During Thatchers 80's (1984 to be exact), six driven students formed the experimental theatre company Forced Entertainment. 28-years later, those same six performers are united and are as relevant and important as ever. Now, a highly established and respected company, led by Director Tim Etchells, they are about to present the hugely succesful The Coming Storm at the BAC - for the second time this year (having premiered at the BAC as part of LIFT 2012).

Director, Tim Etchells describes their latest work as 'the space of pleasurable uncertainty'. In it they tangle and cross-cut multiple stories to make a compelling and unstable performance. From love and death to sex and laundry, from shipwrecks to falling snow, personal anecdotes rub shoulders with imaginary movies, and half-remembered novels bump into distorted fairytales. In this Run Riot #CollectiveInterview we ask him more about the production, along with his other works as an artist and writer, giving a nod to his political views. Art 'comes from a desire to speak into, seize, articulate and change the world', says Tim. What does he want the audience to walk away with having seen the show? 'A sense that the world can be changed'.

For this #CollectiveInterview we invited five key people from the creative industries to pitch in with a short question. Each of them are followers of @ForcedEnts. Those five are: @artichoketrust (Producers), @bencmelch (General Manager), @nefertiti35 (Producer), @ammonite (Director), and @probeproject (Director, Choreographer, Performer). They're identified properly below. Forced Entertainment present The Coming Storm at the BAC, November 20 - December 01, 2012.
 


Question from @run_riot: 'The Coming Storm – for those of us wanting to come and see the show, can you tease out the story about why you chose this title?'
Tim Etchells: The title came early and in rehearsals the piece shifted around behind it! The thing that stayed solid was our interest in anticipation – the sense of events that are about to happen, meanings that are about to become clear, stories that are about to get seriously tangled. We’re always interested in that space I think – the space of anticipation and imagination - the story before it’s completely confirmed, the space of pleasurable uncertainty. So the title was always referring to this sense of possibility and the performance really tries to enter that space – a lot of it is about the meeting, the collision, the bringing together of things that don’t belong together – stories that don’t fit each other, or stories that don’t finish – but somehow in the not-fitting there’s an energy, a sense of possibility.
 
Question from @run_riot: 'In the world of The Coming Storm, is there a rule for storytelling that upstages the rest?'
TE: I suppose the fact that there’s one microphone and six performers is pretty influential – a lot of the piece is a battle about who gets to speak! It’s a simple structure, almost like the rules of a game. But the exchange of stories, the battle of interruption and attention-seeking, the ebb and flow of yes-and and no-but is pretty similar to the kind of dynamics when groups of friends are talking – people get their moment, take centre stage, others whisper across in the background. I think this gives the piece its live, organic, very social feeling.

Question from @run_riot: 'How has using live music (a first for Forced Entertainment) affected the work?'
TE: We’ve often worked with recorded music but this is the first time we’ve worked with music being made live on stage. It changes so much! Instead of an alien object ‘from outside or elsewhere’ the music is part of what we’re doing - and you can see performers decision to play, or how to play. So the music joins the other elements of the piece – becoming another means with which people can support each other, or argue with each other. I like the way the use of the instruments is part of the visual element of the piece too – that was a big discovery in rehearsals. The fact that you can wheel the piano about - or climb on it - or take it apart. It’s not a sacred object – it’s a thing. And then again – it’s thing that produces amazing sounds.

Question from @bencmelch: 'What stabilises your devising process most amongst the chaos? Director? Tools? Culture?'
TE: All of these play a part I think.

The key tool is the video camera. Everything improvised is recorded - and can be studied later, transcribed, dissected. It means that what (in memory) appears chaotic, ‘atmospheric’, unstable is readable as particular moves, decisions and interactions on a timeline. It helps us make sense, make structure. Since we started working with the camera maybe 11/12 years ago everything changed.

Culture wise, we have a kind of ebb and flow - happy to drift towards disorganisation, pulling the work apart, miring ourselves in debate. But there’s always - thankfully - the kickback from this. The U-turn towards clarity and a different energy – a desire for building things, connecting things. Socially, we play this pretty close to the wire, so, things get bad before they get better. I think that having worked together for so long we have a feel for this. It takes a lot to really panic us!

My role [as Director] in the process remains very much connected to the generation and organisation of the material – text and everything else. During improvisations you often see me running on and off the stage, whispering instructions to people; or sometimes even yelling to try to change the course of what's happening, adding a detail or adjusting things. I have an overview – where people are, what the whole picture is – and at least some sense of where it might all go. The rest of the group are of course in it the whole time, so their individual perspectives are always quite particular. Making The Coming Storm this took on a new perspective because several of the performers were wearing quite absurd costumes at times – things that restrict their ability to move or to see or to hear properly – so there was often a very real sense in which they didn't know what was going on! Often my interventions in the improvisations are about trying to nudge the performers towards particular pieces of content or tone that we are working with, whilst at other times I’m trying to cut a certain scene and move on before it becomes too solid.

Question from ‏@ammonite: 'Would you ever consider making a game?'
TE: Many of the shows are games of course, or built on game-like structures, or structures of interlocking/overlapping games. Yes, a game would be interesting I think. I heard from many people that they ‘played’ the structure of our durational pieces like Quizoola! and And on the Thousandth Night.
 
