To mark Third Angel’s 21st year, we commissioned new performance films from some of the brilliant artists we have worked with as mentors and collaborators over the last few years. Following screenings at the Where From Here symposium at Leeds Beckett University and The Showroom cinema in Sheffield, we releasing the films online.
New short films by Action Hero, Hannah Butterfield, Massive Owl, RashDash & Third Angel
The Small Celebrations
Massive Owl
Massive Owl are a collaborative performance company, based in Bristol, who make cinematic work that sits between theatre and live art. They tell stories and in the process challenge how a story can look, sound and feel. They are associate artists of Live Collision and members of artist collective Interval. They are Jenny Duffy, Sam Powell and Danny Prosser.
THE DOLPHIN HOTEL
*Wear headphones for best experience*
We wanted to make a music video of a book. This film is an attempt to do that.
The Dolphin Hotel is Massive Owl’s first experiment in film. Inspired by the Haruki Murakami novel Dance Dance Dance, this film forms part of a larger performance project that will become the second instalment of Massive Owl’s Distortion Trilogy. The trilogy is a series of performances that seek to challenge and play with the form of theatrical adaptation.
RashDash
Filmed & Edited by Alice Russell
Written & Performed by RashDash & Becky Wilkie
RashDash is performers and makers Helen Goalen and Abbi Greenland. We explore feminist, radical, felt ideas through movement, music and text. Past productions include: Two Man Show (Fringe First 2016, Stage Award for Acting Excellence, Three Weeks Editors award, Shortlisted for a Total Theatre award and Offie for Best Female Performances), We Want You To Watch, Oh, I Can’t Be Bothered, The Ugly Sisters (nominated for a Total Theatre Award 2012), Scary Gorgeous (Fringe First 2011), Another Someone (Fringe First 2010). RashDash have made two outdoor shows SET FIRE TO EVERYTHING!!! and The Frenzy.
THERE WERE GODDESSES
In the woods you can listen to the sound of your own breath
In the woods you can climb and hang from trees
In the woods you don’t have to explain who you are
Three women perform in a show. A show that plays every night for weeks and weeks, over and over and over again. One night they escape and retreat into the trees, the mud, the leaves…
**
4m31sec. Digital video. 2016.
Hannah Butterfield
Created by Hannah Butterfield
Filmed & Edited by Ed Sunman
Performed by Marnie Strachan & Hannah Butterfield
Choreography by Marnie Strachan
Music by Shane Durrant
Hannah Butterfield is a Theatre Maker and Performer based in Bradford. Her solo work is playful and discursive, and uses a combination of dance, live music and a strange range of storytelling strategies to explore human connection and communication. Hannah is also one third of Stand and Be Counted Theatre Company. SBC Theatre have recently been awarded the first Theatre Company of Sanctuary award for their work with, for and about refugees and asylum seekers living in the UK. Hannah is director of a children’s choir in Bradford, and teaches part-time at Leeds Beckett University in Performance and Dance.
OENOMEL
Oenomel (ˈēnəˌmel): Both Sweetness and Strength
Marnie is 7 years old. She has her whole life ahead of her. She will make decisions. She will teach people things. She will never be younger than she is today.
Hannah is 27 years old. She has her whole life ahead of her. She will make decisions. She will teach people things. She will never be younger than she is today. “Let’s write a song for us… and sing it ‘til we’re old and grey.”
This specially commissioned short film explores notions of youth, childhood and femininity. In a world that is changing faster than we have time to even think about, we pause
- if only for a moment -
to think about the future,
to tread the line between:
girl /woman
**
9m30sec. Digital video. 2016.
Action Hero
Gemma Paintin and James Stenhouse live in Bristol, UK, and create interdisciplinary performance together under the name Action Hero. For the past decade, they have worked almost exclusively with each other, and have toured together to more than twenty countries across 5 continents to critical and popular acclaim.
Their ongoing interests lie in the iconography of popular culture and its use; both as a weapon and as a shared cultural memory, and although their work manifests many different forms, the live experience is at the heart of everything they do.
Gemma & James have been shortlisted for several awards and won an Austin (Texas) Critic’s Table Award in 2013, and in 2016 were shortlisted for the Anti International Prize for Live Art for their contribution to the field.
THE THIRD ANGEL ANNEXE
To celebrate Third Angel’s 21st anniversary, Action Hero have renamed part of their house after the company who have given them so much support over the past decade. Action Hero’s office is now known as The Third Angel Annexe and in October 2016 there was an opening ceremony to mark the occasion.
**
1m45sec. Digital video. 2016.
Third Angel
Camera:
Chris Lowe
Jake Richardson
Matt Tingle
Sound:
Darryl Peat
Editing:
Christopher Hall
Written and Performed by
Rachael Walton
Alexander Kelly
General Manager
Hilary Foster
Admin and Production Trainee
Elizabeth Johnson
POPCORN
We’ve always worked with rules when making shows, and we’ve always enjoyed the creativity that those restrictions give us – as well as enjoying the moment when you realise that the rules need to be broken. Popcorn is a performance for both camera and live audience reflecting on rules, time, making stuff, shared language, shared history and friendship. Performed and filmed on location at The Holt cafe and art-space, Sheffield.
**
9min. Digital video. 2016.
Touring Archive