Collaboration is a Curious Lover

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version.Zoo Indigo is a collaboration. It’s the two of us. Ildiko Rippel and me. When we facilitate workshops, we nod, wink and smile. We spontaneously add ideas, tasks and images. When one of us laughs, we are urged on. There is a knowing born out of thirteen years of working together that doesn’t need words. We teach at different universities, work with different artists, watch and read different work, and we share all this with an understanding that we are teaching each other. In the making space we experiment without fear of failure. We don’t hide our sweat patches, we accept our eccentricities, we understand the learned delicate modes of reining each other in. We roll our eyes with acceptable disdain. This partnership has lasted longer than any of our lover relationships. But this has never been a full time occupation and having breakfast together is still a treat and stepping into the rehearsal space is like having a hamper of fresh croissants, jam and coffee delivered in the morning

Fantasizing Motherhood in 'Under the Covers'

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the URI linkThis is the fantasy of motherhood that shamefully weeped from my rock solid breasts with no mouth to feed. This is the performance that could only happen once my pre-stretched stomach produced a breathing child, or two. This is the confused longing to escape achieved motherhood, an escape akin to a sexual fantasy that only works if it never happens

Reflecting on partnerships between Higher Education and Professional Theatre Practices

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the URI linkThe Higher Education and Professional Theatre conference was a one-day event held at Curve Theatre, Leicester on September 10th 2015, hosted by De Montfort University and Curve Theatre with support from Arts Council England, UK Theatre, and the Independent Theatre Council. The aim of the conference was to explore the growing number of developing relationships between professional theatres, arts venues and performance companies and higher education institutions in Britain, and facilitate discussions around models of these working partnerships. The day brought together an array of academics, theatre practitioners, programmers, policy makers and students and opened a dialogue that debated its way through the delicate negotiations of creating successful working partnerships between the professional arts world and Higher Education institutions. This report was commissioned by De Montfort university to document and discuss the issues that arose during the Higher Education and Theatre event hosted at Curve Theatre, Leicester in 2015

This is now, this is live

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the URI linkWe are Zoo Indigo, a Nottingham based performance company, experimenting with innovative new technology and the virtual performer to create authentic presence on the arena of illusion, the stage. As part of our research we recently took the exploration of the virtual performer further, and explored the virtual “non-performer”, the infants in Under the Covers. The audience’s – and the performers’ – response to the digital infants is always intense. The babies are there with us, live in the theatre space, their presence is felt constantly as we observe the blurry CCTV style live video footage, and the audience is drawn into their spaces further through the interactivity created with live sound connections. In this paper we are going to introduce the different elements that contribute to create this authentic, “real-life” presence, flooding into the performance situation of pretence. The paper furthermore investigates if new technology and virtual presence in performance comments, confirms or contradicts current theories of posthumanism, and whether, as part of the posthuman condition, a virtual version of a performer – or the digitalised presence of any person - can have an authentic presence at the remote location, can be as real, or even more real, than a live body of flesh and blood.http://people.brunel.ac.uk/bst/vol1001/home.htm

Loss and Being Lost: Performing Precarity through Multi-lingual Text, Song and Music in Zoo Indigo's 'Don't Leave Me This Way'

open access articleThis article examines the function of music and multilingualism in Zoo Indigo’s Don’t Leave Me This Way. Through an engagement with live music, song and multilingual spoken text, an “affective potential of tonality” (Fischer-Lichte 120) is explored to express themes of precarity. The use of multilingualism functions “to upset the position of dominant language” (Byczynski 33), further highlighting a cultural precarity in a Brexit-ridden Britain. Drawing upon Butler’s constructivist view of performativity, the authors reflect on a narrative of loss and being lost communicated and understood through a dramaturgical framework of multilingualism, mother tongues, live music, pre-recorded sounds and song

Impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: multispecialty, prospective cohort study in 25 countries

Background: Balancing opioid stewardship and the need for adequate analgesia following discharge after surgery is challenging. This study aimed to compare the outcomes for patients discharged with opioid versus opioid-free analgesia after common surgical procedures.Methods: This international, multicentre, prospective cohort study collected data from patients undergoing common acute and elective general surgical, urological, gynaecological, and orthopaedic procedures. The primary outcomes were patient-reported time in severe pain measured on a numerical analogue scale from 0 to 100% and patient-reported satisfaction with pain relief during the first week following discharge. Data were collected by in-hospital chart review and patient telephone interview 1 week after discharge.Results: The study recruited 4273 patients from 144 centres in 25 countries; 1311 patients (30.7%) were prescribed opioid analgesia at discharge. Patients reported being in severe pain for 10 (i.q.r. 1-30)% of the first week after discharge and rated satisfaction with analgesia as 90 (i.q.r. 80-100) of 100. After adjustment for confounders, opioid analgesia on discharge was independently associated with increased pain severity (risk ratio 1.52, 95% c.i. 1.31 to 1.76; P < 0.001) and re-presentation to healthcare providers owing to side-effects of medication (OR 2.38, 95% c.i. 1.36 to 4.17; P = 0.004), but not with satisfaction with analgesia (beta coefficient 0.92, 95% c.i. -1.52 to 3.36; P = 0.468) compared with opioid-free analgesia. Although opioid prescribing varied greatly between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, patient-reported outcomes did not.Conclusion: Opioid analgesia prescription on surgical discharge is associated with a higher risk of re-presentation owing to side-effects of medication and increased patient-reported pain, but not with changes in patient-reported satisfaction. Opioid-free discharge analgesia should be adopted routinely

on 'No Woman's Land'

This paper focused on the elements of remediation of past and present borders. We use digital theatre and multiple performance screens to juxtapose archival footage with our own footage of the walk, and specifically the border crossing during our journey.In 2015. Ildikó Rippel and Rosie Garton retraced Lucia’s footsteps. Crossing borders, climbing fences, bleeding, crying, blistering. We walked through the united and borderless Europe, witnessing a post-national utopia, particularly at the borders of Poland and Germany. Once separated by barbed wire, armed border police and animosity this area now runs joint cultural projects, has opened German-Polish Kindergartens, as well as setting up a floating bar on the river Neisse which had formed an insurmountable border for many decades. Whilst we were walking the refugee crises escalated, and elsewhere borders and fences were erected. The escalation of the crisis placed survival, identity and migration at the forefront of the project. The project’s historical and current context of migrant mothers, borders and displacement raises interesting questions with regards to the traditionally gendered assumptions of heroic walking (Heddon 2012)

Yes/No/Maybe - (Performance in Oxford)

Working with Professor Gabriel Egan, this practice as research project work unpicks the use of binary code within our everyday use of technology. The performance uses multi-media, physical theatre and performance text to examine the relationship between computer language and human communication and explain the transitions between binary code and the computerised word.‘Yes/No/Maybe’ is a highly visual and physical theatre work that examines the relationship between the computer language of binary code and the rich and colourful language of human dialogue. In a playful performance, five performers step into the minds of Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, leap between the cogs of the chad machine and balance in the grey areas between the yes and no of the here and now. They equate bits, personalize punch machines and fall in love with digital screens. Professor Gabriel Egan has commissioned directors Rosie Garton and Kerryn Wise to conceive a performance project that articulates the transition between binary code and human language. This unique blend of arts and science promises an informative, energetic and entertaining theatre experience. Between February - April 2018, the work is touring to six UK University venue with an accompanying workshop exploring the use of binary code in everyday circumstances (see tour list