Making Frontman
images by Finlay of Robertson
We see Frontman as the third piece in a series that started with A Western and continued with Watch Me Fall.
This is not for purposes of creating a ‘package’, but more an attempt to finish something we started. Watch Me Fall when it was finished felt to us like a development of both the forms and themes we were exploring in A Western but not the final word. With Frontman we want to take these thoughts, ideas and expressions to their inevitable conclusion.
We’re still explorating notions of the ‘spectacular’ or the ‘epic’ and what can be achieved with a raw aesthetic and the collaboration of an audience. The attempt to create something that is emotional, challenging, threatening and beautiful, with cliché, banality and popular culture references. We will continue to borrow our form and content from live events outside of theatre and live art contexts, we will use verbatim text, we will continue to ask the question ‘what are our audience willing to do?’
Our starting points were:
- Japanese noise bands
- Frontmen
- U.S presidents
- The band ‘Lightning Bolt’ (particularly the track 2 morro morro land)
- The audience standing in a circle around a solo performer (probably female)
Our current interests are:
- The effects of volume on an audience
- Smoke and lights
- Noise as torture
- Distortion
- Iggy Pop
Frontman will premiere in December 2010 at IBT festival in Bristol.
