Homage
Brighton at dawn, 4:15 am, Sunday 3rd June 2018
Dearest Bones,
Here we are again, on the verge of a miracle, putting together with nothing more than a lot of work and all our imagination, a full-grown festival of European theatre, a feast of performances at the heart of the city of light!
I look across the sea, straight south, and recap the long journey that it has taken Bred In The Bone, to go from here to the French capital. I think of the glittering and utterly mesmerising presence of Tanya Munday, Krysha Krotoska and Rafal Habel in our celebrated debut performance "Unreal City" that toured Europe before the company took its name. What we learnt then of Musicality, movement and text, and how much we owe to them the seeds they have left for us to grow over the last nine years.
I think of the first 'dream team', sweating their way on the floor of the Laboratorium of the Grotowski Institute in 2010 and 2011, and Obra center in the South of France - the magnificient Guobjorg A. Jons Huldodotir, Keiko Yamagushi, Rodrigo Miranda, Jesus Martinez, Bearble Ashenberg, Darek Szymor and the musicians Daniel Gott and Alex Scott. Those who would be the company for many years to come were already there, shining through their work as student actors, directors, writers, light designers -, Gudda Bear, Andrew Elkins, Amanda Collins, Nick Borsack, Smuel Yechezkel.
It felt that we visited the whole of Europe and beyond, with company members met along the way like Alexis Ioannou and those who helped us to finish our epic '21 Windmills', on Don Quixote/Shakespeare. - the irreplaceable Gabe Manthrop, and later Kate Radford. With the magic recuring presence of visitors like Tinna Torvald or Annabel Morley, the company never ceased to crow, transform, reshape itself, but always by reference to its core - to breed in its bones, be visible in the flesh and finally on the skin, a theatre made of passion, of commitment, of engagement.
It would be silly to count the number of students, the number of workshops, the number of places, countries, cities, or the number of hours training, making, devising, performing that this company has done over just 8 and 1/2 years of existance. "J'ai plus de souvenirs que si j'avais mille ans" - and so does Bred In The Bone, or so it feels like when looking at the horizon towards the East this morning, where the sun rises on the clear, calm, transparent waters of the sea. The thousand memories of this company start to work through me, bringing me a tinkle of excitement: we will soon be together again, making theatre again!
In the last year, the company has grown tremendously in scope, in vision, in strength. Suddenly looking ahead, the sun has now risen, and for the company perhaps a new dawn.
The three mousketeers (Matilde Jalles, Ksenia Sofronova, Tomek Borczyk and Lilia Mladenova) with the fierce help of Ciaran Hammond and lately Keenan Chiason, have given us an beautifully crafted 'The Ship" and will do so in Paris this year, and have an international tour lined up for them. They are the new force of this ever changing company, and one of our most dedicated and powerful line-up.
So dear BITB actors, go up on stage and burn it with you hearts the way we do, I cannot wait to see you there.
I celebrate your bravery, your courage, your generosity and your love - all of which makes this little company of ours my most and proudest achievement.
Lets make some theatre!
Matthieu Leloup
