Hi SBAB fans. It’s been a while. But we have not been resting on our laurels. Oh no, we are in fact deep within the process that is variously known as SBAB module 3 or The Quiet Radicalism project. We started our thinking about this project by musing upon what it is to be radical. At the time we were all aware that we are alternative to one extent or another; we embody extremes. However, none of us really make a point of telling others about it. This extends into our SBABby practise in that we don’t really make work that is directly about us, which is a very common trope in current theatre practise, which is great- we just don’t do it. This is mainly because we feel we can communicate our ideas better by channelling others or being apart from ourselves. We may even (and I am aware I am speaking as but one member of SBAB) enjoy presenting something that is a bit objective, or at least struggling with the difficulties of trying to say anything whilst remaining subjective.
Are you still with me? Probably not. Back to the Quiet Radicals. So, we might identify ourselves as Quiet Radicals, but who are radicals and what is it to be a noisy one? We have a definition of radicalism that we like; from the root. People who act from the root- from the ground up. Again, this chimes with our work, we let it lead the way (show us all the beauty that is deep inside!). We try not to have an end product in sight, but allow our research to form the finished product. Great! This idea seems to have legs. So, a noisy radical. We immediately thought about people shouting about their ‘cause’. People for whom the act of being radical is as much of an identity as an action. We don’t want to shout, we started thinking about a quiet ripple, that starts to build in ever increasing circles that slowly, slowly form into a wave.
Then we watched Adam Curtis’ The Century of The Self. This complicated things. I’ll let you watch it. All four episodes, it is worth it. But the element that shook us was his explanation of how we have been co-opted into adopting this idea by PR, politicians and marketers, that if we quietly lead by example, others will take note and follow in our footsteps. Essentially shouting about our lives became unfashionable.
So, now we are at a point where we have to be a bit noisier than we thought. We have actually decided that it might be good to make a show, that, (gulp) can change the world.
I said it. So far, we have started looking at the sticky problem of how to view the world on a global scale. Can we do this without leaving the planet? We read this article by George Monbiot about the feature film, Interstellar in which he posits the idea that these kind of films that show us building a new life on a different planet are an example of Climate Change Denial; be careful. We are all interested in the climate and what we can do. So we have turned to good old Bucky Fuller for inspiration. To give a taste of his theories, he suggests that instead of saying ‘upstairs’ and ‘downstairs’ we say ‘in-stairs’ and ‘out-stairs’ as this is more in keeping with beings who live on a sphere. We haven’t got very far through the enormous book that Neil purchased for too much money from a lady in Brazil. But we have found that WHEN YOU DRAW ONE TRIANGLE YOU ARE ACTUALLY DRAWING FOUR TRIANGLES. This has proved important and might be a clue to our next show…
So, how will all of this coalesce to form a show? We don’t know, but slowly, slowly the wave will build.
FSBAB