Author: birminghamreview

Words by Ed King / Pics courtesy of The Paper Birds & Richard Davenport

We filed slowly, languidly into the hall; the tiered theatre seats facing down onto an illuminated archway, Chesterfield armchair, striped curtain and mixing desk. A stage set for one, Grace Savage to be precise, and the hallway of sounds that would help her to see.

Blind is Savage’s exploration of the audio catalysts that shaped her – from the caged jokes of her mother, the loaded advice, to the popular culture a teenager embraces when they want to be heard or feel free. I’ve seen it promoted in two ways, with gender specifics battling against more theatre friendly rhetoric, but the constant is Grace Savage.

And from the off Blind is unashamedly personal; a brave and immediate grasp on the solo show format, as a light shines through the curtains, casting a silhouette of Mother Savage – thick curls and raspy laugh informing her daughter “all men are bastards” and “there is no God”. The words are crueler than the delivery, funny, but damaged none the less.

The bitter wisdom still in my head Savage reveals herself from the backlight and perches on the Chesterfield, a nervous child in front of an impatient camera – “I just want to fit in,” her jaw juts out in a comedic, compliant search for approval.

“I began imitating everything around me,” tells Savage, running through a list of impetus in her life before beatboxing. Her mates, boys, girls, arbitrary sounds and The Spice Girls (if the last two need distinction) all play their part before maturity brings us to holiday guitars, Jazz scatting and the ‘human beatbox’.

We’re invited to participate, with Savage explaining phonetic techniques for the high hat and kick drum. A simple beat is suggested; split into three phlegm fighting teams the audience give it a beginner’s best but last about fifteen seconds – our efforts recorded and ‘mastered’ by our gracious host. Then a bizarrely clichéd segue splits the audience again, into teams that may as well be blue and pink, to record gender specific screaming – before Savage turns what was fun but inaudible, into a firm beat. You could call this a metaphor.

Then back to the diary entries of popular culture as a fifteen year old Grace Savage soaks up everything from TV commercials to Clinton’s back peddling – further explaining how her sense of the world came through sound. And how her evolution came through the imitation and manipulation of those sounds that surrounded her.

It’s not a new concept (oddly one I sat through in pitch black at mac a couple of weeks before, reviewing Glen Neath and David Rosenberg’s second binaural production for Fuel Theatre, Fiction) but to explore it through the experiences of someone to whom sound is so crucial, is much more pertinent.

Across personal and professional, sound has defined Grace Savage’s world in a way those around her may take for granted. And to groin kick this point home, we’re invited to don our blindfolds (ties we were given on entry) and fall into a Max Richter soundtrack with Savage describing a fight she once witnessed on a train. The escalation, from subtle threat to violence overt, is palpable, as Savage hand holds us through an increasingly angry cacophony. It’s a bright sidestep into her world; mine is made up of words on a page, or in my head, but I understand fear.

The formative journey continues, plot pointing personal discussions and discoveries that further illustrate the point; in the world according to Grace sound is gunshot and ricochet. And as chronologically we edge closer to the present, with a few salient points of beatboxing history and cultural references thrown in (if nothing else, Rahzel), there continue the pauses and confidence of an actor’s performance.

But the humour that opened the show now sits, interview style, to play us a pre-record of her mother. All the pantomime disappears as we watch a woman talk to her past, to a deep root; Savage asks questions and mouths the responses, mirroring in reality the evening’s earlier ‘advice’. The rhetoric is no longer funny. The laugh is identical. Someone in this room is likely to cry.

Then following a final, shameful, slideshow through the texts and social media Savage has received from her beatboxing performances – the frighteningly sexual and aggressive responses some people find funny, or empowering – the lights come up for the last time. Some stand, all cheer. Both are deserved.

I knew there’d be beatboxing tonight, and from one side of the promotion a gender political thread, but Blind ends as it always was – Grace Savage alone on a stage. No doubt the brief to this production covered a series of box ticking funding steams, and if that allowed it to live then I have no quarrel or axe, but tonight was Grace Savage; Blind is her world, her honesty, her velvet glove punch.

A one woman show about the show of one woman, Blind is superlative to watch. To present it in any other way is, ironically, perhaps obscuring the vision.