Question from ‏@artichoketrust: 'How do you find the balance between your performance works and light works? Does one influence the other?'
TE: I work in many different areas and zones – from making collaborative performances with Forced Entertainment and others, to solo work in visual arts context or as a writer. I used to feel completely schizophrenic about these splits and changes of place and form. But in the last five years or so it’s started to make more sense to me. I know that my understanding of the world, and my approach to art in general comes from performance – I’m tuned to processes, negotiations, encounters, liveness. So in a strange way despite the obvious differences between forms, it’s all performance to me! The performance of text on a page in a novel like The Broken World, the performance of a neon sign in a window in Durham during Lumiere, the performance of one person in front of others, or of many people to a group of others.

As to balance, my time management is a bit suspect. Generally existing in a space of keeping too many plates spinning.

Neon Friday at BAC will showcase some different areas of my work with not only The Coming Storm but a solo piece I wrote for GATZ performer Jim Fletcher called Sight is the Sense that Dying People Tend to Lose First. Plus a launch of my latest book Vacuum Days and the building will be filled with my mischievous neon signs.

Question from @run_riot: Is there anything you'd like to add to, or highlight from your 'Why the arts Matter' statement?
TE: I end that statement with saying that cuts to the arts are cuts to the imagination. You get the public culture you pay for otherwise you let the market dictate policy.

I think I’d add that we’re living in a pretty tough period for the arts, in the UK especially. The economic crisis is the context for this. But, I think we know that this government was always going to have an agenda about cutting the arts and the Arts Council and about ‘encouraging private sponsorship of the arts’, which is a code, frankly, for more cuts and for a throwing of the arts towards the market.

Forced to cut back on staff, getting less and less personal, operating with less and less time for anything other than checking-boxes - the Arts Council is being forced into a place where it can only do an increasingly bureaucratic job – efficient in the sense of costing less, but risking failure in all the ways that you’d want a public body to succeed. We’ve seen something like this in health and education too.

The private money thing is real memory lane for those of us who were alive and working in the 1980’s, the previous era of economic crisis and collapse. Big flagship institutions will mop up the private cash, such as it is, and smaller organisations, especially those making difficult work, or tackling issues or working in contexts that are not so advertiser/sponsor friendly will not prospser. No surprises.

Art will find a way, always. I do believe that. Because the impulse for art doesn’t come from the market. And it doesn’t come from serving institutional agendas. It comes from a desire to speak into, seize, articulate and change the world. And art does that, will continue to do that, despite this bitter context.

Question from ‏@nefertiti35: 'What's unforced entertainment?'
TE: We liked the name Forced Entertainment and its combination of something positive and friendly - entertainment - and this word 'forced' which points to something problematic and uneasy. I don't think we knew it at the time, but in many ways this duality has been at the heart of our work since the beginning. So the name became a kind of manifesto.
 
I suppose this question of the relation to the audience. How to think about or work with that is very central to us. In some ways each show we make re-invents that relationship – not by installing a new staging situation, but through the way that specific pieces address the spectator, how the works make different demands or different invitations to the audience.

Unforced might be something free of convention, free of limit, free of need, obligation or demand. It’s a utopian possibility – and I’m not really a utopian! But it’s interesting to think about it, perhaps because it might help

Question from ‏@probeproject: 'Do you have any bit parts? I can: dive, paint walls, make tea, fill cracks, tiptoe…'
TE: We’re pretty much a full house ;-(

Mail us though.

Question from @run_riot: What do you want audiences to walk away with having seem The Coming Storm?
TE: A head full of stories. A sense that the world can be changed.
 
For more information and tickets, please visit the official site below
forcedentertainment.com
@ForcedEnts

Forced Entertainment present
The Coming Storm
BAC
Lavender Hill,
Battersea,
London SW11 5TN
November 20 - December 01, 2012
bac.org.uk
 

The Coming Storm is co-produced by PACT Zollverein, Essen; Festival Avignon; Theaterhaus Gessneralle, Zurich; Tanzquartier, Vienna; Les Spectacles Vivants - Centre Pompidou, Paris; Festival d'Automne à Paris; LIFT, London; Battersea Arts Centre, London; Sheffield City Council.

Answers by:
Tim Etchells | @Tim_Etchells
timetchells.com

Artistic Director, Forced Entertainment

Who asked the questions for the @run_riot #CollectiveInterview:
Run-Riot.com | @run_riot
Run-Riot is a cultural events listings with highlighted events & free tix in our weekly e-bulletin – arts & culture, parties & wild cards! London. run-riot.com

Artichoke | ‏@artichoketrust
Regular updates from Anna Cook, Comms Associate. Keep up to date with our news and let me know your thoughts on our work. Or other musings you may have! artichoke.uk.com
 
Ben Cooper-Melchiors | ‏@bencmelch
Hub General Manager for @ideastap. Develop creative entrepreneurs via skill-swap office: #CreativeSpace. Lover of good people, experiences, theatre and beer. ideastap.com
 
Elizabeth Lynch | ‏@nefertiti35
Producer of projects with artists and young people; Chair of The Arts Catalyst, Researcher, Coach. elizabethlynchandco.com
 
Alex Fleetwood | ‏@ammonite [aka Hide&Seek | @hidingseeking]
Director of Hide&Seek. A game design studio in London & New York. Inventing new kinds of play. hideandseek.net
 
Antonia Grove ‏| @probeproject
A girl should be two things: who and what she wants - Coco Chanel. probeproject.com