editorial

Welcome to the first edition of our third year.

This year we hope to see continue to grow and expand in both readership and content. We are establishing a working group to help facilitate the production of the magazine. When some new operating procedures are in place there will be new opportunities for people to help keep alive. We'll keep you posted.

Two things have been on my mind lately. Both are to do with the nature of performance and it's effect on people. The first is a personal or internal question.
Does engaging in performance open you up to insecurity?
A lot of people I speak to in the performing arts have, or have had, doubts and despair about their place in both the performing world and the world at large. Does opening yourself to others through artistic pursuit mean that you're more likely to succumb to feelings of insecurity? And in particular does practising improvisation, which often requires openess and vulnerability, leave one wide open to insecurity?

The second is to do with performance as communication. Watching some street performers recently I was struck by how effectively they communicated through their immediacy. And, aside from the hat at the end, how un-mediated the whole deal is. I feel that we have become so immersed in a culture that requires it's arts practice to be mediated... by theatres, by ticketing, by technology, by political structures... that we miss the real beauty of art. That it is a process that anyone can be involved in and that it is an expression of all facets of life. I want to see more art being practiced without mediation. To allow people in without trying to gain anything... not acclaim nor money nor power... purely for the purpose of communication. Avoid the pragmatics of performance and go out at create for the sake of it.

So they're my little thoughts. What are yours?
Please keep writing and sending in bits and pieces.
We'd love to get more images, so if you've got any, send ëem in.