Dancing On The Ceiling !!!

 I have been dancing on the ceiling and also walking around a wee bit off the ground all last week.  I have had the official feedback and…the writing is quality and excellent ! So now the digital presentation and application can move forward a pace.  I am so excited now to see how this choreopoem is received on Oct 2nd at Embrace Arts Leicester, when it has its first public reading/sharing hopefully using a professional actor to read the monologue. Some of the other brilliant completed commissions for the Affective Digital Histories project are available to read here http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/english/creativewriting/centre/creative-writing-commissions
I have enjoyed the whole process in term of researching and writing so this stage is absolutely critical . 

To date, I have had at least one meeting and exchanged a couple of emails with the Digital Designer for Affective Histories exchanging ideas, agreeing as to how best to present parts of the narrative digitally e.g. for an app and website. I am looking forward to see how this process unfolds.  

  

Choreopoem Narrative Text Complete - Next Steps !

What a great feeling! To have completed the narrative of the choreopoem. As always it has been, another fascinating journey, in terms of the research and creating a fictional story, that will I hope will be compelling and animate the St Georges/Cultural Quarter area. Using a range of sources and archive material, for the narrative, as well as referring to the areas geography - its streets, buildings and of course people over time. I have drawn on my own and others experiences and recollections of the area. Highlighting the bar club culture and other buildings that housed e.g the organization Spectrum - a building used primarily by the Leicester African Caribbean community, that was the birth place of Dance music pioneers DJ SS and yours truly ( my first ever House Music performance) , alongside  other memorable community events. A notable selection include  Ajani Women & Girls Centre 10 years Celebration Show, Free Nelson Mandela Benefits and Jazzethics Shows featuring the Jazz Warriors, Jean Toussaint (saxophonist) , Alan Weeks and Phillip Bent (flutist).

The next stage is to enter into discussions, with project colleagues, as to how to digitally present selected parts of the choreopoem. In addition to plans for a public reading/sharing,in the Autumn, as part of the overall continuing development of the piece. As in time, there will be music to be composed and movement devised as part of the work. This choreopoem raises contentious and controversial issues so I am keen to know how an audience responds.

In the Zone & Remembering Sue Townsend And Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Despite a busy month of work activities and some untoward  personal events I will not go into here…I have got 'into the zone' that is the immersion, I experience when writing, After all the research the notes ,  its then time to just write and go with the flow - see where it all goes.  I rather like the way you can be surprised, when your loose plan of things, takes an interesting turn or some deep insight suddenly becomes apparent about a character or an situation.  It  is therefore important to be open and be flexible, to be ready to change things as the situation demands. This can be  fun, also when a characters voice comes thorough loud and clear, there is s feeling of exhilaration as you try to capture that voice.  Of course the narrative is the  journey and the plot the route so to speak . So being free to vary both - the plot and journey is key.  i often ask questions as to how things may work out and then ask myself why ?

The challenge of this piece of writing, stems very much from its subject matter and premise.
i feel it is important to stretch myself in characterisation, situations and the narrative  - to leave my comfort zone. However there some similarities with my previous piece, insofar as I remain committed to tackling marginalized voices and issues. The protagonist, first surfaced in my previous choreopoem and their story  it seemed to me needed to be told. So this the second narrative, in what I plan will be a trilogy i.e. Solitaire's  narrative in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Diva, being the first in the series. 

 Gabriela Garcia Marquez:  the father of magic realism and Sue Townsend: a stunning writer from my home city.  Both of them sadly passed way this month. Two very different writers, but both held in very high esteem by me. Their  great writing  and fascinating lives, will continue to be  source of  great inspiration to me to continue on my own journey as  writer. 

So Some Research Done…Just Write!

