When I got the opportunity to create a performance for the Thinktank Planetarium,
I knew I wanted to take advantage of the giant projection opportunities.
I also was committed to working out how to include a trampoline in the show for many reasons,
but mostly because trampolines change lives, and the trampoline is part of my life.
The only kind of trampoline I could fit in there was a little exercise one,
and the only thing I could imagine doing with it is a front flip.
I didn't know how to do one yet, so I tried it out.
Luckily, I had a long distance friend, Aggelos, in Greece,
who coached me on front flips for the next 6 weeks as I prepared for the performance.
I practiced so much, that the process of learning a front flip became a major part of the performance itself.
There's a love story there, and by the end of this chapter of time,
I concluded that front flip=love.
Besides working towards the front flip,
I devised a visual concept to create a parkour route throughout Birmingham
that would spell out the words on a map "You Are Here",
which would end at the Planetarium.
I recorded the route on a map, covering 15 miles over two days.
Tanna Chamberlain agreed to play the part of my soul,
who I would be chasing on the route.
4 films would portray me running though Birmingham,
moving in seemingly unpredictable ways,
but with a sense of purpose.
The music to these films were songs from a childhood
that sounded light and pure but had poignant
religious undertones to them.
In the 5th film, Tanna as my soul is revealed,
and we realise that that I was chasing her all along.
This is signaled by the movement we do together
in sync which emulates the movement I have been doing all along,
but before the context was realised.
In the creating process, we worked together to realise this movement.
I adapted this work in one more way by composing
a 2 part film series from the projection film that
we made for the Planetarium.
I added some personal commentary
at the end of Part 1 and the beginning of Part 2.
The debut showing of this piece is occurring in this portfolio.
I hope to find further opportunities to show this work as a film.
Watch this short film to see how I adapted Eliza Planets to perform it live and solo
at a bar in Salt Lake City Utah.
The live performance was streamed on instagram live,
filmed by Lucy Allsop.
This is the documentation of the Planetarium performance.
We used multiple projections throughtout the performance,
playing several screens at once.
Colin The Planetarium Guy,
had a speaking role as a planetarium guy,
and he educated us about the rover that explores Mars at 49 mins.
The films were mostly strung together by interlude performaces
of Fluxus scores, written by me and Tanna.
Eventually, the audience learns though the films
that I caught up with Tanna as my soul, earlier,
I achieved the front flip because of my soul preparing
the way for it to happen, and we arrived at the Planetarium,
which is HERE,
where we are singing songs and doing Fluxus,
and those films were taking us on a journey
are actually showing the journey we just took,
front flips equal love that brought us together,
and we have a new appreciation for the power of imagination
that got us somewhere and nowhere all at once.