RitaMarcalo is a hip, Portuguese, body-based performer; a
choreographer and doctor of dance. She is tiny but fierce and full
of good energy. Her performance company Instant Dissidence was
Leeds-based, now they call Bradford their home.
Sam, Chemaine and Douglas, an unlikely bunch of performers,
makers and doers who know this city, well went to meet the
new girl, to have a look at her new space - an entire office block
floor of Joseph Brennan House and to find out why she came to
Bradford.
After showing us around the company’s unique home, with an
almost panoramic view of our beautiful city, Rita showed off the
rest of the entirely empty building. It was very easy for us to see
and share a vision for this space.
Douglas – So why did you come to Bradford?
Rita – Residencies at Yorkshire Dance were no longer free. My thing
has always been, if I get Arts Council funding I want the majority
of that funding to go to the artist. I started looking at who could
give me space for free. Theatre in the Mill could and since then I
have never rehearsed at Yorkshire Dance.
A year ago I got approached by Point Blank Theatre. They were
looking for an artist that could be the first they were gonna act as
a producer for. They said ‘we like your work, we’d like to produce
you; we have a space that we are running in Bradford; would you
be interested?’
The minute they brought me here and I saw the space I felt like
Bradford offered me this.. it wasn’t that I just dropped in, I
already had a relationship with the city and with Theatre in the
Mill, so it made complete sense.
Sam – That’s really good for us. To have artists moving into
Bradford is really significant.
Rita - I have found that things are really open here,
the people are really open. It’s been really easy for
me to meet people, to talk about projects. Perhaps
because the scene is smaller, perhaps because people
want to make things happen and get something done.
It feels vibrant.
Chemaine – I call it dancing in the ashes. Bradford died when the
economy went.. I’m from Bradford.. I moved away as an artist. My
entrance back.. it came through the Playhouse.
We were building something there. It motivated me to come back
and work here.
Bradford is open because it died.
Rita – There are a group of people here who are making stuff
happen.. and that feels really nice to be part of.
Douglas – What is your call for Joseph Brennan House?
Rita – So this is the plan and it is quite ambitious, but I always say
to people ‘I don’t give a shit’ because I like to dream up stuff and
then if it doesn’t happen at least the dream was big and then I can
adjust to reality.
Sam – Bradford is a good place for dreamers.
Rita – Yes! So I want to do several things with this space. I have
the back up from Point Blank and there is a little bit of money,
and because arts graduates aren’t getting jobs, one of the things I
want to do is make sure that every year Instant Dissidence offers a
paid graduate internship in Bradford. To bring emerging artists to
the city and to give them experience and a step up the ladder.
The other thing I want to do is to offer four fortnight-long
residencies, in this space, paid. I want really interesting
international and outside-the-region artists to come to Bradford
because that will serve us well. If they are here we will develop.
It’s a completely selfish thing too.
In order to attract people to do residencies in
this space I have to offer money if I want people
to come from other countries. I’d like to set up a
pilot project. I work with a lot of people nationally
and internationally and I know so many fucking
amazing companies, but I know that if I say ‘Here’s
a little bit of money, will you come to Bradford and
run your amazing workshop on whatever it is you do
in Croatia’, they would, and how amazing would that
be for us?
And the other thing I want to do is this thing where I’m involved
with philosophers, biologists, hackers, all sorts of people, and I
want to run salons. It’s more than just about artists, it’s a year-
long programme of days and weekends where we say, ‘Let’s find
out how we can extract our own DNA out of our skin cells using
household items you can buy in the supermarket.’ Apparently it’s
possible.
Rita – And I have a bee in a bonnet. The thing is, I’ve seen a lot of
dance, I’ve seen a lot of art. I don’t want to see another dance
work with some slightly different steps put together in a slightly
different fucking way. I want to see something.. I don’t care if it’s
a dance, if it’s a book, if it’s an experiment, something that is a
new concept that is going to blow my mind. I don’t want to see
just another dance because I’m bored of that.
Doug – so that’s painting, making, playing, doing, filming...
Rita – Anything! As a maker, I want to strive, I know I won’t always
succeed, because most artists, if they come up with one new
concept in their entire lives can count themselves lucky, so I know
I won’t always succeed but that’s the challenge that I give myself.
I want to make a new concept, not just a different combination
of the same steps. I want this space to become an ideas space; a
concept space that could develop new collaborations.
Sam – You’ve come to the right city, Rita.
Rita – Yeah? I want to do it!
Sam – Well, it will happen then.
Rita – It will be all curated by me so it is specific in the sense that
it will be work that I am interested in, a particular vision of work.
It’s not that I don’t think other visions are valid but I can’t do
everything. So that’s the dream; it’s big and I’m going to call it
‘the dissident space’ so it’s a space where people can be dissident,
slightly outside.
Chemaine – That’s how new performance will be found. What gets
me is that when you try to do this in houses that exist already to
serve this purpose you have to really bang on the door.
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