Welfare State International
Encyclopedia
Welfare State International were an influential performance group based in the UK and founded in 1968 by John Fox and Sue Gill. Fox was, and remains, a vociferous proponent of 'celebratory theatre' and an anarchic, energetic and imaginative approach to creating theatre. In 2006 they felt the radical edge had gone elsewhere. It was necessary to avoid re-inforcement of the status quo - see "Flight from Spectacle". Fox and Gill archived the company in 2006 and formed Dead Good Guides, their new company, with associate artists, to pursue research into ecology, perception and performance. A collective of WSI's core artists was waiting in the wings to take the work forward with a 3 year plan for Lanternhouse. This was rejected by the board.
Art College. John Fox was among this group as was Albert Hunt
. The early group were itinerent, travelling with an entourage of trucks and caravans, and seeing themselves very much part of the alternative and radical sub-culture of the period. In 1972 they were eventually invited by Mid-Pennine Arts to settle down on a disused waste site in Burnley
, Lancashire
and began to develop a series of ambitious 'Celebratory Theatre' events. Boris and Maggie Howarth joined the company at this time. Boris had been involved with John Arden
and Margaretta D'Arcy and eventually became joint artistic director. Howarth invented large scale fire spectacles such as "Parliament in Flames", which developed from 1974 - 1981. Fox and Howarth collaborated on devising and directing several symphonic performances in landscape for WSI - notably "Tempest on Snake Island" 1981 Canada and "Wasteland and the Wagtail" 1982 Japan. He left in 1987, leaving John Fox to share artistic responsibility with Sue Gill. The company moved from Burnley in 1978, eventually settling in Ulverston
in Cumbria
in 1980, and creating Lanternhouse which remains as an arts centre with few links to the WSI years.
During their existence WSI nurtured many of the creative individuals who founded the next generation of the leading performance companies in the UK and further afield, including the group of artists who left in 1977 to form IOU Theatre, Pete Moser of More Music Morecambe, and Bob Frith of Horse and Bamboo Theatre
. Walk the Plank, Emergency Exit Arts, Dogtroep [Netherlands], Shadowland [Canada], Neil Cameron [Australia], Wildworks, Strange Cargo, Liverpool Lantern Co. Musical Directors of Welfare State International included Mike Westbrook, Lol Coxhill, Boris Howarth, GP Hall, Luk Mishalle, Chris Hobbs, Greg Stephens, Peadar Long, Tim Fleming, Pete Moser, Tim Hill.
, procession
, large puppets, music
, visual performance and folk/popularist traditions in a variety of combinations. They were initially influenced by Vermont
's Bread and Puppet Theater
both visually and ideologically. However, whilst Bread and Puppet is an overtly political company, Welfare State were committed not to make agit-prop
or didactic performance, instead WSI drew deliberately on British popular theatre traditions:
s, funerals and naming ceremonies
and anthemic public rites of passage such as "Trawlers at Peace" Grimsby 1993.
1994 saw the first workshop in devising secular funeral ceremonies. The publication on "The Dead Good Funerals Book " followed in 1996, since fully revised and republished in 2004.
For the Year of the Artist 2000 WSI commissioned 16 international designers and artists, including Hussein Chalayan, Gavin Turk, George Shaw and Bob & Roberta Smith to create funerary artefacts for their DEAD exhibition at the Roundhouse in London.
John Fox was always committed to working on a grass-roots level in collaboration with communities.
We are seeking a culture which may well be less materially based but where more people will actively participate and gain power to celebrate moments that are wonderful and significant in their lives.
We advocate a role for art that weaves it more fully into the fabric of our lives; that allows us to be collaborators rather than spectators:
Building our own houses, naming our children, burying our dead, announcing partnerships, marking anniversaries, creating new sacred spaces and producing whatever drama, stories, songs, ceremonies, pageants and jokes that are relevant to these new values and iconography.
We design and construct performances that are specific to place
, people and occasion.
Special festivals of celebration that reach a wide audience, collaborative exhibitions and installations, original songs and soundscapes, and ceremonies for important occasions in people's lives.
WSI's artists are deeply concerned for the survival of the imagination and the individual within a media-dominated consumer society, in which art too has become a commodity. All our work - especially our generation of primary artwork - takes a holistic and educational perspective.
Our long-term aim is to establish creative communities on our doorstep: to work in partnerships to develop a creative society where the full potential of each individual may be realised in a supportive environment, through active participation and imaginative play.
