The Rooftops of Budapest

Vox Motus heads to Budapest this month for a residency to explore a future production: Rooftops. Following our presentation of future Vox Motus projects at the Glasgow IETM Plenary we were invited to SĺN Cultural Centre to be inspired by the beautiful rooftops of the city.

This is the very beginning of a project about transcending city life: stories of hidden and unreachable ideas and landscapes. We would like to develop the project with partners in cities around the world.

We are interested in exploring different cityscapes, finding unique vantage-points, reading short stories and seeking out other artists who find beauty in hidden places.

Original inspiration came from one of our favourite Glasgow vantage points: the 6^th floor of The Lighthouse on Mitchell Lane. Well worth a visit to stand and look across the Victorian rooftops of the city.

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Vox Motus goes International

It’s an exciting few months ahead for Vox Motus. Having just returned from the Stockholm IETM Plenary we are dusting off our polar bear costumes and preparing to remount The Not-So-Fatal Death of Grandpa Fredo for the Societaetstheater in Dresden. Vox Motus is delighted to be closing a festival of work focused on Scottish theatre. If you find yourself in that corner of Germany in late May then come along and see us on the 21^st and 22^nd!

Following Dresden Jamie and Candice are off to the USA to seek inspiration in the illusion shows of Las Vegas and the great city of New York. But not before Jamie has spent two weeks in Quebec observing Robert Lepage’s company Ex Machina develop a future production. Exciting times, indeed.

If Dresden, Las Vegas, New York or Quebec are your regular haunts then please post any tips to getting the most out of our visits on our Facebook page.

Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Phew! What a year it has been for the Vox Motus team. We started with a wedding, visited Australia and Germany (where we got delayed by an ash cloud) seconded Jamie to work as Illusion Designer on Peter Pan by the National Theatre of Scotland and of course created the "magnificently inventive"
The Not-So-Fatal-Death of Grandpa Fredo
which opened at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe before touring extensively throughout Scotland and England.
Over the course of the year we have worked with some fantastic people, venues and organisations both familiar and new.

Next year sees us being a just as busy if not even more so. We will be doing development work on our new project Seance in January before Jamie and Candice collaborate with choreographer Natasha Gilmore on her new piece
A Conversation with Carmel.
The rest of the year brings more exciting projects and opportunities about which we promise to keep you posted. Until then thank you for your support over the past year and we wish you a Very Merry Christmas indeed!

New Project with Natasha Gilmore/ Barrowland Ballet

Vox Motus fans may remember Natasha Gilmore’s beautiful choreography for our illusion-fuelled 2009 piece Bright Black. Jamie and Candice are thrilled to be collaborating with Natasha again on her next production A Conversation with Carmel.

Scheduled for May 2011 the production fuses dance, theatre and the work of award-winning film artist Rachel Davies. We are currently at the R&D stage and have spent several days drinking tea and divulging family secrets… both very pertinent to a show exploring inter-generational relationships at a chaotic family party.

In fact it would be great to know what defines a family party for you…

And (slightly left-of-field) if you ever visualise a ‘heaven’, what do you see?...

http://www.barrowlandballet.co.uk/

Vox Motus does Victorian Séance!

After two and a half months on the road The Not-So-Fatal Death of Grandpa Fredo packs up its shed and takes a rest. But as there’s no rest for the wicked Jamie and Candice are straight into developing the next VM show.

We’re exploring Victorian séance parlours – especially the rise and fall of the (in)famous Davenport Brothers who travelled the world performing magical feats by contacting ‘the spirit world’. Jamie’s in his element researching spectacular Victorian illusions. He also gets to gloat a lot as Candice tries to figure out how they’re done.

One of our favourite finds so far has been Derren Brown: Séance. Put aside an hour, dim the lights and prepare for the hairs on the back of your neck to stand upright. That said, we watched it in broad daylight and it still had the desired effect!

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/derren-brown-the-specials/episode-guide/series-40/episode-1

We’re aiming to stage a Work-in-Progress in January/February 2011 so watch this space…

Glasgow Fabulous

When touring a show it is always nice to return to home turf and the Grandpa Fredo bandwagon has not one but two Glasgow venues on the horizon.

Firstly this evening if you can brave the pope traffic, we will be appearing at Eastwood Park Theatre in Giffnock (www.eastwoodparktheatre.co.uk) where we will also be musing on the nature of faith in today's society but with polar bear costumes instead of papal robes and with altogether more humour, creativity and (in my humble opinion) better songs. After the performance tonight you also get the the chance to participate in a post-show discussion with writers, directors and designers Candice Edmunds and Jamie Harrison.

Next week from Tuesday 21st until Saturday 25th September we will be returning to our wee home from home the Tron Theatre (www.tron.co.uk.) There is always an amazing atmosphere at the Tron and as we are there for 5 nights we really want to get as many friendly Glasgow faces along as possible. Just in case you need further enticement here is what some other people have said:

"multi-talented cast" **** The Scotsman

"magnificently inventive" **** The Herald

"slickly acted and wickedly funny" *** The Guardian.

"Ingenious" **** The List.

"Again and again it astonishes and entertains with its technical ability... a beautifully unnusual piece of comic theatre." The Sunday Herald

Looking forward to seeing you soon...

image credit: Eamonn McGoldrick

Edinburgh antics

Vox Motus have been mostly focussing our attention on all things edinburgh of late. Firstly we can now proudly and officially announce that our festival venue is Traverse One which we are incredibly excited about. Full details of of the Traverse's festival programme can be downloaded here: http://www.traverse.co.uk/downloads/Traverse%20Festival%20Brochure%20final.pdf

It looks like a very strong and varied programme with everything from existential clowning to ballet.

On Sunday the Bright Black posse headed back through to Edinburgh to attend the CATS awards as we were nominated for Best Technical Presentation. Although we were pipped at the post by Perth's Jane Eyre and it's collapsing house we had much theatre celebratory fun. A full list of nominees and winners can be found here: http://www.criticsawards.theatrescotland.com/

Having very much enjoyed the tea and cakes at the Traverse on Thursday and the canapes and Kir Royales at the CATS on Sunday Vox Motus is now open to any other offers of events that involve free food and drink...