#SalonProject post mortem 3] make-up

Our make-up artists and wardobe assistants were predominantly provided by Telford College in Edinburgh. They were a hard working bunch of wonderful young women who, we hoped, gained vital work experience working with us on The Salon Project

Above is one of our working professional interns, Holly Hodgart

*****

Below, we’d like you to meet another intern, from Telford, Ms Lynda Agnew

What was your role for Salon Project?

Make-up Artist

What did that involve during a performance?

Removing makeup applying looks, doing hair, applying accessories for guests and staff of the project

Did you ever encounter anything [or anyone] difficult?

No… I would say I just encountered the normal range of people, everybody was up for it, some people had specific thoughts on what they wanted, but realised soon that that wasn’t the case, that we gave them the looks. I think that was hard for some, but it wasn’t fancy dress…

Have you ever done anything like Salon Project before? How does it compare to your usual working life?

Nothing like it… nothing compares it to… I guess the closest thing is backstage at a fashion show: time restraint, the amount of people, artists having to make split decisions, the pressure

Describe a Salon Project experience for an audience in 3 words?

Fun, avant-garde exciting

How do you feel it’s benefitted your career?

From a learning point of view: steep curve. Learning what was necessary in that situation, to deal with the public, performers, all in the time restraint; you just had to get on and do it. For me personally, the contacts I have made have been invaluable: I’ve done film work and working on a large scale project at Tramway since, all thanks to people I met through the project. Meeting this new group of people, seeing how capable they were was, amazing, and it opened so many doors. The Salon Project was an invaluable work experience for me, and I think all my class mates at Telford: putting you in a real working environment, nothing beats that!

If the opportunity arose, would you do Salon Project again?

Yes.

Here’s Lynda in Action

Here’s a message from Lorna, our Executive Producer for all our interns

#SalonProject photographic documentation #3

As part of The Salon Project [wow it seems like an age ago now…] we said to our audiences that they could take photos throughout the event.

we liked the juxtapositioning of modern photographic/mobile telephone equipment in our period setting

we liked having professional and amateur photography as documentation

we liked, as part of our notion/question of social network and conversation, to share personal photos, to share genuine individual experiences

we liked the idea of a long lasting relationship with the work, and what better way than to jog the memory, than with a photo…

no point in dressing up in glamorous finery, without any photographic evidence thereof!

over the next few weeks watch our flickr set grow as we attempt to collate all our audiences’ photos…

here’s where it starts:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/69977553@N02/sets/72157628246173545/

did you go to The Salon Project?

did you take photos?

If the answer is “yes”, please email them to us: salon@untitledprojects.co.uk or simply point us in the direction of your online documentation, god bless social networking…

#SalonProject photographic documentation #1

Tommy Ga-Ken Wan our genius Salon Project photographer is a very very busy man, with nearly 5,000,000 hits on his flikr account and always juggling multiple projects, we are very please to see how much impact our little project has had on his work: there is a Salon Project set on his page.

here’s a preview of some wondrous shots

enjoy…

(Source: Flickr / tgkw)

#SalonProject CALL OUT for Participants

Hello one and all… in the run-up to Salon Project commencing, we need a few extra wondrous bodies to assist us…

See below

CALL-OUT for participants for The Salon Project

Visionary director Stewart Laing, of Untitled Projects [http://www.untitledprojects.co.uk] is currently developing The Salon Project – a 360° simulation of an opulent Parisian Salon… an immersive theatrical experience unlike any other.

The presentation is a co-production with Traverse Theatre and is the culmination of Stewart’s Artist in Residence post. The Salon Project is strongly influenced by and structured to recreate traditions of a 19^th century salon. A pivotal element to many of these events was a Tableau Vivant: a pause from proceedings whereby a still image was adopted amidst the crowd by several individuals holding a pose. The pose itself could be a recreation of visual artwork, a vision of aesthetic beauty or a stance created as a socio-political commentary. Many contemporary artists have incorporated a Tableau technique in their practice; Vanessa Beecroft’s work, for example, is strongly based on this tradition.

Stewart’s vision for the Salon Project’s Tableau Vivant takes great influence from the large-scale nude gallery works of Beecroft; 12 performers will present a vision in three parts recreating elements of Oscar Rejlander’s photograph The Two Ways of Life [the world’s first photomontage].

The image can be viewed here:

http://www.codex99.com/photography/10.html

Up to £10 expenses per day will be provided for participants. To be part of this opportunity, participants would need to be available on the performance dates: 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22 October, for 3 rehearsal sessions 28^th / 29^th / 30^th September and for an evening’s filming in Edinburgh on 3^rd October. This is an excellent opportunity to work with a Fringe First, Tony Award winning pioneering practitioner as part of an innovative performance art event.

For more information and to apply please contact Untitled Project Creative Associate Drew Taylor [drew@untitledprojects.co.uk] or call 07841 677624

[Example of Beecroft’s Work]

This opportunity is offered on a first come first served basis. Our only requirement in application is a willingness to participate without clothing.

