HOODWINK PROGRAMME OF WORK TO DATE:

Indoor, Outdoor and Site Specific Shows:


THE RIVER IS REVOLTING!
A site specific show created and performed in June 2007.
Specially commissioned by Salisbury Festival, as part of the Living River project, performed at Queen Elizabeth Gardens in Salisbury.

The River Is Revolting! brought out the wildness of the river, with sheep running amok, monster dragonflies being spawned, and giant hogweed advancing.
A programme of participatory work with primary school children led to the making of swarms of dragonflies which made an appearance at the end of each show.


PLEASURE GARDEN
Touring Summer 2006 onwards



Created by Hoodwink, commissioned by Stockton International Riverside Festival and Henley Festival
Pleasure Garden is an intimate performance in a formal garden. Audiences glimpse the innocent moments of Adam's first bite of the apple, through love letters and peacocks to the thunderous age of steam. Groups are escorted into the garden for approximately 15 minutes for bees, blossom, extravagant characters and elegant comedy.


SHEER FOLLY
Touring Autumn 2005

4D An Adventure In Time - February - April 2003. Touring October & November 2003
An interactive promenade performance for the newly refurbished Poole Arts Centre to show off the new building. Through history, art, myth, fact and fiction an exploration of how we measure our lives, from a beating heart to the atomic clock, the moments that change us, the significant dates and the wasted hours.

Artists involved:
Joint Artistic Directors Stephanie Jalland and Adam Gent
Andrew Cromie - Performer
Kate Adams - Performer
Matthew Lawrenson - Performer
Josh Elwell - Performer
Kelsey Michael - Composer
Neil Robson - Maker
Karen McKeown - Costume



GASTRONOMIC

Funded by Southern Arts, Salisbury District Council and Salisbury Arts Centre.
National and European Outdoor Summer Tour 2001/2/3.
An elaborate outdoor theatrical feast featuring flies in the soup, exploding fish, runaway puddings and a table that literally walks off in disgust. Elegance and etiquette rapidly transcend into an epic finale of custard pies, slapstick comedy, song, dance and fantastical visual theatre. Tremendous fun for all ages.

Artists invovlved:
Joint artistic directors Stephanie Jalland and Adam Gent.
Andrew Cromie - performer/deviser.
Andy Plant - designer/maker.
Neil Robson - designer/maker.
Kate Adams - performer/musician.
Karen McKeown - designer/maker.

TABLE ETIQUETTE . "a practical and social guide from Birth to Death"

Funded by Southern Arts and Salisbury District Council.
Site specific promenade performance made for Salisbury Arts Centre. Spring 2001.
A unique sensory journey around the building as it had never been seen before, featuring lessons in table manners, tea dances, bread making, first love in an apple room, banquets, song, visual splendour and food.
Artists working with HOODWINK:
Joint artistic directors Stephanie Jalland and Adam Gent.
Andrew Cromie performer/deviser.
Lehla Eldridge performer/deviser.
Amanda Hadingue performer/musician.
Adam Tedder performer/musician.
Kate Smith performer.
Neil Robson designer/maker.

SHORE LEAVE

Funded by Portsmouth City Arts and Southern Arts for The Year of The Artist.
A two week residency in a beach hut on Southsea sea front. August 2000.
Working on a theme of things lost and found on the beach, three different performances were created and performed:
The Man Who Makes the Pebbles on the Beach. A short intimate performance for two audience members at a time inside the beach hut
Frogmen and Beachcombers. Two sets of characters in costume, who either combed the beach and unearthed buried objects or strolled along the promenade and serenaded holidaymakers with a song written for Southsea.
The Beach Hut. A thirty minute show with audience seated in deckchairs. A comedy with original music and fantastic visuals featuring one man's evening stroll along the beach interrupted by unexpected and often cruel characters exploding out of the beach hut, including a fisherman buried in the pebbles and a tango dancing siren who leads him into the arms of beachcombers on a mission to unearth hundreds of black balloons from under the pebbles.
Artists working with HOODWINK:
Joint artistic directors Stephanie Jalland and Adam Gent.
Andrew Cromie performer/deviser.
Chris Talman performer/musician.
Sandra Osborne performer/musician.
David Hadden performer/musician.

HOTBED

Funded by Southern Arts and Portsmouth City Arts.
National outdoor summer tour 1999/2000.
A magical myth of creation featuring comedy, original music, dangerous bees, sizzling tangos, outrageous weather, hungry snails and growing sunflowers in an epic meeting of shoot and soil.
Artists working with HOODWINK:
Joint artistic directors Stephanie Jalland and Adam Gent.
Andrew Cromie performer/deviser.
Lou Glandfield composer/musician.
Jason Payne electrician/maker.

'PARADISE.

