I’ve been invited by the venues that I'm touring to this October to write a little about the
back-story behind my new show, Stone’s Throw, Lament Of the Selkie. Having been
a full time singer songwriter and touring artist over the last 20 years, this
is my first venture into the world of theatre and I am thrilled to have
received support of Arts Council Wales in order to make the piece. This is the full unedited version of the copy that I have sent out to venues.
The back-story behind, Stone’s Throw, Lament Of The Selkie.
The idea of a collaborative storytelling piece focusing on a retelling
of selkie mythology first occurred way back in 2011, when composer Gillian
Stevens introduced me to the folklore tales of these shape-shifting seal folk. But
this project was to be short lived as a few months later I was immobile and
house bound, having sustained injuries to my hip and back after falling from
stage while on tour in rural Italy. The fall was traumatic in itself, but what
compounded it all was the fact that I was also 24 weeks pregnant when this
happened.
My tour colleague Dylan Fowler told me that he’ll never
forget the sound body made as it smacked the ground- it was stone-marble
flooring…I felt pins and needles up and down my spine. Fortunately my baby was
unharmed, I’d twisted so I landed on my hip and back, not my bump… but the
accident left me very damaged. The Drs suspected that I had a hairline fracture
on my hip- and my muscles locked in spasms leaving me with severely limited
mobility for the duration of my pregnancy and beyond. This fall had a domino
effect…the first of several waves of trauma that occurred over the following
months that led to severe birth complications and postpartum health issues and
in the end it me took years to recover. There was a time when my muscles were
so atrophied that I could barely hold a note in tune- and my back would begin
to spasm after holding a guitar for 30 seconds and I wondered if I’d ever be
able to tour and play music again. And here’s where the selkie’s come in... During
this time I began to revisit the folklore myths and found myself resonating with
many of the themes that lay within these ancient tales. A selkie finding
herself trapped on land in human form unable to return to her seal state of
being, struck a chord with my own sense of being trapped by the limitations of
my broken body… Slowly I began to write my 4th solo album- a process
that took a further 3 years to complete and alongside this I continued to work
at my own physical and mental recovery. Lucy Rivers played violin on the album
and at this time we began to discuss performing the songs in a more theatrical
way.
Then one evening in 2017 I found myself writing- 10,000
words, the full story of all the events of my unravelling. Tentatively I shared
the sections as a blog posts and was met with an unprecedented response from
women who resonated with my story. I began to receive messages from women from
around the world, sharing their own stories with me. I began to perceive that
there was a need for these stories to be given a public platform as the subject
of birth trauma is rarely explored on stage and is still often seen as a taboo
subject. So, last year 2018 teamed I up with Lucy Rivers for a research and
development project to explore merging my own experiences with the a
contemporary retelling of selkie myths. Alongside this I invited women to send
me their own stories relating to birth and identity. The research and development project went well- positive responses from both venue bookers and all who engaged in the project. In response to this I set to work at applying for the next round of funding to make the show. The funding bid, was rejected. I was gutted- the comments from the funders were very positive however ( even though the project was rejected) and so despite disappointments and the massive amount of work and time that would be required to submit again, I pragmatically decided to have another push at the same funding... and am thrilled that this time I was successful. So now this autumn 2019, we are
finally making the full-length show…
Below are some recent shots and videos of rehearsals with Lucy Rivers.
Below are some recent shots and videos of rehearsals with Lucy Rivers.
Directed by Louise Osborn and featuring myself and actor-musician
Lucy Rivers, the performance combines music, songs, spoken-word and
storytelling against a backdrop of large-scale visual projections and bespoke
verbatim recordings of women’s birth stories and broader thoughts on identity.
The show is an intimate, stirring, but ultimately uplifting exploration of the
ongoing process of rebuilding after an experience of trauma.
Tour Dates
October 10th
2019, Stwidio Stepni, Ffwrnes, Llanelli
October 11th
2019, Seligman Theatre- Chapter, Cardiff
October 12th
2019, Seligman Theatre- Chapter, Cardiff (AD and touch tour available for this
performance)
October 16th Span
Arts @- Ysgol Caerelen- Haverford West
February
5th 2020, The Welfare, Ystradgynlais
(additional dates now being added for 2020)
