Interview: Alexander Kelly, Performing Artist (LEEDS, UK)

A story for a story – Inspiration Exchange at the Leeds City Museum in December 2011. Photo by Gwen Pew.

One rainy weekend last December, I went to a series of events that were a part of the Compass Live Art Festival in Leeds. One of the artists I met that day was Alexander Kelly from Sheffield-based performing arts company Third Angel.

He was running a really interesting session called Inspiration Exchange, which encourages participants to swap stories with him and with each other. We would pick up a word card on our way in, and Alex would tell us the story behind it. In return, we would have to tell him a story of our own. You can read more about what Inspiration Exchange is about on Alex’s blog here, and read about my experience of it here.

Alex will be running another Inspiration Exchange as part of the PSi#18 Conference  at the University of Leeds on Saturday 30th April from 10am to 6pm. This free event is open to the public, and will be held at Parkinson Building Room 18.

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Here is what Alex has to say about inspirations, stories and art…

What is Third Angel about?

We’re a group of performance makers telling stories about the stuff that intrigues us, bothers us, worries us and fascinates us from our personal lives and the world around us. For 17 years we’ve been trying to make work that will help people to stop and look again at the familiar things around them and see them afresh.

What, or who, inspired you most?

It’s a long list – as the Inspiration Exchange demonstrates – from day to day things, simple ideas, complex ideas, things we hear in conversation, the work of other people – whether theatre, performance, books, TV, comics, magazines, documentaries…

What made you first become interested in people’s stories?

That’s tricky to pin down. I’ve always been interested in what other people think about things, and their experiences – partly as a way of figuring out what I think about stuff. In magazines and newspapers I often look at the letters pages first, to see what other people are concerned about at the moment.

What was the most inspiring story you heard during your last weekend in Leeds?

That’s a really difficult one, because it’s partly about what they were swapped for, and what story that connection tells…but answering these questions quite a long time after the event (sorry), the one that has stayed with me the most is the idea of “Buildings as Time-travellers” – buildings being static points that time moves past. I like that. It articulates something about the way I feel about buildings and large structures.

Do you feel like the setting at the City Museum was appropriate? Was it cosy? Claustrophobic?

It was great actually. Cosy but not claustrophobic. The Inspiration Exchange works well in a fairly self contained space, so people don’t feel too on display when they are telling their stories, but with a door or doorway that is open or can be seen through, so the passing audience can see there’s something going on. So the back-to-back terrace room was lovely – a bit of character of its own, but not so much that it dominated the piece.

Will you translate stories into another medium – thoughts into actions – in the future?

A few of them, I have realised, are developing into another piece – fragments of a story called Cape Wrath that has now taken on a life of its own. Others will get swapped in future exchanges. I’m happy for a lot them to stay as oral culture – that’s enough for me.

How would you defend conversation as an art?

This is a great question. My flippant-sounding answer is that art is conversation. The more portentous-sounding explanation of that is that surely art is part of the conversation between human beings about what it means to be human. There’s not very much I’m certain about when it comes to art and performance, but that’s one of the things that I am certain of.

But more specifically, conversation as art. I think that, often, when we’re making work we’re looking for the right frame, or form, to best explore the ideas we’re interested in. The form that adds something, that articulates something that another form wouldn’t. I’m most interested, I think, in work that can only exist in the form it is presented in. (I’m not particularly interested in theatre you could easily make a film of, for example). And with this idea, the idea of things that have inspired us, a structured conversation felt like the right form. And it is structured, but hopefully that structure is quite light-touch – the conversation can wander off in different directions, and meander quite far, depending on how many people are waiting; but the card-swap structure is there to reset the piece when necessary.

What will your next show be about and when will it take place?

We’ve got several things on the go. A work-in-progress of Cape Wrath is going to the Latitude Festival in July, and What I Heard About The World is on in Edinburgh and Helsinki in August. A theatre production of Georges Perec’s radio play The Machine will be on in Sheffield in December…

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Find out more at:  www.thirdangel.co.uk or follow them on Twitter and Facebook.

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