Funded by Southern Arts, Portsmouth City Council and Pegasus Theatre supported by the National Lottery through the Arts Council of England.
National indoor tour, Autumn and Spring 1998/99.
A sinister, comic tale of greed avarice and earth with water features, pyrotechnics and peas as a garden was literally created indoors as we delved into gardening and desire, inspired by a true story of misplaced inheritance and contested wills.
Artists working with HOODWINK:
Joint artistic directors Stephanie Jalland and Adam Gent.
Andrew Cromie performer/deviser.
James Holmes composer/musician.

'PARADISE PHOTOGRAPHERS'
Commissioned by Portsmouth City Arts August 1998.
An explosively interactive outdoor performance project. Two photographers 'in search of paradise' roamed Portsmouth and Southsea sea fronts interviewing the public and recording their ideas on what paradise really is, in exchange for a photograph produced there and then of themselves, 'In Portsmouth, In Paradise'.
Artists working with HOODWINK:
Joint artistic directors Stephanie Jalland and Adam Gent.

PISCIS FORTUNATAS.

National and European outdoor summer tour 1997 and 1998.
An explosive success at home and abroad, a chaotic comedy with surreal illusion, bizarre special effects, stunning costumes, original music and spectacular pyrotechnics as two hapless clairvoyants try to tell the fortune of a member of the audience with the never-before-tested, mind reading hat.
Artists working with HOODWINK:
Joint artistic directors Stephanie Jalland and Adam Gent.
James Holmes composer/musician.

'HOODWINK, the show.'

Funded by Southern Arts.
National indoor tour Autumn 1997, including The British Festival of Visual Theatre.
Who tells the fortune of the fortune teller? A surreal comedy with illusion, fantastical visual effects and original music in a behind the scenes look at the lives of three travelling fortune tellers.
Artists working with HOODWINK:
Joint artistic directors Stephanie Jalland and Adam Gent.
Andrew Cromie performer/deviser.
Bryan Tweddle designer/maker.
James Holmes composer/musician.

HOODWINK in the ROUND TOWER.

Commissioned by Portsmouth City Arts for The Round Tower, Portsmouth, August 1997.
A theatrical, interactive installation and reinterpretation of the seaside fortune teller.
The inside of the Round Tower was transformed into a site of rare astrological significance as visitors' fortunes were told in exchange for a personal object that was petrified before their eyes and left on display.
Artists working with HOODWINK:
Joint artistic directors Stephanie Jalland and Adam Gent.
Bryan Tweddle designer/maker.
James Holmes composer/musician.

Participatory Projects

Hoodwink's Winter Wonderland Disco    Christmas 2005
 

Hoodwink worked with children to make costumes and a short performance to be presented during a Winter Wonderland Disco. Everyone from toddlers to grandparents came and danced, played games, had festive refreshments, and of course visited King Winter to make a wish for the new year.

Telling the Time - October - December 2002
Funded by Southern and South East Arts and Lightouse, Poole's Centre for the Arts
Telling the Time focused on groups and individuals for whom time had taken on a particular significance, creatively exploring their experiences to create an archive of memories, stories, ideas and images connected with time. The participants included expectant mothers, pensioners, and with particular significance to the location of Poole, people whose lives are determined by the movement of the tides such as ferry workers, fishermen, coast guards as well as other community groups across the age range. The residency enabled the community to participate in, shape, influence and own two new major professional pieces of work by bringing their own ideas, language and creativity to the creative process of HOODWINK, that resulted in an original and inventive performance and a fantastical animated speaking clock.
Artists involved
Joint Artistic Directors Stephanie Jalland and Adam Gent
Andy Plant - Sculptor/clockmaker.



September 2001 - July 2002. SHOUT
Funded by Southern Arts and The Friends of The Henley Festival.
Over one school year HOODWINK have run devising theatre workshops in primary, secondary and special needs schools and a remand centre for young offenders, all in the Henley area, working with in total, 800 young people. For the final summer term 40 pupils from one secondary and two primary schools have been selected to create a short outdoor show to be performed at The Henley Festival Family Fun Day on July 15th.
Artists involved with HOODWINK:
Joint artistic directors Stephanie Jalland and Adam Gent.
Andrew Cromie workshop leader/performer.
Josh Elwell workshop leader/performer.
Neil Robson designer/maker.

September 2001 - May 2002. Forged and Gorged.

