RashDash Theatre Interview for Noises Off 2011

In which Abbi and Helen from RashDash answered my questions in an interview for NSDF's magazine, Noises Off.

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'We’ve set up an installation in Scarborough college,' says Abbi Greenland, of visiting artists RashDash Theatre. 'It’s essentially a play den where you can come and have fun for half an hour. Letting yourself go and finding an unleashed physicality is an essential aspect of our work. The space we’ve created gives everyone a chance to do that in a non-threatening un-scary way. There's also a film showing on Friday at 5pm for those who’ve come along during the week.'

RashDash Theatre (Greenland and Helen Goalen, as well as collaborators including Marc Graham and various musicians) was formed by students at the University of Hull's Drama Department, who have been producing and touring their own work since 2008. The company shares a ' desire to make work that formally encompasses music, physicality, drama and story'. They're also visiting artists at this year's Festival; their recent Fringe First award-winning show, Another Someone, will be performed on Thursday in the Spa Theatre at 10pm.

RashDash first came to NSDF in 2008 with their selected show Strict Machine (which 'wasn’t sophisticated thematically or formally') and then again with another selected show in 2009, Never Enough ('a development of what Strict Machine had been').

Their work has been described as feminist and funny, a description they are perfectly happy with: 'A show should always have at least one laugh, no? We’re both happy to be labelled feminist, although sometimes it puts people off... Being funny is a good way of getting round that. Our new show is feminist and funny, we hope. And whether it’s feminist or not – our stories are always told from a female perspective - because that’s who we are and that’s what we know. Our new show [Scary Gorgeous] is political, Another Someone isn't. We make shows about things that we care about at the time, and if that’s political, then the show is political.'

None of RashDash's shows are easily pinned down to one performance genre, often including dance and live music as well as theatre. 'We’ve never had a finished script before entering the rehearsal room so we’ll often switch between writing, choreographing and rehearsing scenes in one session. The musical side of our work is probably the most enjoyable element, having a group of people jamming out harmonies/parts is just a lot of fun and always a welcome break'.

The last few months have been busy for RashDash, and the future doesn't involve much slowing down. They're touring Another Someone across the UK, and previewing their new show, Scary Gorgeous. It's 'about raunch culture and porn. We wanted to know what people find sexy because we have a sneaky suspicion that the ways in which we try to be sexy and the things we find sexy often have very little to do with pleasurable sex.'

One thing NSDF is so good at is promoting and assisting upcoming new companies, and RashDash is one such company. 'it was great to meet the selectors and the visiting artists, who were encouraging and lovely, but the best bit was seeing other student shows. There was some great stuff going on, really different kinds of shows to those we’d seen before and really different to the kind of thing we were seeing at Uni. It made us hungry to make something better and different'. But selected performers aren't the only ones to benefit from the opportunities the Festival offers; anyone who's here has a chance to meet those people and see those shows.

For companies hoping to follow a similar route to them, RashDash have this advice:

'Keep going. It is difficult and at times you may feel ridiculous and like you shouldn’t be doing it, but if you’re passionate enough about making shows you will make it work.

Be honest with yourself about what you’re good at and what you’re not. Find people who are better than you at the stuff you’re not good at. This is a big lesson we are currently learning.
Work with people you like. If they’re brilliant but you don’t like them, it probably won’t work. '

I asked Abbi and Helen if there was any one thing they would recommend doing while in Scarborough. Their suggestion was 'paddling'...so go and enjoy some paddling.