second day of the second development, second post on a first class blog...

so far, our ideas for this show are proving remarkably solid; so far. i guess its only day two, so no-one's pulled out the knives yet.

what they have pulled out thus far has been great; straddling, ventriloquising, world class craptastic keyboards, contemporary dance cock punching (so you think you can what?), and exceptional catering care of an interstate guest artiste.

so, all in all, things are looking good. a 90 minute grilling this afternoon of the structure of the show resulted in clarification; articulation; refining....but no real changes, yet. the tossing around of this story that nic and i have been doing for a while now have seemingly shaped it okay.

looking forward now to going back in and screwing with it; how to communicate tales of antiquity through the language of vaudeville's chico chico from puerto rico.

love,
kieran

LDNTDay2

Kieran and I have renamed our durational performance band 'Fathers_of_Dead_Europe' (formerly Po/Mo-Art/Pop). We haven't done any performances yet, but our ideas are solid (like all great contemporary artists, I suppose). This is due to the further work undertake today. Spent afternoon working on the structure of the end of the show. Finished the day with establishing all the song ideas for the entire show, as well as nutting out the end of the work. The Fathers of Dead Europe is a concept we have added to the original myth on which Last Days is based. As such, I think we will end up spending a while figuring them out. 

Essentially, they are gods. Roman or Greek gods, not like these infallible ones running around today. The end up making things worse than before when they stick their noses in. The work may have set out to evoke the tradition of vaudeville, but also seems to edge closer to the ancient plays. All the action takes place in a day; the gods intervene and fuck it all up; mankind learns of the tragedy of self-awareness. 

More to come. 

x nic

LDNTDay1

Beginnings is beginnings. 

What is it? What will it be at the end of the two weeks? How'd it start? Where is it now?

All the questions we ask ourselves on day one. 

Went through the myth; the starting point. 

Watched some shitty vaudeville. Got some great ideas.  Song and dance and animal routines. 

Justified some narrative. Everything takes place in one day now, and starts with the Dead Fathers of Europe requesting Romulus and Remus to return to bombed-to-fuck Europe to reboot it. Trouble is, today they decide to form their own little civilisation. TENSION. 

The next two weeks will be dense. 

x nic

Last Days's First Days...s

Back on the train. 

Tomorrow we kick off Last Days of the New Theatricals. Our latest work that is brand new. So brand new we haven't made it yet. Thus, the development. 

LDNT is the story of Romulus and Remus, the mythic founders of Rome. Instead of the two boys being suckled by a wolf, then being adopted by a shepherd, then kicking Latin arse and founding Empire of Cunts 1.0, we're imagining a world where the she-wolf (Lupa) absconds with the twins at the bequest of the Dead Fathers of Europe to an outpost of the colonial realm (dusty rural Australia), where she raises them as the demigods they are in her clapped out corrugated iron brothel. Here every hour on the hour they perform vaudeville sketches for no-one but themselves. 

It's a musical! Sort of. We're continuing the examination of theatrical conceits in the contemporary performance landscape, I suppose. Last time was the 'heroes journey'- that is mainstream narrative - amongst the plague houses of 17th century London. This time, we're tackling vaudeville and variety in the guise of Rome's foundations set in rural Qld circa 1945. 

So Kieran and I will be joined by Penny Everingham as Lupa, Neridah Waters as Romulus and Kevin Spink as Remus. Dave Heinrich of the Border Project and Lions at Your Door will be doing the music. 

Enough spiel. Come back for daily blogging over the next fortnight to find out how it's going. It'll be your last chance to hear from us before we subject everyone to our travel blog in July. 

x nic

i can't believe i used a fucking exclamation mark.