LAURA DE VIVO
Third-year NTU BA Creative Writing student Laura De Vivo discusses collaborating on a performance at Nottingham Royal Concert Hall – with brief cameos for several other NTU Creative Writing students, past and present!
It was a rainy Wednesday morning and I was making my way through the city to meet Paul Adey, a lecturer at Confetti and graduate of NTU’s BA, MA and PhD programmes, and various other creative types, in the belly of Metronome. I knew little about Paul and his work (he is the hip hop artist Cappo), though I’d gleaned a few things from the emails we’d exchanged when I had thrown myself at the opportunity of collaborating on reimagining a Greek Myth.
My confident stride slowed as I began to realise I didn’t know anyone else who was taking part. I arrived early, a little bedraggled, to find John and Kai, two NTU MA Creative Writing students and writers I knew from WRAP, and felt a little less uneasy.
Paul welcomed us with a cheery smile and took us to meet the four musicians and three other writers who would collaborate on the project. As Paul began to explain the requirements, I came to realise I really hadn’t read the small print – I’d just seen a writing opportunity and thrown myself at it. What was this talk of producing something in an afternoon and reading on the stage of the Royal Concert Hall?I made a mental note to read things more closely in future.
After the introductions we set to the task of brainstorming, discussing various myths we knew and how we could play with the images with both words and sound. Eventually, we settled on my suggestion of Pandora’s box. The notion that the world is in chaos, but we still have some control over an outcome, however negative the situation, seemed fitting.
Then I had to put pen to paper. Idea after idea was scribbled down, dissected, discarded, regurgitated, until I had something that would need serious editing, but at least it was something. I was rather unconfident about my efforts when we broke for lunch. Over the next hour my brain roared into overdrive: make it work, make it work, make it work repeated over and again in my head. I have never been able to produce something on the spot, I have learned I’m just not that kind of writer, but I wasn’t about to let the project, Paul, or Oba, the musician I was working with, down – so I just had to make it happen. I couldn’t wait for the stars to align. This was a lesson in collaboration outside of university. It was a lesson in the pressures that are out there for a writer.
With lunch done, it was back to the sound room. I still wasn’t happy with what I’d produced but it was time to show it to the group anyway. Despite the positive response, I went home to think, away from the pressure. And over the course of the two weeks between meetings I worked on it with Oba. By the one and only dress rehearsal we had something that had a little of both of us in it and we were happier. Ah, but Paul felt it wasn’t long enough!
I’d been given the task of writing ‘hope’, and was last to rehearse, giving me precious additional moments to write. I used the same words as the first stanza but with changes to create slightly altered images. Writing distracted me from the sheer size of the Royal Concert Hall, though periodically I also had to stop myself from counting rows in order to control the anxiety. How could I stand on that stage? Who wanted to listen to little old me?
Empty of props or equipment, the stage looked intimidating. I stared out at the empty auditorium, my heart pounding, as I read my poem calmly and slowly. I was relieved to get the last word out, and stood demurely as I was faded out.
Another two-week gap followed before the real deal. I tore my wardrobe apart looking for something that intimated hope, and opted with the floatiest dress I could find – a light apple-green one that, from a distance, looked white. It would do the job, I’m creative, after all.
I arrived at the theatre in time to watch the collaboration before ours. Then, at the halfway point, I slid out of my chair and ran around the theatre in the rain to the stage door. There we waited. The applause of the audience was our cue, and our part of the show began. I watched from the wings, my butterflies dancing harder as each writer read and left. Being last meant I had to suffer the whole anxious agony of the wait.
But when Oba began our music, I was no longer Laura the nervous writer, I was Laura the confident orator. Three and half minutes later, the collaboration was over, and the butterflies stopped dancing.
Has the experience deterred me from collaborating? Absolutely not, but in future I will certainly make sure I know what is required before jumping in! Despite my nerves, I have come to understand that I thrive in a collaborative project. Solo projects leave me with no one to make those final decisions with or bounce ideas off, whereas collaboration makes me part of a team, all pulling in the same direction to achieve the best possible outcome, something I couldn’t have done on my own. That is the real value in collaborative art.
NOTTINGHAM CREATIVE WRITING HUB 