It’s amazing how difficult it is to regain creative stamina. 

 

When Ayden and I were making Sound Cistem, we choreographed and perfected a three minute dance sequence roughly every 2 days of rehearsal. Now, the same amount of time is spent stumbling over 4 counts of 8s. Multiple times we slumped down onto the carpeted floor of Waterside’s studio, bloodshot eyes flitting to the clock ticking down precious hours, whispering “How the fuck did we manage to do so much?”. The notion that we once smashed out an entire vogue track, replete with dips and exacting half-counts, before lunch seems like a distant fantasy. Breaking down beats feels like long-division. 

 

Of course, a lot of things have changed since then. Not only a natural disaster that has left nearly everyone in the arts in tatters- but also our particular demanding job rotas, and worsening mental illnesses. It’s hard to summon the energy for punchy, political theatre when you have such a backlog of mental and physical exhaustion. Sometimes, I can’t help but feel like the driven, promising part of myself got cut from me when the timeline cleaved in two in March 2020.

 

If you feel like you’ve lost your confidence, your passion, your capability, your identity in the panacotta you’re not alone. Every artist I know is crumbling together their sense of self with a crusty old glue stick.

 

In early 2021, bored of having dissociated “idea meetings” over the phone, we applied for a bursary to create a new 20 minute performance piece for Pride In Trafford’s ‘Making Waves’ event at Waterside, in Sale. We didn’t get it. But when they got in touch asking if we’d still like to make an original piece for half of the time, and a tenth of the money, we of course said yes. Because we were desperate. 

 

We hoped that having an actual performance date, a real deadline to work towards, would miraculously bring us back to our previous, prolific professionalism. 

 

Cut to the day of the performance, where in the cavernous, high-ceilinged, wood-panelled  council chambers, that were given over as last-minute rehearsal space, Ayden and I are running around in our underwear to Ayden’s TransFag playlist. I’m sure that this is exactly what the Mayors of Trafford envisioned when they first entered these hallowed halls- two half-naked queers, sock-sliding to Ayesha Erotica, avoiding doing any actual work. Please ghosts of council past, we are sorry our butts are out, don’t curse us, and please help us dance real good tonight. At least we’re having fun. 

 

Most of our devising sessions were in a similar sort of vein- and if not structureless and chaotic, then spent huddled in foetal position, clutching caffeine. We’d occupied a year slowly diminishing our attention-span with quadrupled screen time, and our capacity for a) socialising b) being out of the house and c) forming coherent sentences was at record level low. 

 

Being a theatre company with limited funds means it’s incredibly difficult to get free and accessible rehearsal space: and the in-kind rooms we were offered by Waterside kept clashing with our ever-changing work rotas. So most of our days off in May were spent at my house-share, sound designing over baked bean lunches. Or, if the weather allowed, in the little glass-scattered garden, using the living room window as a dance mirror. Oh, so glamorous. 

 

We knew what sort of full-length show we wanted to be eventually working towards, so we decided to use this gig as an opportunity to trial out some material. Of course, every previous work-in-progress we’d ever done (for Sound Cistem, and our digital banana stream) had been a near-perfected show, minus perhaps the last 10 minutes. This would be very work-in-progress… three half-formed ideas strapped together under a soundtrack. 

 

We had a couple of concepts for sound we wanted to experiment with- and Ayden found their inner music producer on Cakewalk. Yup, that’s our industry secret: pirate/download free software from the internet. What they created surpassed both our expectations, and honestly was the best thing about the piece. 

 

In terms of what we were going to do under the track… that was where we were stumped. As it was for Pride in Trafford, we decided to ask ourselves “What Do The Gays Want?”. The answer of course was camp, reveals and nudity. And that is what we based our entire choreography on: cartoonish movement, an elaborate costume change and ensuring the audience glimpsed as much of our jockstrapped asses as possible. Are you jealous you didn’t see it yet?

 

Neither of us had really danced since Sound Cistem, apart from the occasional audition or obligatory tik tok. And by Charli, it showed. “It feels like MATHS!!” Ayden screamed, the mind-boggling task of figuring out beats-per-minute too much for both of us. The mixture of coffee and new medication made my brain feel like it was made of binaural beats (not the good kind), and after each stagger-through I had to sit down. After repeatedly watching music videos, stealing moves, then realising what we had just created was too complicated, we reverted to the physical theatre trick as old as time: if you’re struggling for choreo, just repeat the same sequence, but more slowly. Definitely not a cop-out.

 

“I guess that’ll just have to be the physical language of the piece.” said Ayden.

 

“Mmm.” I muttered, not convinced. Where was all the youthful assuredness I once had? I felt like I’d aged about 20 years in the last 12 months- but with none of the important milestones or life-affirming experiences to show for it. 

 

One of the tricks we wanted to try out in a theatre space was to create a ‘blizzard’ with sheets of money, raining down on us. After corresponding with Gareth, the techie, he assured me that an effect could be produced with rope and a bucket, hovering above the stage. As my dad often says, “Sometimes, you need money to make money”. In this case, all we had was 10cmx5cm of hand-cut printer paper. We hoped the audience would get it in the context of the piece. 

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On show day, we arrived at the venue to be told that the wifi was down. Which was probably a good thing, as I was too occupied with the specific type of slow panic attack that tech rehearsal’s induce in me, where I go non-verbal and my palms sweat, to do fun and inventive social media coverage. 

 

To be fair, looking back, it was understandable that we were nervous. We hadn’t done any form of live performance, in front of a real audience, in over a year- let alone showcase new material. We’d sent videos of us performing in rehearsal to friends asking “Is this good? Do you get what it means?”, which they were all very reassuring and complimentary about. But we were still unsure- me announcing three hours before we were due on that “I’m going to be a cunt”, and we should change the choreography, as I felt I couldn’t do it. 

 

“It’ll be okay,” said Ayden, mascara-ing their moustache, in our private, fancy mirrored dressing room. The free tea and coffee next to the kettle felt above our status. “Even if they don’t like all of it, I’m sure everyone will come away with at least one thing they were impressed by.”

 

“And that one thing will most likely be our butts.” I said. 

 

Before we went on, i was flooded with all the long-forgotten jingly-jangly feelings of backstage excitement. As the drag queen emcee conducted the crowd in whoops and applause, addictive adrenaline coursed through me. I was struck with the memory of playing Ariel in The Tempest in Year Six (a non-binary attention-seeker origin story), waiting behind the curtain for my cue, knees shaking. This is what I had been missing. 

 

Of course, as is customary when doing material for the first time, we did fuck up. A sequence went tits up, and unable to save it, we opted to style it out with a spin. But apparently it wasn’t noticeable. And from the cheers- they did seem to enjoy our butts. My housemates in the crowd said they loved it, and a lot of the staff were enthusiastic- but without our usual pint with the audience afterwards we couldn’t really gauge if it had been a success or not.

 

The rest of the show was an eclectic array of cabaret- featuring, among others, Fat Roland, Laurie, and the INCREDIBLE House of Mystique with jaw-dropping, roller-blading vocals from Jason Andrew Guest. 

 

I’m not really sure how to end this blog post. I feel like some sort of moral should come out of it- but sometimes it’s not that deep. All I can hope for is someone reads it and feels less bad about not being as creative and energetic as they once were. Things still aren’t normal yet- and we’ve got a long way to go. We’re all going through it, but we’ll get there.