For more on Grave Savage, visit http://www.gracesavageofficial.com/

For more on The Paper Birds, visit http://www.thepaperbirds.com/

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For more from mac, including full listings across the centre, visit http://macbirmingham.co.uk/

Words by Ed King / Pics by Paul Reynolds
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“About the price of a small mortgage. But I’ve got some friends who live on Machu Picchu, so…”

I don’t like the man to my right; we’ve never met, but I know that much about him and me.  Him and I. Sometimes, when people are talking to more than their audience, they say the most ludicrous things. Fatuous things. No one in this room has ‘friends’ on Machu Picchu.

My +1 is in Chester so I’ve come alone to the Institute (a Birmingham landmark that holds much of my past) to watch The Staves use us as “guinea pigs” for their new material. No one in the room seems to mind either, but as Camilla tells us “it’s not going to change”. Opening with the title track off their new EP, and the precursor to that precarious second album, ‘Blood I Bled’ eventually drowns us all.  Soft with clear vocals, identifiable; an intricate guitar picks into a hurried crash of harmonies and big rolling drums. It’s the first of the ‘new material’ I’ve heard from The Staves and there’s a certain melodic fervor, one I recognise but didn’t expect. Spectacular.

There’s a mournful impetus to the accompanying video too – an ambiguous rites of passage narrative filmed in India (the territory that’s owned the last decade of my life) but tonight’s on stage delivery is noticeably more powerful.

‘Steady’, another new track, keeps Camilla firmly in the front, with Emily’s instrumental smorgasbord landing on a glockenspiel topping. Again the big rolling drums and hollow, echoed back line threaten their way round the room. Again the sound is bold and ferocious.

Back to the more familiar harmonies based Folk with ‘Wisely & Slow’, but delivered tonight with extra confidence. It’s been a while since I’ve seen The Staves, and the world keeps on turning, but there’s an authoritative difference here – a sense of ownership. I also write the word ‘travelled’ into my notebook.

‘Black & White’ follows with another distant thunderstorm, before ‘Tongue Behind My Teeth’ reminds a lot of the room why they’re subconsciously here. It’s an odd moment in the set for me, and to explain why you’ve got to go back, with a wavy screen dream sequence and disappearing echo… go back… go back… go back…

I first saw The Staves at The Glee Club in April 2012 and my overall impression was pleasant, but not overwhelming.  Then about six months later Dead & Born & Grown came out, which slowly grew through my car speakers over another couple of months. But I held onto my ambiguity – despite the careful lyrics and subtle brilliance encroaching further with every slow, snow covered journey.  That was the winter I nearly crashed, at 5mph, into a double decker bus.

Then I saw The Staves perform at the Hare & Hounds, to an early queue and packed out room that murmured “Jools Holland, Jools Holland” in reverent tones. I’ll admit it, I wasn’t in the best of moods; between the fawning Radio 4 hyperbole and the drunk twat constantly heckling behind me (at a Folk gig?!?!) I’d just about given up.

But it was during that set that the well publicised ‘acoustic Folk trio from Watford’ started to take shape for me. I began to see what I’d missed at The Glee Club, and when they played ‘Tongue Behind My Teeth’ (a track I’d previously, readily dismissed) it clicked. I clicked. Something did something and I was forced into new opinion. But as I hear it tonight, played against a backdrop of new material, the track that once won me back now sounds comfortably two dimensional. Not bad, not at all, just not as good as what else is on offer.

“…I’m hoping, I’m hoping that I’m alright.” Jessica’s soft vocal lead, her guitar. The big, hollow drums; the glockenspiel. Another song I don’t know. The unconscious wave of bobbing heads looks up and looks out.

The Staverley-Taylors break for some well groomed banter and a pirate EP offer I would hear again in The Guardian. “We burnt them in our mum’s kitchen,” confesses Camilla, and I watch the thick blood ranks close in a little closer.

The Staves, as they are presented to us, have an onstage in-joke humour that is funny and endearing, but more funny – although the tightness tonight seems tinged with something else. A warm brick wall (not that we warrant anything other) but so potentially solid I wonder how detached three years of touring can make you. What makes angels draw claws. ‘Pay Us No Mind’ edges in suggestions of darker times, lyrical intent and an anger we should perhaps already know.

A trio of new tracks roll into each other, with the last bringing Jessica back to the front of a laconic snare and slow Blues Rock. The audience go a little bat shit clappy and get ‘Mexico’ to reward them – the big, hollow drums, again, announcing the hidden battle between what was and what is to be.

