Project: Torbay RewildingKelman Group workshopsInterlo-uckVolume Please!Sabrina PiggottMan to ManThe Kelman GroupInvisible ThreadTowns 'N' CountryString FellowsSufjan Songs for Christmas

A 2020 video project that imagines the rewilding of the deserted spaces of Torbay with African animals

See all the full showcase on Vimeo

How it all happened….

The seed for this collaboration was sown one early March morning, at the beginning of lockdown. I was walking with Otis (the dog) along the seafront in Torquay.

Normally at this time of year, and especially with the glorious spring weather we were having, the place would be teeming with people – locals and visitors. But it was virtually empty of human presence.

I imagined how it would be if this were to continue, and how nature would quickly start to reclaim Torbay. The first image that came to mind was of a humpback whale leaping out of the sea in middle of the bay.

So I went back to my studio and painted the image that was in my head, and posted it on social media. Hugh Nankivell saw the post and promptly wrote a song. So a fruitful and creative cross-disciplinary collaboration began, we both had the time and space to allow our imaginations to ‘run wild’.

A much valued friendship has also developed, and lockdown loneliness was considerably eased for me. A positive memory of the early ‘Pandemic Period’ is the legacy of this.

The much-maligned pangolin appears in this series because it was not to blame for the current pandemic, as some have claimed. Or a bat in China. It was far more likely to have been caused by the human exploitation of our natural world. That needs to change quickly if we are all to survive into the future.

Rick Thorpe

September 2020

Both on my own and as part of Kelman Group I lead workshops Scott Kelman’s iimprovisation-based performance training. This included with professional and amateur performers, children at all ages in school, students and in special needs contexts.

I worked at Centre for Performance Research, Uni of Huddersfield, Uni of Leeds, company workshops in Bristol, Manchester, Huddersfield, Sheffield, London and Munich. I was also privileged to lead workshops with Scott’s group in Portland, Oregon.

[I also did the flier designs]

Here's an outline of the core aims of the workshop form

Through Interlo-uck I have developed different strands of work.

I’ve contributed consistently to Slavek Kwi’s Unisol project – a telepathic music collaboration on each of the full and new moons. It’s an international project where artists record within a set time window and the outcomes are layered as a piece.
Find out more here >>

Here’s a Unisol album from 27th Dec 2023 featuring Slavek, Laura Howard and Interlo-uck.
2712_triverse plus 2 on Bandcamp

The solo work I’ve put out so far has been the Finisterre albums. These are a set of recordings based on the exploration of the run-outs from two vinyl albums per piece. These can be pure: allowing the subtle rhythms of the run out grooves to play against each other or abstracted via effects and instruments.
The Finisterre albums on Bandcamp

I’ve also started exploring this work with artists in other forms. But more of that later…

Mxolisi Norman is a South African writer, performer and musician. I worked in collaboration with him on Volume Please!, an exploration of his heritage in apartheid South Africa. Through storytelling, poetry, music and song he introduced his mother as ‘Queen of the Shabeen’ and showed his father’s rejection of ‘coloured-ness’.

I directed this piece, collaborated on script edits and structure and performed double bass to Xoli’s trumpet.

This piece has been performed in the UK and South Africa.

I’ve worked with Sabrina as a double bass player, singer and arranger creating and performing her beautiful songs since 2018. We’ve gigging together across the northern region and in southern Ireland. We’ve been performing songs from across her album and EPs like Goosebumps and Roots & Wings and also new songs like Butterfly and Carry on.

Manfred Karge’s one-woman tour-de-force presents Ella Gericke as struggles to survive and gain and regain her identity in the constantly shifting social and political climate of 20s to 80s Germany.

Directed by Bob Lockwood, who also did all the sound and lighting design, it showed Taru Sinclair’s range of rage and sweetness as she navigated Ella’s shifts and swerves.

Alison Hallett in a Portland Mercury review said, “The intimate Hipbone Studio is a perfect venue for a performance like this one and the makeshift quality of the staging adds to the impression of seeing something intimate and rare.”

This was performed in the US, UK and Germany over a several years.

Kelman Group came about because Bob and Barnaby King separately worked with Scott Kelman at International Workshop Festival on different occasions. They individually pursued the work before joining up and inviting other performers to take part in the company.

A stable group coalesced along them and did regular workshop and ultimately developed work including Kilele with a Columbian company, Fuego, durational pieces such as 1024 Why is there Something Rather than Nothing and Encounter with Makoto Nomura and Hugh Nankivell.

In addition, we collaborated with Scott’s company on work such as What We did on Our Holidays and (Incredible) Things Happen on the Way to Other Places.

Go to the Kelman Group website

I’ve been collaborating with Liz Walker and Invisible Thread on several projects. Originally invited to help develop Catmother as a musician, I also co-devised/directed the eventual piece (in addition to sound production, photography and video).

I’ve also worked with Liz as a puppeteer on her classic piece Les Hommes Vides, presented at Manipulate, Falmouth and Beverley festivals and also Moving Parts in Newcastle.

We’ve also been developing new work including Homelife, a duratiional documentary piece about puppets in their home environments and Three Actions, an improvisatory piece with musicians Ben Isaacs and Kate Ledger.

Towns ‘N’ Country is an existential cop drama devised and shot in SE Portland, Or.

In the Bagdad episode we meet Towns Landau and his dodgy connection Al Pachucki in a rendezvous on the corner.

The episode “Bagdad” is above.

It is completely improvised based on street and shop signs in the immediate area. Also central is the gratuitous use of a white ’75 T-bird.

The episode “Phone Booth” is also available.

There were several other episodes of Towns ‘n’ Country made, including ‘The Fountain’ and ‘Neon Plumber’, though some of these are now, sadly, lost.

String Fellows began as an informal musical gathering for some blokes that wanted to make music but didn’t want to join a community choir. An eight piece – guitars, upright bass, tenor ukelele, banjo, resonator, suitcase drumkit and eight voices – performing an irresistable array of rock and pop covers and minty originals. All this was done in an at times idiosyncratic but always rocking fashion. Part piss-take but always meaning it.

SFs were particularly renowned for their festival appearances and Christmas Specials, which would include games and snowball fights as well as some great conga lines.

We even got the word ‘rumbunctious’ used about us in a write up in the Huddersfield Examiner when we split up. Respect. Here it is in full

All the String Fellows recordings on Bandcamp

I’ve been part of this Sufjan project since 2018 during which time I’ve lead sung during performance, played guitar and bass, organised the production of the 2020 five-hour online extravaganza, done live sound for the 25 piece band 30 piece choir and made videos to support the project.

The gigs are organised by a core group of friends and artistic associates that work with a community band and choir (usually 20-30 participants in each) to bring Stevens’ christmas songs to bursting life. We’ve done these across the UK and the events are always playful and profound experiences for everyone involved.

In 2024, our tenth year, we are playing at Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh and I’m organising the first performance of this project in Huddersfield: wrangling together the community band and choir and setting up all the relationships to get the whole thing up and walking.

Go to the Sufjan Christmas site