Process

Critically, Michael will remain the lead artist but not perform live in the project, enabling 24 Hour Stubble to embrace risk and represent an artistic challenge to his practice. It is important to him, after working on a triptych of personal projects, to sit outside of the work and activate other voices and personalities. He will work closely with the artists involved to source and generate material.

The initial phase will allow Michael to interview the artists and draw up a timescale for the devising process – allocating each artist a lead section based on their skill set and performance interests.
The recurring motif of the piece will be traditional folk song ‘Michael Finnegan’ with each performer as the leader of their own section. The project borrows from many different sources and stimuli, from folk art to live art, from Sweeney Todd to Taxi Driver, from Boy Bands to Barber Shop Quartets.

The second phase of Devising and Strategy will employ a timeline to inform the process. Building four hour-long blocks the creative team will work on 4 Hour Stubble, 8 Hour Stubble, 12 Hour Stubble etc. Each block will take a different creative voice to explore the diverse dynamic of the ensemble.

Once the structure is in place, in the third phase of the project: Production and Realisation, the creative team will devise performance and visual content for each section of the piece. This will involve the use of old and new technologies, from BIC razors to Babyliss shavers, from audio cassette to DV cameras as we explore the potential for Stubble-Cam and The Wild Track – a close-up live link from a camera zoomed in on a sleeping performer’s face and the sound of hair growing as recorded by an analogue tape player.

At the end of the devising process, we will present a work in progress of 24 Hour Stubble. The work in progress provides a forum for critical feedback from an invited audience of artists and promoters and an opportunity to test our 24-hour capacity.