Works on Paper (Waygood @ Northern Stage)

Works on Paper by Helen Baker
Saturday 15 August - Saturday 19 September
Reception: Thursday 17 September 7-9pm

Helen Baker’s latest works continue to be influenced by a residency she took in 2007 as Abbey Fellow at the British School of Rome. These works are part of a series investigating colour.

Her architectural block paintings are reminiscent of both Guston and Klee. Some appear to teeter on the edge of perspective, as if they are about to fall at any minute. Some offer the possibility of patched works, in both instances they are part of an ongoing interest in our relationship to the handmade and the industrial.

Helen Baker (also known as Helen Baker-Alder) was awarded the Rootstein Hopkins Sabbatical Award for Painting in 2006.

In 2007 she was awarded a British Academy Abbey Fellowship with a three month Painting Residency at the British School at Rome. Helen works as Principal Lecturer in Fine Art with special responsibility for painting at the University of Northumbria, and leads the part-time MA Fine Art & Education programme in collaboration with the Baltic Education Team.

Helen became the first Director of Gallery North at the School of Arts and Social Sciences at Northumbria University which opened earlier this year.

A recent limited publication of recent works and writing by Helen Baker has been published by the Corn Exchange Gallery, Edinburgh and is available from www.cornexchangegallery.com

For more information contact Waygood Art Boutique on art@waygood.org

Northern Stage in South Africa!

For the next couple of weeks, members of the Northern Stage team are in South Africa taking part in an exciting Summer School project. Like last year's South Africa trip, we're keeping up with goings on through a series of blog posts. Erica Whyman, Northern Stage's Chief Executive reported back today:

"I arrived in South Africa on Saturday afternoon after a long flight but quite easy by comparison. I had a coffee and a great chat with Zamuxolo (a dancer, choreographer, healer and generally rather extraordinary person) about the show he's making just now. Reminded of how hard going it is here. This last week has been the first time in four years he has had per diems for his actors (no wages even now) to spend any dedicated rehearsal time on the piece.

Then to dinner at Peter Stark's - who set up and now chairs the Swallows Foundation who are hosting us and with whom we have worked on this partnership for a few years now. Amazing to find firm friends on the other side of the world, but as Monde and Nomsa walk in and then Toto and Siya it is as if we work with each other all the time and they have just stepped out of the room. A great chat about clans, kinship, the DVD market, belief sytems and how to build an audience!

Sunday I could have a rest - try to do some work on Peter Pan and Northern Stages (not so easy sitting here!) and then lunch with Monde and Nomsa and their daughter Sivu to hear about their rather fantastic year, lots of touring and hard work but also Monde was asked to perform in front of Nelson Mandela and all the surviving accused from the famous Rivonia trial. Monde has a theatrical version of the events of the trial which he performed for them all in Jo'burg, met Mandela, and spent an hour chatting to the other survivors. Unforgettable. We talked about the forthcoming workshop and it weas very useful to get his sense of what was needed. He was especially keen to get theatre makers working better together. I then watched some of Zam's rehearsals before going to the airport to meet a very tired Mark (Calvert, Creative Participation Co-ordinator) and Andy (Stephenson, Stage Manager), and then together with Naomi we went to see the show "Aunt Rose" .

Zam has made a huge epic piece, entertaining, full of exuberant dance and song, moving and troubling. It tells the story of a generous woman whose spirit has been broken from years of abuse and living on the streets. It is really impressive although quite a challenging for the audience of over 150 family and friends who have unexpectedly turned up. The audience want to find everything funny so the cast have to work hard at times to be taken seriously, but they do and it works and by the last very affecting scene where Rose's ancestors come to cleanse her spirit everyone is gripped.

Afterwards we eat and dance and sing with the cast, a traditional South African welcome!

On Monday we saw 12 performances in four different locations in the townships. So fantastic to be here with colleagues who will take in all the complexities of this place and meet the challenge ahead of us with sensitivity and care. We saw powerful poetry, verbatim theatre, gentle comedy, mythic drama, new African songs, brilliantly choreographed traditional dance, an improvised monologue, mindblowingly skilled hip hop, a little Shakespeare and the most beautiful children's dance group who rehearse and perform in a little wooden room built onto the end of their leader, Florence's house. She didn't have a space to work in. So she built one. All the performances, without exception, were heartfelt, skilful and powerful and offered to us with such generosity. We are really very lucky to be working with such talented and dedicated people, who continue to make work and to practise and train in spite of having no resources. We were all shocked by the condition of their rehearsal spaces, about which they are uncomplaining. One young actress, Nomakula, improvised a very upsetting and brilliantly detailed performance of a young woman who had been raped. When we asked her about it she said she had had no notice and so had thought of it that morning from what she sees all around her. At the end of the afternoon, Florence's children took our hands as we got off the bus and led us inside. It felt as though all day that was what our hosts had been doing. It was a truly extraordinary day."

Northern Stages Microsite Development

Northern Stage are seeking an experienced web design company to create a microsite for a new project we are undertaking, entitled Northern Stages. The project forms part of the theatre's 40th birthday celebrations and will launch online this year. The activity will run throughout 2010, and seeks to create a global conversation about the idea of Northernness.

If you are interested in seeing the tender document and tendering for the development, please email Casey Spence on cspence@northernstage.co.uk. Submission details for the tender are included in the document.

Northern Stage operates an equal opportunities policy and cannot provide companies with further information than is provided in this document. If you have any general queries on the tender document or submission guidelines, please send them to Casey Spence, Communications Officer (Web and E-marketing) on the above email address.

Tenders must be received by 28th August. Shortlisted companies will be contacted before the 14th of September. All non-shortlisted companies will be informed by email after this time.