A life outdoors

When Crying out Loud created ‘The Great Outdoors’ at the South Bank Centre in 1992, we wanted to bring work that mirrored the innovative programme inside, outside. Today there is an abundance of outdoor work, but it wasn’t like that back then, when outdoor work was limited to a few local authority festivals and the occasional LIFT event. There had been Council-supported events in Jubilee Gardens, but The Great Outdoors was a curated event reflecting the diversity of contemporary performance. It was a platform on which artists from different disciplines could perform to a broader audience. Large-scale European street theatre companies were presented alongside artists not known for working outside. Performers such as Alain Platel’s ‘Ballet C de la B’, Gavin Turk’s alternative art market, Orlando Gough’s ‘The Shout’ and ‘Jazz Jamaica’ were given space amidst the nooks, crannies and concrete to spread their wings before a wider audience. There is something more open and democratic about outdoor performance, especially when it’s free.

Throughout the 1980s, my research took me to festivals across Europe. These had a long-established tradition and were an integral part of village or city life. The work ranged from the established to the experimental. Audiences took it in their stride, moving from one part of town to another, and the artists were given opportunities to take risks. I was desperate to import this European model to England. The Great Outdoors was an attempt to break down barriers for both audience and artist. There is an egalitarian ethos to European festivals: the distance between spectator and performer is closed and the experience is much richer for it.

The Great Outdoors ran from 1992 to 1999 and during that time – and as a result of it – the landscape changed. This truly site-specific event opened the floodgates. Without a designated space, artists responded to the buildings, their roofs, their balconies, their walls and the audiences could explore hidden spaces. Outdoor work was seen as breathing life into the city’s streets. I carried out a feasibility study for the Mayor’s office on the use of Trafalgar Square to explore how performance could animate this most public of spaces. The Arts Council published its Outdoor Arts Development Plan. ISAN (International Street Arts Network) has been successfully supporting outdoor performance since the late 1990s. These developments were part of the transformation, both in our response to outdoor work and in our commitment to the programming of it.

‘The Catch’ at the Lyric Hammersmith and ‘Free Time’ at Somerset House were part of my continued efforts to take performance into unexpected locations: to animate foyer and fountain, dressing room and dining area, terrace and tunnel. Each year at Somerset House, an artist is commissioned to create a new performance in the fountains with the 55 jets of water becoming the stage. Since 2000, audiences for Free Time have soared to more than 6,500 per day and the demographic has changed to include families from all backgrounds, economic and cultural. In Liverpool, the audience for ‘Laika’s Sensazione’, funfair powered by the audience, was equally diverse, and as delighted by the experience in the fray of the funfair.