And one film rolls into another

Last night the PRSA Xmas social event took me, for the first time, inside the big sparkly giant glass quality-street sculpture that I see from the top of my street every time I walk to and from the park.... otherwise known as Leicester's Highcross leisure (of the un-sporty variety) centre with cinema de lux.
- I'd been under the impression that all cinema is made of light, but perhaps this one's an only case?
As well as being a very pleasant evening of company, conviviality, conversation and consumption of vast amounts of popcorn, the film was fab too! Aardmann's latest feature animation, Arthur Christmas, kept me laughing all the way through with delight at the sheer level of detail and imagination that sparkles their creations into life. It was also a nice surprise as I'd thought we were going to watch just-another-bad-animation-Christmas-movie and had only the few days before been writing about the delights of sitting cosy by a fire with a cat, watching Wallace and Gromit picnic on the moon. There was no fire and no cat, but the de lux certainly has unusal chairs, that probably could catapault one to the moon, and the company was just fine, and the view on screen just as magical.

Of course the Phoenix will be showing Arthur next, in 3D.....

So, after a late-lunch meeting at Phoenix today, I decided to return this evening for another movie - not 3d, and not another Arthur Christmas - although one could say that the main character is a bit of an Arthur, too.

(No desire to leap on a train to London, so will have to just dream of 'Dreams of a Life' a little longer...)

Take Shelter was equally unexpected. A Cannes winner it looked to be good to watch. What drew me to it was my recent interest in exploring a little more behind the scenes of imagination and illusion. I have proposed a new Clean module (tongue in cheek, and none the less....) with 5 'i's of which those are two.
Take Shelter potently brought home that there is a sixth to be added alongside integration, interruption and interrogation - most definitely INTUITION should also be a part of that mix.

A great film and absolutely worth the two hours, bag of chilli flavoured hand-cut crisps and other bag of machine-moulded chocolate counters, to enjoy and absorb. Fantastic. Totally recommend. And in so doing it reminds me a little of Undance.


UNDANCE, Wayne McGreggor's latest collaboration, was unveiled as a Saddlers Wells premier a couple of weeks ago. In town for the Developing Group, I went along to the Saturday night performance, curiously expecting great things, having been very touched by the experience of watching Entity premier whilst in the final stages of my Masters degree.
I liked the description. The context of collaboration is rich and diverse in the work of Random Dance, and I was interested to see how Serra's sculptural practices might be integrated into this performance piece. How might this trio of contemporary artist, composer, choreographer make work together? (Mark Wallinger invited Mark-Anthony Turnage and McGregor to work with him on this piece) But it was Mueybridge whose presence flowed through the movements of dancers on stage and their counterparts in film, to be exposed, in the final moment, through the sensing of an infinite moment in which all time rolls forwards, backwards, turns inside out and back-to-front, with the enormity of it all and the counterpoint of a few people, together, in one moment here and now.

For me, this is how I read that work, and what I take away until the next time, perhaps sooner than the last, that I visit with curiosity that I'm sure will not be unrewarded, and expectations that are as sure to be as challenged and refined as they are to then be met.