FIVE YEARS OF THIS BLOG!  

My blog has served me more as an aide memoire or diary than an interactive blog inviting comment and discussion.  Over the last year I've explored the option of having a website or self-publishing some of the essays I've written, particularly those composed during Lockdown. Unfortunately the cost of living blows these options out of the water. 

Firstly technical help is imminent  in tidying up this blog so titles of posts are evident on the home page. Such as my more detailed CV accessible in the April 2023 post below.  

Secondly help at changing the domain name. I have done so much work on later life academically, in my writing (Age Queer)  and through  performance  (Artivist in a Box). I have so many other directions I want to go in. 

The last year has seen me:-

 In two  supporting artist roles in local filming via Phoenix Casting of the blink and you'll miss me kind,  Also playing a dying woman in a University of Bristol student film, Evenescent Nexus, for which the highly professional young film makers raised the money to pay the cast.  

Spending much time on immensely rewarding trustee duties for Travelling Light Theatre. 

Being an Open Mic impresario (?) for fundraisers at Cafe 5 (Bristol Refugee Rights) and at the Dark Horse (Travelling Light's Big Give Challenge). 

Enjoying improv workshops at the amazing Wardrobe Theatre

Seeing great theatre here in Bristol.  

And finally researching and writing my  script for The Benefit. The first draft has been completed and excerpts have been performed at the above Open Mic events.  

 

JO CROSS PROFILE

 

MORE DETAILS ABOUT MY CURRENT WORK AND A FULL C.V.

JO CROSS   e.mail:  jecross19 [at] yahoo.co.uk  mob.: 079756565473

 

I am a Bristol based actor, writer, activist,  para-academic and drama workshop facilitator. I identify as she/her and am proud of my east London background.

AN ACTOR:  Theatre Training (Guildhall School of Music and Drama)  followed by Theatre in Education training at City of Birmingham College of Education. I spent some twenty years teaching in East London (South Hackney and Kingsland Schools). I continued to develop my  theatre skills at Chat’s Palace Community Theatre  in Hackney.

2006 – 1017 I worked as a freelance education facilitator working for Bristol City’s Museums, Galleries and Archives, also developing  actor/character led schools’ workshops at the Red Lodge, Blaise Castle and MShed.

2021-22 I  was employed as an actor on “The Creative Histories of Witchcraft”, a collaboration between Will Pooley of Bristol University’s History Department, playwright Poppy Corbett and poet, Anna Kisby Compton.

WHAT I CAN DO:  Develop and deliver bespoke drama workshops across the age  range  for collaborative/ developmental purposes.   Below part of a drama workshop I delivered at Trinity Centre Bristol, exploring ageing and identity:-

                   

Play the part of an older woman -  so long as it’s not a stereotype!   

With Rebecca Braccialarghe in “How Many Things Can You Think About” 2021 Café 5, Easton.

 

A WRITER:  2021 saw me awarded support from Theatre West for my script “Age Queer” under their Arts Council funded, Zooming Ahead scheme for Women Writers.  A Zoom performance was followed up by a live performance at  Bristol’s Trinity Centre last year.

                                            

Feedback:-

From Heather Lister   : That was wonderfully moving, funny and inspiring (from the P.O.V. of someone 70ish!!) I enjoyed all the performances; it is beautifully written, original and ingenious in many ways and I cannot think of any ways in which I think it could be improved. I'll look out for a future performance. Thank you!

From James Peries   : Very much enjoyed the detailed history of the early 80s for the characters; all felt very true.  Established very strongly the history, activism, and engagement that gets negated when older (in others' eyes). 'Elders' recruiter being a funeral director in his day job a good twist!  Decline of Norma at the end was strongly written and acted.  Thank you. 

From Jean Cooper Moran   : Jo's 'Age Queer' play was a superb idea, with realistic and robust themes, humour and a touching friendship between these chippy characters. The actors all jumped into character immediately; the PO's monologue at the beginning was gripping. The dramatic sequencing and dialogue were true to life and held our interest throughout.  Bobby Sands was a tragic theme, and foreshadowed Nora's own last act as a 'refusenik' - great phrase.  I accepted the use of sadism in the earlier scenes pointed up the internal conflicts of being gay, and the terrors and rewards of joining that community. My brother would have identified with Alan.  Brian the happy lanyard was a well acted and telling character.  God save us from the 'home' at the end of life...

 

2021 I wrote (within three weeks!)  “How Many Things Can You Think About (When You’re Lying Under an Immigration Removal Van)” for Odd Lot Theatre, this performed as a fundraiser for Bristol Refugee Rights at Café 5, Easton.

Current project.  A show for solo performance, working title The Benefit.

Elevator Pitch:   In this gothic  satire on human frailty – and the art of tailoring - a  black gentleman’s  overcoat passes through a turbulent, 20^th century, European  city attracting a random  mix  of owners along the way.  Who gets to feel the benefit of this most universal of garments and who’s left out in the cold? And what purpose does our coat serve when it surfaces in the 21^st century?

  

WHAT I CAN DO:   Develop script for a variety of media.  Serve as ‘writer in the room’ on projects as they develop. 

