‘Inappropriate’ Anger: From Image and Writing to Performance
Many participants in the ‘Inappropriate’ Anger project (read about the project here) choose to co-direct and participate in our annual creative projects, which often take place in person in Canterbury, Kent.
In October 2023, our IA cohort met in person in the School of Arts studios at the University of Kent, for a weekend of creating performance together.
‘The Many in My Mind’ by Ruth H.
Working in pairs, each artist created an image and gifted it to their partner; then each artist wrote a text inspired by their partner’s image. From these materials of image and text, the pairs then began to create performances. The pieces they produced included:
-A performance installation on Perfectionism and ‘Technical Terror’
-The slapstick silent movie police drama ‘State of Mind’
-The gentle movement piece exploring ‘Life’ through the shape of hands
-The romance turned bicycle suffragette liberation story ‘Within’
-A spoken word reminiscence on ice-cream flavours, fathers, childhood and motherhood.
-The piece of puppet-poetry ‘The Many in my Mind’
State of Mind (Lady K)
Technical Terror (Minkie &Lady K)
The Many in My Mind (Ruth & Kay)
In these workshops we built on our collaborations with professional artists in 2022, but this year, in 2023, the IA artists both created and performed their pieces themselves. The six performances that were created were moving, funny, profound and beautiful; each with its own unique style and language.
Deep thanks to Minkie, Ruth, Lady K, Kay, Bryony and Eliza for participating and creating such important work.
Ice-cream, 1976
Sun-kissed, sand-covered kids.
My brother, my friends, my mum and dad so young
Younger than me now and it was so
So so hot.
.
Choc-ices!
My dad the hero. Hundreds of choc-ices pack the freezer
Kids squirm and swarm into the kitchen, screaming with delight
Drawn by the pied piper.
.
Raspberry ripple.
A pyramid of sand fills the wheelbarrow.
My dad is epic, wheeling me home, all muscle and a 1070s pornstar tash,
Me riding high like an Egyptian queen.
.
99s from the van
Mum handing out the sparklers, but only if we have our gloves on.
The catherine wheel is spinning
Will the nail hold? And who the fuck is Catherine?
.
Viennetta
Terribly continental don’t you know
Mum like a movie star
Ladies drinking Blue Nun, and finding the delights
Of Tupperware.
.
Mint choc-chip
My favourite.
Santa’s little helpers, aka my mum and dad
‘Shh! Steven, you’re putting her’s in his room!’
Presents swapped, into bed exhausted. Ben and I emerge,
—at a decent interval of course—
From our pretend statue sleep, and leap
Into present heaven.
.
Peach
A flavour never seen again.
.
Chocolate
My whole life was ice cream
All ice-creams before
The other.
The others.
He shoved my face into my ice-cream
Laughing
And then dropped it on the floor
Stamping and crushing it and me into the ground.
.
Coconut
I’m 52 now and apparently an adult
I have shoved down all the wonderful ice cream memories of 1976.
And I only remembered the other,
The others.
For so long, all that joy forgotten.
No more.
.
I raise up my grown-up cone
Coconut ice-cream, chocolate shards and a caramel sauce,
And I salute you, 1976,
And my year of ice cream.
(Created by Eliza and Bryony, October 2023)