We offer full access and opportunities for the dispossessed and seek a multi-generational and multi-ethnic congregation.
Art has a central and radical role in our lives. In the everyday, it's about what we value, how and why we celebrate."
Origins
In the late 1960s Welfare State emerged from a group of teachers and students at BradfordBradford
Bradford lies at the heart of the City of Bradford, a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, in Northern England. It is situated in the foothills of the Pennines, west of Leeds, and northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897...
Art College. John Fox was among this group as was Albert Hunt
Albert Hunt
Albert Hunt was the inventor of the wigwag, a grade crossing signal used in transportation. Hunt was a mechanical engineer from Southern California. He invented the wigwag in 1909 out of the necessity for a safer railroad grade crossing. Hunt was associated with the Pacific Electric interurban...
. The early group were itinerent, travelling with an entourage of trucks and caravans, and seeing themselves very much part of the alternative and radical sub-culture of the period. In 1972 they were eventually invited by Mid-Pennine Arts to settle down on a disused waste site in Burnley
Burnley
Burnley is a market town in the Burnley borough of Lancashire, England, with a population of around 73,500. It lies north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River Brun....
, Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
and began to develop a series of ambitious 'Celebratory Theatre' events. Boris and Maggie Howarth joined the company at this time. Boris had been involved with John Arden
John Arden
John Arden is an award-winning English playwright from Barnsley . His works tend to expose social issues of personal concern. He is a member of the Royal Society of Literature....
and Margaretta D'Arcy and eventually became joint artistic director. Howarth invented large scale fire spectacles such as "Parliament in Flames", which developed from 1974 - 1981. Fox and Howarth collaborated on devising and directing several symphonic performances in landscape for WSI - notably "Tempest on Snake Island" 1981 Canada and "Wasteland and the Wagtail" 1982 Japan. He left in 1987, leaving John Fox to share artistic responsibility with Sue Gill. The company moved from Burnley in 1978, eventually settling in Ulverston
Ulverston
Ulverston is a market town and civil parish in the South Lakeland district of Cumbria in north-west England. Historically part of Lancashire, the town is located in the Furness area, close to the Lake District, and just north of Morecambe Bay....
in Cumbria
Cumbria
Cumbria , is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local authority, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's largest settlement and county town is Carlisle. It consists of six districts, and in...
in 1980, and creating Lanternhouse which remains as an arts centre with few links to the WSI years.
During their existence WSI nurtured many of the creative individuals who founded the next generation of the leading performance companies in the UK and further afield, including the group of artists who left in 1977 to form IOU Theatre, Pete Moser of More Music Morecambe, and Bob Frith of Horse and Bamboo Theatre
Horse and Bamboo Theatre
Horse and Bamboo Theatre or Horse + Bamboo Theatre is a British theatre company founded in 1978 by Bob Frith. The company works with a commitment to strong narratives but using visual, physical, and music-based forms rather than text. In particular it uses distinctive full-head masks...
. Walk the Plank, Emergency Exit Arts, Dogtroep [Netherlands], Shadowland [Canada], Neil Cameron [Australia], Wildworks, Strange Cargo, Liverpool Lantern Co. Musical Directors of Welfare State International included Mike Westbrook, Lol Coxhill, Boris Howarth, GP Hall, Luk Mishalle, Chris Hobbs, Greg Stephens, Peadar Long, Tim Fleming, Pete Moser, Tim Hill.
Theatre Work
WSI were ecelectic in their use of theatre forms and their work frequently brought together including carnivalCarnival
Carnaval is a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events are usually during February. Carnaval typically involves a public celebration or parade combining some elements of a circus, mask and public street party...
, procession
Procession
A procession is an organized body of people advancing in a formal or ceremonial manner.-Procession elements:...
, large puppets, music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
, visual performance and folk/popularist traditions in a variety of combinations. They were initially influenced by Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
's Bread and Puppet Theater
Bread and Puppet Theater
The Bread and Puppet Theater is a politically radical puppet theater, active since the 1960s, currently based in Glover, Vermont...
both visually and ideologically. However, whilst Bread and Puppet is an overtly political company, Welfare State were committed not to make agit-prop
Political theatre
In the history of theatre, there is long tradition of performances addressing issues of current events and central to society itself, encouraging consciousness and social change. The political satire performed by the comic poets at the theatres, had considerable influence on public opinion in the...
or didactic performance, instead WSI drew deliberately on British popular theatre traditions:
This long-term research-as-practice seeks to re-establish, away from the conventional building based middlebrow/middle-class theatre, the popular theatre traditions of the Working Class, such as CarnivalCarnivalCarnaval is a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events are usually during February. Carnaval typically involves a public celebration or parade combining some elements of a circus, mask and public street party...