As part of my work on writing a new a new choreopoem. I have been immersed in WW1, social history around Leicester, in particular the Cultural Quarter. The factory buildings, the St Georges Church, other buildings that have been demolished now, but were part of my growing up in Leicester. They were  important and of great significance to me and my peers. I have discovered so many fascinating things. I was totally unaware of the glorious proud history/herstory of Leicester in terms of its' politically progressive and radical past.  The development of the Secular Society and its impressive building, the Co-operative Society and Trades Unions and other Socialist Movements. Lastly but not least, the impact of  First Wave Feminism on Leicester  - the Suffragette Movement and women e.g Like Alice Hawkins, but there were many other notable women too. Reviewing a range of archive material from Reports, to Oral history, to looking at photographs of the relevant historical periods, for the narrative I plan to write.  Ned Newitt's historical  book on the Working Poor and Slums of Leicester has been invaluable also. A recent conversation with him yielded some very interesting information and I plan a follow up meeting with him soon.

Since my last post I have attended at Leicester University a marvelous Inscribe Work shop, with Bernadine Evaristo on fiction writing (always good to meet an author whose book  Mr Loverman you have enjoyed)  In some ways this book has been a great inspiration for my current choreopoem and Bernadine was a great tutor-a joy to meet. Such topics as race, gender, sexuality and identity are key for me right now. Grappling with all of those is no easy matter and critically, how do all these issues inform the narrative for the choreopoem I am writing.

Writers Diriye Osman &Thomas Glave & First Meeting Writing Commission

It has been such a fascinating month - an LGBT month ! With my first visit to Word Factory - a short fiction event, to see amongst other writers, the fabulous Diriye Osman, a Somalian based in London, read from his book of Short Stories 'Fairytales for Lost Children'. In his book he shows also his considerable visual arts talent, as he supplies the enchanting illustrations.  It is hoped to bring Dirirye Osman, back to Leicester later in the year to share more of his work - watch this space... .  I  subsequently bought his book, which is both moving, poignant and erotic at times.  I went  also to hear Thomas Glave,  a Jamaican Professor of Creative Writing (USA) Writer & LGBT Activist, speak about his work in progress - a  powerful memoir .  It stirred up strong feelings within me, as to Jamaican women, their legacy and impact, upon Thomas Glave and myself as writers.  Additionally the importance  and power of memory, in particular reflecting on personal items e.g  a Mothers passport,  in the development of the writing. In the Q & A  session after, there was discussion about  different identities and moral issues, writing about intimate matters, in relation to living persons.  I am currently reading a collection of short stories by Thomas Glave titled 'Whose Song'.  

Tomorrow evening, it is  a further information exchange and I will meet the other successful writers for the Affective Digital Histories: Creative Writing Commissions Project. Our deadline  to complete our written pieces is set of May 30th 2014. I am very excited and have already had some contact with one of the other writers.  We also  meet the members of our project team, in particular the Centre for New Writing &  Research Staff  based at the Leicester University - some of whom we  have met previously.  Only now the work will begin in earnest, as  to how best to access the research information we all need etc. The research part of a writing project is always enjoyable for me .  As I embark on a huge learning curve about my given subject matter. To then be able to create characters, that are as authentic as I can make them . 

Its Official A New Commission for New Choreopoem !! Love the Life You Live…Live the Life You Love by Carol Leeming -

I am absolutely delighted to confirm I have been commissioned to write a new choreopoem for an exciting writing project from the Centre for New Writing Leicester University  - Affective Digital Histories  see further details here:

http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/english/creativewriting/centre/creative-writing-commission

I particularly look forward to the research aspect as well as the writing, for this new choreopeom project e.g. to be working with  academic  colleagues, local history of Leicester and accessing local archive materials.

This choreopoem will be very different journey in writing it, to the previous one, i.e.The Loneliness of the Long Distance Diva. As the starting point and title for this choreopoem is a parrellism, from a Jamaican proverb, one that was also used by a personal cultural hero of mine : Bob Marley. Different in themes and the fact it has more than one Leicester based character etc provides a sharp contrast to the previous work. However one of the characters, does have a tenuous link with the previous choreopoem character Solitaire. For those who know the previous story of this character, they will have to see the  completed work to find out in what way... This time round though, the narrative is very focused around, very specific buildings/places and historical periods in Leicester. I hope it will be as successful, as compelling and of keen interest. As indeed Solitaire's story was in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Diva as performed at Curve Theatre 2012 as part of the Cultural Olympiad.

Blast Off !!

This I hope is a starting point... to document my second choreopoem project, that will be so different from my previous successful one. I am looking forward to it all filled with anticipation and excitement…think positive !