EVENT ARCHIVES

Split Britches

with Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw

This workshop took place on Thursday January 12 – Sunday January 15 2006 at the Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster University

Please click here to see examples of participants' writing from the workshop

A film of the this workshop is available in DVD and VHS format for £9.99 (to cover production costs and postage and packing).

Lois and Peggy lead the participants through exercises and processes that they use in making work. The workshop is structured through a series of categories that summarise their approach:

•  Questions and Obsessions

•  Creative Truth

•  Surprise and Impulse

•  Fantasy and Layering

The DVD also includes interviews with Peggy and Lois

To preview the film:

• click here for broadband realplayer
• click here for modem realplayer
• click here for broadband Windows Media Player
• click here for modem Windows Media Player

Please click here for further information about project publications

Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw are two of the co-founders of Split Britches, a Lesbian Feminist Theatre Company that since 1981 has edified and wildly entertained everyone with their vaudevillian satirical gender-bending performances.

They describe their work in this way:
'Our work is rooted in popular culture, but positioned against it.... It is about a community of outsiders, queers, eccentrics. It is feminist because it encourages the imaginative potential in everyone and lesbian because it takes the presence of lesbian on stage as a given.'

Since 1980 Split Britches meaningfully extended the post-1960s political theatre mandate of combining art and life; they rip apart theatrical “convention” exposing it to the bone and creating a new aesthetic combining the trash street aesthetic and drag of Hot Peaches, the story-weaving of Spiderwoman, and the live-art Brechtian exposure of what is real now, never letting you forget they are performing as themselves. They explore butch-femme stylistics and, in every piece, women's rage, desire, poverty, hope and love.

(Laurie Stone, New York City Village Voice)

I have already worked with impulse but never as thoroughly as this workshop with Split Britches that explored and developed holistic approach to impulse work. Working in a way to release impulse and generate material on many levels, from sight to feelings, to sound, physicality, improvisation, objects and writing, we used varied but structured techniques to work in depth on multiple levels to release impulse. This highlighted the need for me to use more open exploratory practical writing work in my own devising process.

Lois and Peggy's workshop emphasised the need for free, intuitive, associative and imaginative way of working that surprise ourselves, takes on a life of its own, and creates an organic journey that reveals its own structure and meaning at a later date. This work privileges the spontaneous over the planned or the embodied response over the cognitive.

I had a wonderful time throughout the entire workshop ‘playing' in an interactive creative way that was balanced with individual pair small and whole group exercises. The stimulus for writing came from a multitude of different sources that were often rooted in performance and always created varied styles, frameworks, departures or perspectives from which to write. The workshop could almost have been called ‘Writing for Devised Performance'.

I learnt new exercises that I can both apply to my own work and use when running workshops. These exercises can be framed and used in a variety of different ways and contexts to suit different artistic purposes.

Peggy and Lois had an inspiring inclusive way of working.

The research and tech team were great to work with.

The group were lovely.

Thank you for an amazing 4 days of discovery, connection, bravery and un-censored creative genius!

The workshop was rich in generating creative material and ‘moments of performance'. Peggy and Lois allowed us time to do ‘automatic/impulsive writing' exercises as well as work from bodily impulses. They managed to create a warm supportive atmosphere within the group, which allowed us to ‘give' material to one another and feed off each other's creativity. We focused both on generating material and structuring it. After the workshop I am left with an idea and some primary material for a new solo performance around Three Sisters. I feel as though I have been filled with creative energy, new devising skills and a desire to work.