Lydia Cottrell & Michael-Jon Mizra
Alter/Altar
Lydia and Michael-Jon (MJ) created a work called Alter, exploring ways of creating a safe and sacred space that is open to all, a new ritualistic hang-out for a generation who have replaced the evening fires with a laptop screen. This a space for people to be, to reflect and to own, with a large emphasis on care and bringing people together. Inspired by the notion of artist as magician and the creation of something that has the power to change perceptions, the artists will create a soundscape based around the soleares flamenco rhythm – a traditional dance that contains a transformation and binaural sound, sounds that trigger an emotional response. Alter will invite people in to move and be moved; to have a moment of alteration and real world connection before returning to their daily lives.
Lydia Cottrell is a dancer, performer, artist, prepper, cosmonaut and apocaloptimist. She creates bold and brave multi-disciplinary performance that challenge institutional status quos and presents new ideas and questions to audiences in engaging and interesting ways. Her practice is informed by a background in dance, live art and performance.
Michael-Jon Mizra works with found sounds, digital audio workstations, electronic rhythms, acoustic instrumentation, cultural audio and visual samples and digital signal processing techniques. Mizra creates work for guitar and/or sampler, exploring the relationship between science and art within a certain framework that places emphasis on dance as function and expression.
Lydia Cottrell said: “The residency with Skimstone was a great success for us. The five days gave us ample time to discuss ideas for our project and finally make a start working though the many ideas that we had. Skimstone created a very productive and supportive environment to create in, we really enjoyed the open aspect of the studios and meeting all of the other artists that were in the building. During our time in Newcastle we developed a plan that that has the potential to turn into a full body of work, we now have a solid foundation in devising the best creative process for us as artists together and have managed to schedule in the first stage of the plans and set goals and timeframes for our work. The guidance and support offered by Claire and Peter was invaluable, they gave us the space to work uninterrupted whilst also being there as a sounding board throughout our creative process. The chance to engage with the young artists was a great experience for us, as it helped us both formulate ideas through discussion. The young artists were very engaged in the Skimstone process and it was inspiring to watch them work along Claire and Peter. This especially helped MJ with understanding the Arts Award process a lot more and was an unexpected but welcomed by product of learning over the week.”
The residency was supported by Arts Council England’s Elevate fund.