Output details

Half-a-penny and The other side of the coin

(scriptwriter and dramaturg)

This work continues my investigation into adaptations through the use of collage and found text, within a collaborative process of devising. Created in collaboration with SignDance Collective International and Dead Days Beyond Help, Half-a-penny and The Other Side of the Coin deal with issues of power and identity in a fractured world. The spoken words of the first piece (which has a distinct Anglo-Germanic flavour) are a collage of political speeches, from Hitler to Helen Keller; in the second (Iberian) piece, the words come from Lorca's Ferias series of poems. The two sister-plays also incorporate lyrics by Alex Ward. The collage/assemblage method of playwriting is related to my work in A tragedia de Ismene, princesa de Tebas, whilst also approximating it with another aspect of my research, namely Disability in performance.

The research into Disability in performance led to an examination of the creative processes and choreographic practices of SignDance Collective International, and an exploration of the possibilities of forging a dramaturgy in signdance, which includes processes of translation and adaptation concomitantly with creation (see chapter submitted on SDCI's New Gold). The company's use of Sign Language as a basis for choreography makes adaptation an intrinsic part of the act of creation, which needs to be captured dramaturgically.

As dramaturg and collaborator my role has been to give shape and focus to the co-devised material, structuring the shows and developing the form of signdance through a focus on intertextuality. My research also generated written records of the text.

Half-a-penny has been performed in the UK, Turkey, Austria, Slovenia and Estonia; The Other Side of the Coin has been performed in the UK, Turkey, the US and Austria. The videos enclosed are from the performances at Kulturwerkstatt, Graz.