In this episode we talk to Sarah Blanc and Mathieu Geffré about the way they approached the task, back in April, of pivoting work online.
They discuss their immediate feelings of desperation and the subsequent “battle to find a new way and new solutions” within new conditions. They talk about the nuts and bolts of involving a community cast during lockdown: building trust and connections through Whatsapp and Zoom. We discuss the choice of title for Mathieu’s lockdown film: The Ceremony, and Sarah’s approach to working remotely with an intergenerational cast using poetry. And we speak of ever-present frustrations of technology, intellectual rights and the challenges of keeping communities comfortable within a digital world.
Sarah and Mathieu bring the conversation to a close as they consider how they now place value on their work and the need they still have to “feel like we are surviving as artists”.
Prior to listening to the podcast you may enjoy watching Sarah and Mathieu’s Up My Street Online films – a Greenwich Dance project conceived (pre-Covid) to be a cabaret tour to community centres.
