FERAL NEIGHBOURHOOD ARTS RESIDENCY
Melanie Jordan
Background
Feral have a track record of programming and producing dynamic artistic work for outdoor contexts. They are supporting a new outdoor arts residency aimed at Scotland based artists interested in developing outdoor arts projects responding to their local neighbourhood.
This residency opportunity stems from an interest in stimulating resources for artists to cultivate and present artistic work that happens out-with the limits of physical buildings and offers a lens to re-imagine public space.
2023 Recipient- Melanie Jordan
Melanie is a theatre maker based in Ayrshire, who creates performance in outdoor and indoor spaces which is visually driven, physically dynamic and exposes our shared humanity with curiosity and humour. She is co-Artistic Director of multi award-winning feminist theatre company Jordan & Skinner (Sanitise, At A Stretch, A Brief History of the Fragile Male Ego, The Time Machine: A Radical Feminist Retelling) and also Physical Theatre Practitioner with Surge where she co-creates indoor and outdoor performance with community groups and professionals.
She is currently directing Shrill produced by Scissorkick.
Wild swimming has become hugely popular since the pandemic. The rise in ‘dookers’ is primarily women, mainly older women. Since moving to Ayrshire Melanie has joined a group who swim in all weathers nearly every day. They call themselves The Salty Coven.
Melanie is making an outdoor performance piece about why dookers dook. The work will take place on Seamill beach, West Kilbride in celebration of salty covens everywhere, especially in Scotland, especially in winter.
Salt is an outdoor performance that takes place in the sea and is watched from the beach, created from the stories of dookers, inspired by the life in and around the waves. This residency will explore the first steps/ splashes of this project and experiment with making ocean-based community-driven performance.
Credits
Producers: Feral Arts
Image Credit: Patsy Millar