Day 1

The first day is over and it felt like a great start. Everyone from the core group was there apart from Rosalind who was taking her driving test today.

So, in approximate order of arrival, we had...
Ruth McEwan (dramaturgy student from Queen Margaret on placement with this project - means of transport unknown);
Tristan Surtees & Charles Blanc (on the train from Glasgow);
Debbie Jones (also on the train from Glasgow);
Dave Fennessy (arrived from Frankfurt last night minus his luggage; on the Glasgow train this morning);
Ronan O'Donnell (on the bus from Joppa);
Clare Duffy (a short walk in);
Marisa Zanotti (arrived from Brighton last night, luggage intact as far as we know; on the Glasgow train this morning);

We did the geography game to start with: imagining a map of the world on the floor of the studio and placing yourself where you think your place of birth lies on the map. There'd been a leak in the roof overnight and the blue bucket catching the drips was made the Shetland Isles to give a point of reference. Then back through the generations and forward again following the geography of everyone's lives.

Everyone is introducing themselves and their project by leading a 90 minute workshop - as it was my idea I thought I'd better show willing and go first. My project is based around Thoreau's extraordinary book Walden, so we measured the studio with a length of rope and created a map of it - too complicated to explain why here, but should make sense to anyone who's ever read the book. The discussion that followed was as wide ranging and fascinating as the book itself - much discussion of art, the meaning of, etc.

Marisa had us working in pairs making short movement sequences with chairs - when we performed them individually we were observed by a camera as well as by the others. Some we watched on the monitor rather than live, though we could hear the live sound coming from behind us as we watched - later the monitor was introduced into the performance as a third character.

Clare's project has the Grassmarket itself as a starting point and we all set off on the various tasks we were set: I had to record 23 different sounds, Ruth had to take 79 photographs, Dave had to make 3 maps, Debbie had to ask a certain number of people the directions to a landmark etc etc. We met back in the studio and shared our results.

What I found heartening about the first day was the sense of generosity from everyone taking part - a real sense of genuine interest from everyone in what everyone else had to bring and no unhealthy competitiveness. It's going to be a fascinating two weeks, though I suspect that the real effect will only start to show when we go our separate ways. Three more projects to be introduced tomorrow, then the actors arrive the following day and we're off.....