A celebratory combined arts project based at Westwood St Thomas' School, Bemerton Heath, Salisbury.
Funded by Southern Arts, Salisbury District Council, Barclays New Futures Award.
Over four months HOODWINK and artist blacksmith Melissa Cole worked with over three hundred local people, from toddlers to senior citizens and including teaching and non teaching staff and pupils from Westwood St Thomas' School. Through creative workshops, interviews and chats they explored the triumphs and disasters in the kitchens of Bemerton Heath.
The collection of stories, memories, poems, thoughts, drawings, top tips and recipes were collated into a free book to celebrate cooks and home cooking and the essential but often unnoticed part they play in our lives. This book was distributed to all participants and 2000 people across the community.
The same material was used to inspire a free show created by HOODWINK, that took place on December 14th 2001 on Bemerton Heath. 14 school pupils, teachers and non teaching staff took part as performers as well as many staff and local people participating in other roles, such as stewards, security and general organisational help.
The show began outdoors on a wide open grass area opposite the local chip shop - and featured a 15 foot high cake built on to a van, incorporating sound, light, pyrotechnics and performers.
The maximum capacity audience to this free event, of 160 people, then processed along a road to the school site where the rest of the performance took place inside a marquee after everyone had been given a free portion of chips. The show centred around a cake baking contest between two chefs and involved song, dance, lots of visual spectacle and cakes - and many of the true stories gathered through the participatory work. The audience was made up of project participants, school pupils and staff and local residents.
Artist blacksmith Melissa Cole worked with participants on both practical forging workshops and on the design of a community sculpture. This sculpture, a 4m high three tier cake, along with several produced by pupils at the school will be unveiled at the end of May 2002. This event will also feature performance by 20 pupils from Westwood St Thomas'School - following the model led by HOODWINK in December. HOODWINK will advise at the start and end of their devising process.
Artists involved with HOODWINK:
Joint artistic directors Stephanie Jalland and Adam Gent.
Melissa Cole artist blacksmith.
Andrew Cromie performer/deviser.
Josh Elwell performer/deviser.
Amanda Hadingue performer/deviser/musician.
Jane Quy performer/deviser.
Bryan Tweddle designer/maker.

April -November 2000 APPETITE.
Funded by Southern Arts and Salisbury Health Care NHS Trust.
An eleven week residency at Salisbury District Hospital in consultation with ArtCare, APPETITE was a creative exploration into the role of food in our lives, the unique relationship we each have to it, the cultural, social and individual differences and similarities that define it.
HOODWINK led a series of workshops, ward visits and open surgeries targeting staff from the Department of Dietetics, Medical Photography and patients. Participants creatively explored their thoughts, memories, associations and professional assumptions about food through a variety of media:
The Department of Dietetics created a 'vending machine' that was on display in the main entrance to the hospital for two weeks. Four dieticians and the department secretary were each responsible for a tier which displayed four items of food or related objects accompanied by text. The text was a related memory, fact, nutritional information and description.
The Department of Medical Photography created postcards that were distributed free of charge to every department of the hospital. Four photographers were given a creative brief to select and photograph an image related to their likes or dislikes of food. These photographs were accompanied by a short caption or title and produced into postcards.
Patients and other hospital staff were interviewed and recorded talking about their memories of food, their likes and dislikes, associations etc. All of this material inspired the creation of a short film and a live performance.
The Waiting Room, a short film shot in the hospital waiting room and played there on a video player over a couple of days to patients waiting for appointments to outpatient clinics. A comedy without words, featuring original music and three characters eating unexpected and outrageous food.
The Tea Trolley, a ten minute show with song and dance that toured wards, restaurants and other spaces throughout the hospital and featured three performers and a tea trolley that produced a fountain of tea over a pyramid of tea cups.
Artists involved with HOODWINK:
Joint artistic directors Stephanie Jalland and Adam Gent.
Lehla Eldridge performer/deviser.
Adam Tedder performer/musician.
Daniel Luscombe film editor.
Neil Robson designer/maker.

TANTALUS
Portsmouth Girls High School. May 2000.
A 4 day performance project with 20 girls aged 13- 14 years, culminating in a public performance.
Exploring themes and ideas for APPETITE and TABLE ETIQUETTE.

GERMINATION
Portsmouth Girls High School. May 1999.
A 4 day performance project with 20 girls aged 13-14 years, culminating in a public performance. Exploring ideas and themes for HOTBED.

'A SLICE OF PARADISE'
Funded by Portsmouth City Council. August 1998.
A 3 day theatrical installation project with young people aged 13+ at Portsmouth Arts Centre.
Each participant created their own 'slice of paradise' - included set, costume, sound, food, effects. Performed to the public on the last day.

'STREETS'

Funded by Swindon Borough Council. August 1998
Creation of an outdoor, visual theatre performance with Sixth Sense Youth Theatre, for public performance at Swindon Street Theatre Festival. A 7 day project with twenty young people aged 12-18 years.

FOOLING in the FOYER.
Salisbury Playhouse, February 1998.
Creation of a promenade performance over 3 days with children aged 9-12 years.