‘Teeth White’ and ‘Eagle Song’ close off the main set; the former sounding like the result of rehearsal room humor (or cabin fever) the latter like a pantomime as Camilla’s informs us “…is our last song”.

And as we earn our next “strange piece of theatre”, like good hungry seals, The Staves open up a two track encore with ‘Facing West’ – the album track that made me first notice Camilla.  Tonight she owns it, more, and delivers her song (for it feels like hers alone) in a way I can only image has been fashioned on countless stages in front of countless strange faces. Intimacy must be hard on such a wide and public scale.

‘Winter Trees’ finishes the night in a tight and tired manner, a beautiful song performed too often, before we huddle into jumpers and shuffle down the Institute steps. There’s a lot of noise and commentary on the way out (from a crowd surprised to be back in a venue they once needed fake NUS cards enter) lots of “the first time”, “the last time”, “yeah, yeah… well that’s Vernon.” The man to my right is now explaining how he “didn’t want to do the whole Harley thing.”

But I resign and stay schtum, noticing a much more interesting production credit on the Blood I Bled EP I now hold in my hand. Besides I’m cold and alone, not the best time to bring up 80’s Pop culture.

And if my history of reviewing The Staves has taught me anything, besides the distinction between a sound and a song, it’s that I should just keep my mouth shut. For a couple of weeks, at least.

Blood I Bled EP is out now, with The Staves second album – If I Was, due for release in February 2015. The find out more on The Staves, visit http://www.thestaves.com/

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For further listings from the Institute, visit http://mamacolive.com/theinstitute/

For more from Birmingham Promoters, visit http://birminghampromoters.com/

Pics courtesy of The Paper Birds & Richard Davenport

Blind comes to mac Theatre – for one night only on Saturday 8^th November. Doors open at 8pm with tickets priced at £14 (£12 concessions).

Devised and performed by Grace Savage – a beatboxer who beat Dana McKeon to become UK Champion in both the 2012 & 2013 finals, Blind is a solo show that ‘explores what young people are hearing in the world today’ and the subsequent impact those sounds have.

Starting from the storyteller’s perspective, Blind analyses what women are told about themselves and the role both genders play in today’s status quo – with a range of catalysts, from motherly advice to social media and pop songs, under scrutiny.

Produced by The Paper Birds – a Leeds based theatre company who ‘create and share devised work that is important; work that is culturally, socially and politically observational and conversationally urgent,’ Blind premièred at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Having been touring the UK since early October, Blind comes to mac in the death rattles of a 20 venue debut.

Grace Savage trained under beatboxer Belle “Bellatrix” Ehresmann, going on to take her mentor’s 2009 UK Beatboxing Champion title in the 2012-13 competitions. Recently playing ‘Jade’ in the Nadia Fall’s play Home, at the National Threatre, Savage was also part of The Vocal Orchestra – Shlomo’s ‘uplifting mash-up of intricate beatbox routines and roof raising interpretations of all times classics’.

Crossing over into a more traditional singer/songwriter territory, Savage has also worked with producer & song writer Dee Adam – recording her own material and supporting Newton Faulkener on his third album tour in 2012.

Meeting The Paper Birds after flyering for the theatre company at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Grace Savage was invited to devise a solo show ‘exploring the songs, sounds and statements our world is making and the impressions these gradually form on our lives.’

“As a beatboxer and an actress, Blind is one of the most refreshing, unique and exciting projects that I have had the privilege to work on in my career so far,” explains Savage. “There are a few beatboxing shows floating around but I think we have created something truly unique and theatrical in a way that has never been seen before.

I have admired The Paper Birds’ work for years and working with them has allowed me to integrate beatboxing with narrative in a way that feels meaningful and impactful.”  

Blind – tour trailer, click here or on the image below:

Blind comes to mac Theatre – for one night only on Saturday 8^th November. Doors open at 8pm with tickets priced at £14 (£12 concessions). Ed King will be there for a Birmingham Review

For more info & tickets, visit http://macbirmingham.co.uk/event/the-paper-birds-blind/

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For more on Grave Savage, visit http://www.gracesavageofficial.com/

For more on Blind / The Paper Birds, visit http://www.thepaperbirds.com/

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For more from mac, including full listings across the centre, visit http://macbirmingham.co.uk/