 

AN ACTIVIST AND PARA-ACADEMIC

I have kept this simple blog going for the last, few years.  A progression from my doctorate and building on my concern for the subordination of later life in U.K. society, my experience of spending most of my life in multicultural Hackney where I raised my dual heritage family and myself being a ‘child of the 60s’ appalled at the monocultural assumptions about older people.

  

                                                                                                                        

  From my ‘Artivist in a Box’ performance in Broadmead Galleries 2022.

My doctorate was in Applied Aesthetics:  how cultural diversity can best be understood through our everyday, aesthetic lives; the sensuality of the  very stuff that defines who we are, this being particularly important as we grow older.    

WHAT I CAN DO Advise on or  review  representational practices, whatever the media, which include older people.

Devise and deliver drama / storytelling workshops using artefacts of any type for the purpose of exploring their aesthetic worth and  significance to a project.  

OTHER ACTIVITY –

I keep updating and expanding on my skills base attending Meisner and improvisation workshops, script writing workshops (recently with Matt Grinter) community theatre workshops with Acta under their Elevate scheme and recently workshops organised by Bristol Old Vic’s Ferment team.   

 I have served as  the lead on Bristol City Council’s  DIY Artists' Network Equality and Inclusion sub-group, as a Theatre Bristol agent  and am a trustee of Travelling Light Theatre.  I am a member of the actors’ union Equity,  Diverse Artists’ Network and Bristol Old Vic’s Artists’ Forum. 

 

Summer Update One

The last couple of months have been relentless and having building work done on the house has delayed my blog posts.  So I’m playing catch-up on what has been going on recently.


First up an amazing DIVERSE ARTISTS’ NETWORK EVENT

https://www.tribeofdoris.co.uk/diverse-artists-network/
on 19^th June at Ashton Court Mansion. So massive thanks to Tribe of Doris / Diverse Artists Network for providing a platform for myself and everyone else to air topics that are so important for the arts and society.  I was invited to give a talk followed up by hosting a discussion table on Ageism, Diversity and the Arts. 

I  focussed on recent evidence, emergent over 2018-2019, that we had reached a “Time’s Up” moment, given the extent of ageism in U.K. society.  This also justifies  why we need to think of “hyper diversity” in later life, reflecting the complex make-up of  Bristol’s multi-cultural communities. Finally I  made clear that arts organisations in Bristol need to be inclusive of older men and women in terms of the artistic mainstream rather than using community outreach/ health and well-being initiatives as the automatic default position.

I was so pleased that a range of interesting and talented people got involved in discussion afterwards.  So, in no particular order of importance I highlight the following.

Firstly, Hari Ramakrishnan  of Creative England drew our attention to a great annual event: Women over 50 in Film Festival.  A glance at their website indicates real possibilities for a Bristol contribution.  Rachel Clarke from Knowle West Media Centre had joined us at that point stressing how open her organisation was to engagement with artists and the community.  A really good potential collaboration here, particularly for those of us, like myself, whose experience has been limited to the theatre. 

Lucia Thomson, a dancer/ choreographer introduced the powerful work on our experiences of grief that she had been creating with her ensemble. I alerted her to a study of conversations around death just beginning at Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol.  Also  to similar  work  by Peta Murray who will be visiting Bristol in late July.  She is a performance artist and research associate at MRIT University Melbourne.  I am hosting Peta one weekend and  I hope to introduce her to some local artists / theatre makers.

We were joined at that point by a young social work researcher involved with the Manor Community (my apologies for not noting her name).  She was so pleased that I had a mentioned Sir Martin Green’s strident calling-out of ageism as she was an admirer of his work like myself.

It was great to have two amazing artists with me on the table throughout:  Hilary Finch and Delia Whitbread.  Delia  called  out some bad experiences / situations where she had been treated in an abusive, ageist way, for example rudeness from a young cyclist. She stressed the importance of resilience and visibility in later life to counter ageism. 

Hilary drew attention to the real constraints to securing occasional, freelance work for anyone reliant on universal credits.   Such income freezes the credits, creating  uncertainty and insecurity because the system is bureaucratic and inflexible.  This suggests the stifling of the ongoing potential of artists, across all media, to generate the work they’d like, particularly in later life.

Deborah Oliver, an author currently studying on a creative writing course, talked about the situation whereby older students are unable to seek funding for post-graduate courses after the age of 60.  Rightly she wanted this put under scrutiny and a campaign organized.  I pointed out that current trends in population ageing indicate that this policy is outdated.  Take for example,  the evidence that  many men and women are embarking on later life careers, or the evidence that women are now having babies much later – even in their early fifties.  Also as  the media clearly demonstrates, older men and women are just as likely to be  well and truly grounded in the cultural and economic mainstream of society. Our conversations indicted that attitudes towards ageing really need to shift in a big way this including the acknowledgement that older men and women in Bristol are a truly hyper diverse demographic, in tune with the cultural landscape rather than outside it. The arts have a crucial role to play in effecting change.

