In the mix
Nicholas Bone on Magnetic North’s quarter century
Edinburgh’s Magnetic North theatre company, creators of some a clutch of quite brilliant pieces of small scale work – and facilitators of even more – is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.
We asked company founder and artistic director Nichola Bone, about the company and its work, which is highlighted this weekend with MegaMix 25.
This series of sharings of works in progress, performances of successful pieces that have grown out of Magnetic North’s artistic development programme, Rough Mix, and live music sets – is taking place at Summerhall over this weekend of Friday 11 to Sunday 13 October 2024.
Gavin Mitchell and Pauline Knowles in Pass the Spoon, a “sort-of opera” by David Shrigley, David Fennessy and Nicholas Bone. Pic Tommy Ga-Ken Wan
Magnetic North has had its own successes of course. Mini opera Pass the Spoon, the interweaving lives of Linda McLean’s Sex and God, the revival of Tom McGrath’s Dream Train during lockdown and Nicholas Bone’s own magnificent adaptation of Walden, Henry David Thoreau’s book about his two year ‘experiment in simple living’ in the Massachusetts woods.
However, it is for its support work that Magnetic North has become increasingly well known and which MegaMix25 features. So here’s Nicholas Bone, first outlining how far the company has come since its first creative lab.
Artist Development
“We have gradually developed our Artist Development work alongside our productions ever since we ran our first multi-art form creative lab at Dance Base in 2006. That initial project was what has now become our flagship residency Rough Mix, which has now had 16 iterations, including the one that is currently running at Summerhall.
Since 1999, Magnetic North has
– helped over 350 artists develop their practice;
– created 17 new theatre productions,
– supported many other artists working in music, visual art, dance and literature to create new work.
Our programme now has four strands: Residencies, Development, Productions and Support.
The Support strand has included major opportunities like our Artist Attachment, where an artist gets six months of dedicated time over an 18 month period to explore a significant development within their practice.
Kirstin Murray and Sean Hay in rehearsal for The Dream Train. Pic: Magnetic North
This has led to visual artist and musician Hanna Tuulikki incorporating dance into her work, resulting in Deer Dancer, which was performed at Take Me Somewhere; and playwright Jenna Watt writing her first book, Hindsight. In 2023, Alice Mary Cooper spent a year as our Artist Employee, discovering how a small arts company works and developing a new show.
Artists involved in Rough Mix
Rough Mix has featured an eclectic range of some of Scotland’s leading artists from theatre, music, dance and the visual arts, including:
Composers David Fennessy, Nichola Scrutton and Matthew Whiteside;
Playwrights Linda McLean, Jenna Watt, Sara Sharaawi, Alan McKendrick and Morna Young
Choreographers Ian Spink, Tony Mills, Rob Heaslip, Karl Jay-Lewin and Marisa Zanotti
Theatre-makers Greg Sinclair, Mamoru Iriguchi, Julia Croft, and Andy Cannon; and
Visual artists Kate V. Robertson, Su Grierson, Sans façon.
The Residencies strand includes Rough Mix and our creative retreat Space/Time, where five artists spend time in facilitated conversations that give them space to reflect on their work and think about how they want to continue developing.
There is a clear progression for projects to develop from Rough Mix – or from other things like the Artist Employee role – through our Development strand and into production.
Shakara Rose Carter in Walden by Magnetic North at Fruitmarket. Pic: Jassy Earl
There are a number of things which are non-negotiable for us: artists are always paid for their time, whatever it is they are doing with us.
Financial barriers should never be an issue for participation, so all artists who take part in, for instance, our Space/Time creative retreats are paid for their time. This is much more widespread within the arts than when we started, but we still find it shocking when artists are pleasantly surprised to be paid for their time.It is accepted – expected even – in business and the sciences that good ideas need time and nurturing to develop so why wouldn’t it be the same in the arts?
financial and creative support
Our approach is that if you give artists financial and creative support they are more likely to develop interesting work. We are great believers in the power of collaboration to create better work, and we reflect this in our own structure as a small company.
We only have 3 members of staff, and, while we all have specific responsibilities, we all discuss and contribute to what the company does and how it does it. These values flow into the way that we make.
Lesley Hart in Magnetic North’s Sex and God. Pic: Colin Hattersley.
It is fairly well-known now that, underneath our feet, there is a huge, constantly evolving and adapting network that connects trees and fungi over huge distances. It is nicknamed the wood-wide web, but is more formally known as the mycorrhiza.
This is an image of how we want to see the arts and artists working in Scotland – a powerful network of individuals and companies supporting and nourishing one another, and that is what we are working to achieve.
We have worked with more than 350 individual artists through our programme, and each one of those people is connected to others, and they are all creating work and sustaining the culture of Scotland. Society can only thrive with a healthy arts sector, and the arts thrive through the work of many, so we have to find ways to support as many individuals as possible. We hope to continue making a contribution to making that happen.
Some of the projects that have come out of Magnetic North’s development programme:
What You See When Your Eyes Are Closed / What You Don’t See When Your Eyes Are Open by Mamoru Iriguchi (theatre)
Hindsight by Jenna Watt (book – shortlisted for the Highland Book Prize)
Space Ape by Andy Cannon (CATS award winner)
WhirlyGig by Daniel Padden (Made in Scotland)
Motherhood by Ailie Roberston (music – premiered at Sound Festival in 2019)
Night Vision by Nichola Scrutton (music – album and live performance)
Deer Dancer by Hanna Tuulikki (installation and durational performance),
Working on My Night Moves by Julia Croft (theatre – Total Theatre Award winner)
Not everything that artists develop with us goes into production, either with us or with other producers – but nothing is wasted. It’s easy to get stuck in one way of working, but we try to create spaces where artists can play with something new in a safe, supportive environment.
The experience of being given a space in which to take risks is essential – too often, artists are expected or encouraged to repeat what they already know they can do. Our approach is to encourage them to try something new, to take a risk and see what happens.
MegaMix will feature some of the newest work coming out of the programme in work-in-progress sharings, including Aznavour, Mon Amour by Alice Mary Cooper – her tribute to Charles Aznavour, developed at our Rough Mix residency last year; a new play by Sara Sharaawi developed at this year’s Dumfries and Galloway Rough Mix; Holy Magic by Greg Sinclair – first developed at Rough Mix in January 2020; and Strength in a Whisper – a new piece of music theatre by folk singer Kirsty Law working with dancer Molly Danter that originated at Rough Mix 2021.
MegaMix also features live music sets by two of the many musicians we’ve worked with – Jill Lorean and Djana Gabrielle, both of whom worked on our production Lost in Music, and who have also participated in the residencies we run to support individual artists keep developing.
There’ll also be work from artists nominated by two of the organisations we’ve partnered with: Luminate and Sanctuary Queer Arts. The festival programme reflects the uniquely broad range of artists and artforms that Magnetic North works with.
Listing
MegaMix 25
Summerhall, 1 Summerhall, EH9 1PL.
Fri 11 – Sun 13 Oct 2024
Fri: 6pm; Sat: 4 – 9.30pm; Sun: 3.30-9.30pm. (Cairns Lecture Theatre and Old Lab).
Tickets and detials: Book here.
ENDS