, Feast of FoolsFeast of FoolsThe Feast of Fools, known also as the festum fatuorum, festum stultorum, festum hypodiaconorum, or fête des fous, are the varying names given to popular medieval festivals regularly celebrated by the clergy and laity from the fifth century until the sixteenth century in several countries of Europe,...
, the fairground, the mummers' playsMummers PlayMummers Plays are seasonal folk plays performed by troupes of actors known as mummers or guisers , originally from England , but later in other parts of the world...
, that vein of subversion-as-entertainment that runs through so much of folk theatre and song.
From the early 1980's WSI held annual summer and winter schools to pass on to other artists and performers the techniques and prototypes they had made: carnival processions, street bands, giant puppets, street theatre, site specific theatre, lantern parades, shadow theatre, installations, allegorical interventions, rites of passage work. This education programme, directed by Sue Gill, culminated in the MA in Cultural Performance with the University of Bristol Dept of Drama, Theatre, Film and TV 1999 - 2006.
Other work
As well as making public performances, WSI devised public and private ceremonies such as weddingWedding
A wedding is the ceremony in which two people are united in marriage or a similar institution. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes...
s, funerals and naming ceremonies
Naming ceremony
A naming ceremony is the event at which an infant is given a name or names. They can occur anywhere from mere days after birth to several months afterwards. Some of these ceremonies have religious or cultural significance. In Christianity the process is often connected with Christening.- Hinduism...
and anthemic public rites of passage such as "Trawlers at Peace" Grimsby 1993.
Welfare State International started doing cermonies to celebrate the birth of their own children, and to focus on the naming of each child as an event to be shared with family and friends. In each case, none of the parents concerned felt, at that time, that an orthodox christening service or church baptismBaptismIn Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...
would be relevant to the views they held. Nevertheless, there were strong feelings about not letting the occasion pass unnoticed, simply because established cermonies were inappropriate.
1994 saw the first workshop in devising secular funeral ceremonies. The publication on "The Dead Good Funerals Book " followed in 1996, since fully revised and republished in 2004.
For the Year of the Artist 2000 WSI commissioned 16 international designers and artists, including Hussein Chalayan, Gavin Turk, George Shaw and Bob & Roberta Smith to create funerary artefacts for their DEAD exhibition at the Roundhouse in London.
John Fox was always committed to working on a grass-roots level in collaboration with communities.
Welfare State Statement - 1999
"Welfare State International is a company of artists who pioneer new approaches to the arts of celebration and ceremony in the U.K. and internationally.We are seeking a culture which may well be less materially based but where more people will actively participate and gain power to celebrate moments that are wonderful and significant in their lives.
We advocate a role for art that weaves it more fully into the fabric of our lives; that allows us to be collaborators rather than spectators:
Building our own houses, naming our children, burying our dead, announcing partnerships, marking anniversaries, creating new sacred spaces and producing whatever drama, stories, songs, ceremonies, pageants and jokes that are relevant to these new values and iconography.
We design and construct performances that are specific to place
Site specific theatre
Site-specific theatre is most simply defined as a performance which exists in a particular place. However, there remains a widespread debate about any more precise a definition. Some argue that any performance which takes place outside a theatre can be labeled site-specific...
, people and occasion.
Special festivals of celebration that reach a wide audience, collaborative exhibitions and installations, original songs and soundscapes, and ceremonies for important occasions in people's lives.
WSI's artists are deeply concerned for the survival of the imagination and the individual within a media-dominated consumer society, in which art too has become a commodity. All our work - especially our generation of primary artwork - takes a holistic and educational perspective.
Our long-term aim is to establish creative communities on our doorstep: to work in partnerships to develop a creative society where the full potential of each individual may be realised in a supportive environment, through active participation and imaginative play.
We offer full access and opportunities for the dispossessed and seek a multi-generational and multi-ethnic congregation.
Art has a central and radical role in our lives. In the everyday, it's about what we value, how and why we celebrate."