More visual references for Beecroft’s work and Stewart’s influences for The Salon Project can be found here:

http://untitled-projects.tumblr.com

#SalonProject personnel profile #7

salon project personnel profile 7

Alan McKendrick – Guide

I am a guide, and I aided the development stages of the Salon Project

I wake up in the morning, wash, and then I lie. Sometimes I write these lies down and have other people repeat them onstage, on film or set to music. Nice work if you can get it. Yeah. You’d think.

Untitled Projects have asked me to take part in The Salon Project, presumably so that I can lie to a paying audience to their faces for a change. Or even just tell the truth, if that’s what they want me to do…

·         What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Being forced to act against your intrinsic nature

Not being able to work

The standard mode of life for a good plenty of people on the planet

·         Where would you like to live?

Among others, with a room of my own.

·         What is your idea of earthly happiness?

Not having to act against your intrinsic nature

Being able to work

Being in a position to make large mistakes which have only small consequences

·         To what faults do you feel most indulgent?

Youth, excessive conviction, bloody-mindedness, lack of ability to take anything seriously, trashiness, deliberate rudeness. (Inadvertent rudeness is another story).

·         Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?

Timon of Athens, Putney Swope, Bud from ‘Repo Man’.

·         Who are your favorite characters in history?

Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Wyndham Lewis, Dorothy Parker, Hubert Selby Jr., Werner Herzog, Luke Haines, Lenny Bruce, y’know, all those jerks…

·         Who are your favorite heroines in real life?

I admire Carla Bozulich. I admire Claire Denis. I also very much admire several friends of mine whom I won’t embarrass or encourage by naming here.

·         Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?

The leading ladies of most early-period Hal Hartley films are a pretty impeccable bunch…

·         Your favorite painter?

Film is just a kind of painting, right? And photography? Kenneth Anger, Maya Deren, Nan Goldin, David Lynch. George Grosz on a good day, which wasn’t very often.

·         Your favorite musician?

B.R. Wallers of the Country Teasers. His (many) great moments are better than anybody else’s, while his (few) bad ones are just the absolute worst, just terrible. I admire that commitment to providing a full menu.

·         The quality you most admire in a man?

A healthy dose of the feminine.

·         The quality you most admire in a woman?

A healthy dose of the masculine.

·         Your favorite virtue?

A healthy sense of the ridiculous.

·         Your favorite occupation?

Having A Good Time All The Time.

Also not being an astronaut, you couldn’t get me up in one of those things if you paid me.

·         Who would you have liked to be?

A hyperpolyglot. There’s still time, but at the rate I’m going it’s looking increasingly unlikely…

(Source: untitledprojects.co.uk)

#SalonProject personnel profile #5

salon project personnel profile #5

Emilia Weber – Artistic Associate

Little bit about yourself here please… here’s an example

“I’ve been involved with Untitled Project for nearly a year now, working with the company on placement from Glasgow University. For Salon I have aided in finding speakers, talking through all manner of theories, stratagems and plans for the work and generally assisting Stewart… I have just completed my BA in English Literature and Theatre Studies. I very much enjoy not being a student anymore and seeing what I can do with this oyster of a world…”

• What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

abandonment

• Where would you like to live?

By water

• What is your idea of earthly happiness?

By water, reading a Saturday guardian

• To what faults do you feel most indulgent?

Slightly aggressive nature, and not telling the whole truth

• Who are your favourite heroes of fiction?

Pippi Longstocking, Amanda from Private Lives by Noel Coward, Brass Monkey from Midnight’s Children

• Who are your favourite characters in history?

Cleopatra, the teenagers in Germany who rebelled against the Nazis by listening to Jazz and wearing corduroy.

• Who are your favourite heroines in real life?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shami_Chakrabarti , Gareth Peirce, Arundhati Roy

• Who are your favourite heroines of fiction?

Wise men who sort everything out in the end like Dumbledore…

• Your favourite painter?

Kathe Kollwitz

• Your favourite musician?

Sad ones and loud ones.

• The quality you most admire in a man?

Intelligence, kindness, being on the ‘right’ side.

• The quality you most admire in a woman?

See above

• Your favourite virtue?

Competence and skill

• Your favourite occupation?

Listening to the radio in the morning. Jumping into water.

• Who would you have liked to be?

Camera operator for BBC’s The Blue Planet

#SalonProject personnel profile #4

another amazing Proust questionnaire… yeah.

salon project personnel profile #4

stewart laing – director/designer

 “I am the director and designer for the project, the salon project was my idea. I have just directed “Ten Plagues” at the Traverse during the festival, in October I’m… busy, and in November I’m on holiday”

• What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Being in the countryside without cigarettes

• Where would you like to live?

Garnett Hill

• What is your idea of earthly happiness?

Watching Love Actually with my god-son

• To what faults do you feel most indulgent?

Any sort of addiction

• Who are your favourite heroes of fiction?

Rimbaud and Verlaine

• Who are your favourite characters in history?

Rimbaud and Verlaine

• Who are your favourite heroines in real life?

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

• Who are your favourite heroines of fiction?

Sarah Lund [The Killing]

• Your favourite painter?

Stanley Spencer

• Your favourite musician?

Reynaldo Hahn

• The quality you most admire in a man?

The surface…

• The quality you most admire in a woman?

Intelligence

• Your favourite virtue?

Loyalty

• Your favourite occupation?

Surfing the internet

• Who would you have liked to be?

Gardener on a remote Scottish island