Stan's Cafe - Miscellaneous Projects

Miscellaneous Projects

Stan's Cafe's independence and diversity of interests has allowed it to pursue a wide range of projects, some of which are not easy to classify. Some critics note that Stan's Cafe's projects exemplify “the subtle hybridity of recent British postmodern performance.” Although the company sees itself as a theatre company and promote itself as such, it has used “interdisciplinary sources to produce performances.”

In 1999, the company undertook a pioneering project of re-staging The Carrier Frequency, Impact Theatre's highly regarded collaboration with novelist Russell Hoban, better known for his dystopian novels such as Ridley Walker, for Birmingham City Council's Towards the Millennium Festival. Using video documentation as the primary 'text', Graeme Miller remastered the original soundtrack he had recorded with Steve Shill, and Russell Hoban supplied his original texts. The re-staging ran for three nights at The Crescent Theatre in Birmingham and was the subject of a conference on 'Archeology, Repertory and Theatre Inheritance' and supplement in Live Art Magazine. This remembering was in part developed with the intervention of the academy.

In 2000, Stan's Cafe curated The Future Art Symposia for Birmingham City Council's Forward Festival. It was funded by the National Lottery via the Arts Council England, bringing together a range of artists, curators, and academics from a variety of backgrounds. This series of four symposia discussing the present and future of art themed around 'Art and The New'; 'Art and Society'; 'Art and Technology'; and 'Art and Time.' The speakers were Jonathan Watkins, Heather Maitland, John Wyver, Ansuman Biswas, James Yarker, Michael Van Graan, Claire Smith, Alun Mountford, Sadie Plant, Heidi Reitmaier, Ann Whitehurst, Brian Duffy, Mike Pearson, Christopher Egret, and Claire Russ. Transcripts of the presentations were later published in book form.

A City Adventure is a creative orienteering adventure commissioned by Creative Partnerships as a training course for teachers encouraging creative thinking and teaching for creativity. The adventure was successful enough to be repeated more than a dozen times and franchised to theatre companies, Desperate Men in Bristol and Third Angel in Sheffield.

Framed was commissioned for the 2002 Croydon International Film Festival. It combined public street performances making a video framed around the venue using members of the public as extras. The video was edited whist shooting was still underway by Joseph Potts in tandem with Giles Perrin creating a soundtrack. The completed film then formed the basis of a live performance which took the audience from watching a film, to watching real life synching with film and being ushered outside to watch the shooting of the film's final scene. Lighting designer and pyrotechnical Paul Arvidson mocked up a fire in the building.

In the winter of 2004, Stan's Cafe created Ho Ho Ho, an on-line guide to illuminate Christmas displays around Birmingham and the Black Country, in collaboration with The Public. Edited by novelist Catherine O'Flynn, this project included photographs of displays, interviews with their creators, reviews, editorial comment, suggested tours and safety advice.