My only regret was that because I was hosting a table I did not get a chance to circulate around other groups.  I’d particularly wanted to speak to Bashart Malik / Lawrence Hoo / Zaheer Mamon the maker of “I am Judah”. 

https://chuffed.org/project/iamjudah  I was interested in the role that institutional ageism played in interpretations of Judah’s abuse.

All told, that day at Ashton Court was brilliant.  Some amazing dancing and singing, great conversations and all told a sense of  belonging felt by myself and, I’m sure everyone else there.
Ongoing and so very valuable, I have benefitted from two workshops this year.  Firstly, those run every month by South West Players Company for Equity members.  Very open-ended with the trialling of scripts and ideas.  Organized with such kindness by the amazing Kim Hicks. http://www.kimhicks.co.uk/Kim_Hicks/Home.html.
Secondly discovering Meisner technique with Ella Cumber has been an incredible learning curve for me.  Without realising it I had stumbled on a means of not only improving my own practice, such as it is,  but also how much it reflected my interest in process drama and social action theory.  Big thanks to Ella and a link to the Bristol Meisner Facebook page here. https://www.facebook.com/groups/242862463062113/?ref=bookmarks.  

I AM NOT WHO YOU THINK I AM WORKSHOP

It has taken me a couple of weeks to get my reflections together on this.  But to start,  big thanks to everyone  who gave of their time for this exercise,  to Trinity Centre for providing the space and Debs Weinreb for taking photographs.

Rather than copy and paste my session plan I’ll summarise the core components and indicate the potential alternatives I’d try in the future.

First up, and after all-round  introductions, and a summary of my aims, I gave out post-it notes and pens.  I cited the quote: “When I shut my eyes I can be any age I want” and asked participants to do the same.   Then to jot down that age.  I collected these in an envelope.  They then did the same with things they really loved and things that made them angry.  I put these aside.  Regrettably no time left at the end of the session to take these out and discuss them.

I then introduced the group to recent perceptions on ageing: the notion of “Age Queer” and “Post-Age” (principally taken from Ashton Applewhite’s “This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto against Ageism”. 

(Alternative 1: use these three “data sets” in the main drama situation.  Alternative 2: More discussion!)

I then set up a “Mapping a Life course” exercise, splitting people off into pairs. They were to chose an imaginary person and, using the surfaces and spaces in the hall, to take it in turns to describe key places, events and life course transitions in their chosen  persons’s life.  This took up too much time – as it did the previous evening when I’d trialled this with South West Players Company.  Getting the group back together I asked for brief summaries from everyone.

(Alternatives:  Put a 15 minute time limit on this or 5+ minutes for each person.  Ask for volunteer demonstration.  Swap partners and ‘hot seat’ each other.  Then ask the whole group to  ‘hot seat’ volunteer individuals).

I then put a number of random artefacts in the middle of the circle of our circle  and asked participants  to chose one that had an automatic appeal.  Some eloquent and deeply felt responses but participants reverted back to their real selves.

(Alternative: the artefact needs to be introduced before mapping the life course exercise, bolted on to the character they have created and woven into their narrative).

I then introduced the scenario which was to be the core of the workshop.  An imagined situation in which half the  participants, in character, would volunteer to take part in a clinical drugs trial for which the financial reward was remarkably generous.  They each had to affirm why they needed the money.

The remainder of the participants would be the personnel of  an international pharmaceutical company, meeting with and interviewing each participant to find the right volunteers.  The prospect of a week’s stay in a luxury health spa for the duration of the trial was added as a further inducement. This team were acquainted with the purpose of the potential drug: to cut off long-term memory but to afford a few weeks short-term memory with the day-to-day stability it might offer in later life. 

I gave the potential volunteers different attitudes to their own age to adopt, these  including “Age Queer” and “Post Age”.

(Alternative: Totally wrong stage of the workshop to introduce these.  Should have been established and shared amongst participants during the initial discussion.)

Inevitably this scenario over ran!  Much integrity from most of the participants in terms of sustaining their characters throughout.  When we had literally run out of time the potential volunteers were informed about the nature of the drug to be trialled.  More than frustrating as participants responded vociferously just as we had to vacate the hall.

NEXT STAGE……………..

To refine and develop this workshop and trial it with drama / theatre students.  One option is for a keen student to facilitate given adequate briefing.  Plans to approach the university drama / theatre departments, interns at Bristol’s theatres, local colleges and drama groups.





  

INFORMATION FOR WORKSHOP JUNE 13TH.

I

“I am not who you think I am.”

A free workshop taking a life course approach to ageing, identity, diversity and discrimination.

Thursday, June 13^th 10.30 - 12.30

In the Main Hall (ground floor) of the Trinity Centre, Trinity Road, Bristol BS2 ONW.  

To book a place / find out more email: jecross19@yahoo.co.uk

This is an everyone welcome, all-ages inclusive, practical session for theatre professionals and anyone with an interest in the performing arts as a vehicle for social change. 

This is part of an emergent initiative: New Wave Ageing – Cultural Diversity and the Performing Arts:   a response to recent, research evidence of the extent of ageism in UK society, and the need to acknowledge the complex diversity of later life.

Dr. Joanna Cross