Company TSU in association with Curious Monkey present
Beats North
Is this a man’s world? Would it be nothing without a woman, or a girl…Or a power ballad?
Beats North explores the soundtrack to growing up through the eyes (and ears) of two northern lads who are still trying to figure it out.
*winner of the Northern Stage Title Pending Award 2013*
*Lyn Gardner’s Hot Tickets for Edinburgh Fringe 2014 – The Guardian*
*Use of music is groundbreaking and fascinating - The Scotsman 2014*
Curious Monkey worked with Company TSU on Beats North, a double bill of new one man plays by Luke Barnes and Ishy Din, and featured Mariam Rezaei, directed by Amy Golding. Presented by a diverse team of emerging artists and originally developed with young men in Teesside, the piece engaged theatre and music audiences from different generations. The plays look at the way that we interact with music and how music is a soundtrack to our lives. The piece was explored through the eyes of two young northern men whose individual stories were seamlessly interwoven live on stage by Award winning scratch DJ Mariam Rezaei. The piece was made in the round.
Photos by Mark Slater
Autumn 2015 shows:
The Garage, Norwich
The Continental, Preston
Festival of Thrift, Darlington
Northern Stage, Newcastle
Jabberwocky Market, Darlington
Customs House, South Shields
Check out the project blog here:www.beatsnorth.tumblr.com
Resources:
The Team
Writers – Luke Barnes and Ishy Din
Director – Amy Golding
Musical Director and performer – Mariam Rezaei
Jack – Tom Booth
Al – Afnan Prince / Assad Zaman
Producer – Jen Dewar
Lighting Designer and Stage Manager – Simon Cole
Set Design – Holly Seager
Social Media – Grant Brydon
Graphic design – Jamie Wisdom
Dramaturg – Rosie Kellagher
In 2014…
We premiered at the Paines Plough Roundabout at Summerhall as part of the Northern Stage Edinburgh programme.
In September we performed as part of Sunderland Stages at North Shore Academy.
http://www.artscentrewashington.co.uk/sunderland-stages.aspx
In 2013…
With support from Arc Stockton Arts Centre, we ran a series of development workshops in July 2013 to explore the relationship between text and performer, audience and music.
With support from Fuel; Luke, Ishy, Amy and Jen attended an artists residency at Cove Park to work on script development in August.
Through the Title Pending Award, we worked at Northern Stage with support from the team there to develop the plays leading to a sharing at the end of two weeks in Septemeber and October 2013.
A work in progress of Beats North was shown at ARCADE’s scratch night at Arc Stockton Arts Centre on 20th November, and at the West Yorkshire Playhouses Plyground on the 5th December 2013.