Pod Q&A: Jamie Bradley and Vicki Igbokwe

From 30 Nov – 1 Dec Guildhall School presents Pod: a brand-new work created and directed by Jamie Bradley and Vicki Igbokwe (the team behind 2019’s Provok’d: A Restoration), and devised with the Company of Guildhall actors.

The bold piece of dance-infused theatre – live streamed for free – celebrates club culture and House music, merging it with the world of orcas to explore themes of family, culture, heritage, belonging and relationships.

Learn more about Pod from this chat between co-creators Jamie Bradley and Vicki Igbokwe, which took place on Zoom in October 2020.
 

Jamie Bradley (JB): How would you describe this show we’re about to make?

Vicki Igbokwe (VI): Well. Yesterday I was speaking to my neighbour and I tried out how I’d sum it up. I explained; we’re taking the world of club culture, house music and the love of dance and putting it together with the world of wild orcas.

And that was greeted by a bit of silence as she thought about it, but then she started to share some orca facts from David Attenborough programmes she’d seen and we got on to their naturally occurring parties, the way their pods move in the water, the family structures etc. and she said she was starting to get excited by the idea.

It was a nice moment to have to share our concept with someone who had absolutely no knowledge of the show and who went from “What? How does that work?” through to; “When is it? I’m intrigued.”

JB: Yeah, it’s definitely a tough one to describe, particularly when we haven’t even made it! I feel I can talk about it with a natural flow in terms of the club world, then there’s this weird gear change when the orcas come up.

I think what’s interesting is how we will solve and embrace that jolt on the show; as it feels to me that the magic of working on projects like these is working out how to place two jarring elements together and what happens when they start to bleed into one another.

VI: Yes and the magic is really also what the actors and the team bring to that mix. Any show takes a lot of faith and trust that we’ll make something together in the time, but this particular moment makes those pressures even more heightened! I guess we’ve just got to lean into our creativity and practice some active surrender that something beautiful can emerge…

JB: How does it feel to be doing a show about dancing in this crazy moment of 2020?

VI: The club world we’re looking at is that of house music (which obviously has many forms and communities) but also specifically a scene where dancing is really the thing. A place where that is medicine for people; food for the soul. Where people can really be who they want to be. This time clarifies how important those moments are.

I mean, just to clarify, I’m really not that much of a club-head anymore; I miss the clubs where people went to actually DANCE, all the great ones for me have closed down, so my living room is my club; unless it’s a special night out for a friend’s birthday. But! When the option of clubbing is taken away from you, it leaves a void. Now we have to be inventive to try and find that energy in our lives within restrictions, and that’s powerful. Not getting that feeling of going to a club to dance, to release, to truly be themselves is actually a really big thing for certain people. Especially if it’s how you recalibrate as a person.

JB: So what aspects of your own clubbing experience do you think you’ll bring to the show?

VI: I think these spaces are where people can really find their voice. For me there was a crazy night in NYC…

JB: That I definitely want to feature in the show!

VI: Well, maybe! But that club moment was so powerful, so special - it was like my rebirth; literally baptised on the dancefloor! It basically broke me all the way down and built me all the way up. It was so powerful.

It’s mad what the ingredients of music, dance and a sense of belonging and being empowered can bring out.

It was also to do with a sense of being invited, and being welcomed with all that I had. There were no criteria for any of us and that brought the essence. The rebirth of SHE happened in that moment! So I suppose, on an energy frequency level, that’s what I hope I’d somehow bring to the show! What about you?

JB: Well, we’ve talked quite a lot about how our personal club experiences have been really different - yours was really about dancing whereas mine was really about asserting my sexuality and experiencing hedonism!

The strange thing is that lots of my experiences feel historical today as the world has changed so massively (clubbing pre-internet was different!) but in another way lots of important intrinsic things are exactly the same.

Clubbing is fundamentally about youth and often a specific time of abandon in your life, something we often crave to re-live or experience again on a deeper level. I’d love to try to capture that specific energy that I felt, and also incorporate the actors’ updated versions of the feeling of club community. The origins and spirit of house music began with gay Black men, so it also feels important to me to honour that heritage in the show.

VI: How do you want the audience to feel at the end of the show?

JB: Hard question! I think I really want them to want to dance. My fantasy is that everyone will long to experience the sweat and beauty and joy and disgustingness of the dancefloor from what they’ve just witnessed. And I suppose I also want to highlight the complexity of these club spaces and what they offer to communities and that the loss of them is something to seriously consider. This moment when we’re robbed of them hopefully allows us to look at them differently.

Pod will be livestreamed via Guildhall School's website on Monday 30 November (7.30pm), Tuesday 1 December (2pm & 7.30pm) and Wednesday 2 December (7.30pm). Watch online for free.