I do recommend you take it.


Spring
Tuesday, March 22, 2011, 10:52 PM
Spring is an odd word. SPR ING. Spr-ing. The whole movement of the season, the upwards, outwards, blossoming trajectory of it suggests that the word should be a verb. The verb 'To Spr'.
I spr, I am spring, I sprang, I have sprung...

I was meant to be in Bolton today and for the next two days, to work on a project for the Manchester International Festival.

It fell through because... why? I don't know. I wanted to do it, I thought the people who contracted me wanted me to do it and then they started asking me - or informing me that I should make myself available to do stuff that was unpaid and uncontracted.

It got to that point where I was so angry and confused I couldn't sleep, muttering angsty self-justifying arguments into my pillow. So I forwarded all the correspondence to Apples & Snakes.

And, contract cancelled and the organisation Who Shall Not Be Named having to pay 75% of it, I can't work out,whether it was a misunderstanding or an attempt at bullying.

It makes me realise the value of support from Apples & Snakes. An organisation who has been the anchor, safety net, training wheels, key, passport, parachute, batmobile, guardian angel for so many poets over the last two decades. All artists should have such a great force for good on their team.

I've just found out I'm going to Banff, in Canada, for a self-directed artist residency to work out the digital stuff for London Tales. I'm going in 3 weeks time. I'm going with Marc Boothe from B3 Media. B3 Media is producing London Tales. B3 Media is a great great organisation.

B3 Media is like the Tardis. Fast, flexible, compact, blends in, HUGE.

B3 Media is a discrete metal door in the middle of Brixton market that opens out into this very cool studio, this universe of creative possibility. B3 Media is an organisation powered by love. And money. I so much love B3 Media.

On Friday I'm going to Barcelona for Kosmopolis, the International Literature Festival. My texts are being translated into Spanish and Catalan. I was scared that my words would sound nerdy and ridiculous but not in the way I intended. I was scared that the audience would not be looking at me but fiddling with bits of paper when I'd be already scared because they would be all looking at me. I was scared by this:

Dear Francesca,
We are in the process of translating your poems into Catalan and one of our translators has some doubts about one of them: “All of the Goodness” is written by a male or a female? Depending on the gender, the words can be different in our language. Could you please let us know?
Thanks a lot!
Kosmopolis

So I replied this: (note the slight hysterical edge)

Hi Kosmopolis,

How interesting!

Ideally, it should be non gender specific ie without the normal power hierarchies assigned to traditional male female roles.

I am a woman and I perform it but I don't want it to be a woman speaking to a man but a modern person speaking to a ex lover

Hope that makes sense?!

If it's not possible to do this, maybe I should choose a different one? Let me know?
xx Francesca

And I got this:
Hi Francesca,
Yes, it makes sense! I let the translator know.
Thanks a lot for the quick reply!
Kosmopolis

Oh, how I breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, I have no way of knowing what the translation says. I could be advocating marital rape. Of course not. Kosmopolis is reputable AND kool. This is a list of the events before me:


19:00
Wajdi Mouawad and Pablo Ley
The enchantment of transmission
19:30
Janne Teller
20:30
Ian McEwan and Jorge Wagensberg
Anticipating and creating
21:00
Laura Dockrill
Out Spoken: The UK’s thriving Spoken Word scene
21:30
D'bi.young Anitafrika
21:30
Dubravka Ugrešić
Does literature matter: half a century after "The captive mind", by C. Milosz

Still, though.

Tomorrow I am conducting the second interview for London Tales. The first was so much fun. I know this one will be. I've chosen very cool, very articulate characters. The thing is, once recorded, I have to turn the raw silk of the voices into something as beautiful, processed by the blunt instrument of my, um me.


I know I have been so very lax at updating this blog - thank you to those who are reading. May the tender kindness of the dark clothe you in dream and possibility and the light illuminate all things beyond beauty to truth and back again.

And to the BAC and People Create, the Barbican, Morpeth Choir, Bangabandu and John Scurr Primary Schools, the fantastic fabulous Dialogue Project at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Jewish Book Week, BritLit and The British Council, the wonderfully creative 1st Year Creative Writing students at Westminister University, West Hatch Secondary School, the Discovery Centre Winchester, Lisa Mead, Malika Booker, Charlie Dark, Sarah Ellis, Aoife Mannix, Charles Beckett, Jacob Sam-La Rose, Ty, The Beat Inn and Skorpio, Skorpio, Skorpio - to you I owe so much for the amazement of this March.

http://www.applesandsnakes.org/

http://www.b3media.com/
Gong Hee Faht Choy
Wednesday, February 2, 2011, 06:54 PM
Gong Hee Faht Choy, Happy New Year, What's Up, Doc? & Good Vibrations to you all!

Thursday 3rd February switches from the Year of the Tiger climbing down the mountain to the Year of the Rabbit in a burrow. Well ok then.

Also, to celebrate, I am doing a puppet show. Tiny myopia-inducing deets below




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