Meet the

Artistes

Penny Brookman - Dance Workshop Leader & Performer

Penny Brookman specialises in traditional dance and is an experienced performer and workshop leader. She likes to collaborate with artists and musicians from a wide diversity of cultures. In 1995 she received considerable critical acclaim for her contribution to 'Rhythm Sticks'a performance at the South Bank's Purcell Room which celebrated the human foot as a percussion instrument. Currently working towards an MA in Performing Arts, she is pictured here performing as part of 1999's Newbury Spring Festival Fringe.

Tsiporah McAuliffe - Workshop leader for pre-school groups.

Tsippy began work as a dance & movement facilitator in 1989, since when she has worked with all age groups and levels of ability. As well as working on 'Timespan' she lectures regularly at Newbury College in performance.

Richard Westall - Writer and Workshop Leader

Richard was born in Southampton in 1952 and moved to Newbury eleven years later. He was a pupil at Park House School and then went on to Newbury College. He has worked in clerical and social work,jobs, most recently founding the Loose Ends Day Centre for the Homeless, at Newbury Baptist Church, where he is a member. He is married and lives at Turnpike. He suffers from M.E. (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). Here is a sample of his work:

Soft Bombs

"I am fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14)

Here are all the seas, breathing,
In our soft bombs, imploding
Swelling melons to bellows,
(Reddened greens, blueing yellows);
Which long talons, etched metal,
On hands that span islands,
Ravish with slashing, rip, to new sutures,
When, grey, laser-eyed, surgeons
Reassemble, by plunder, wonderful skies:
Which a flit, striptease, lightning,
Sears, with hot, dry, white, neon,
When lenses tic, stutter, on the blind,
Staring, shutters, of those graph-maddened cameras,
Which mimic numb, limbless, dancers,
Who twitch, deaf, to mute music, dumb:
Yet, flute moons remembered, our soft bombs,
Hot, throbbing, glow, glow, beyond gold,
In the kiss, of our sun!

RICHARD WESTALL

Charles Spicer. -
Musician, Narrator, Early Music group leader.

Charles trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. As an actor he toured at home and abroad and worked in the Royal National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. He also has regularly appeared on TV and in film.
As a musician Charles is a regular member of the Melstock Band - an English village band playing music of the past 200 years on period instruments. Recently he has been touring with the Boka Halat band who are a percussion driven band featuring members from the Gambia, India and England.

Gaye Poole -
Actress and Elderly Workshop Leader

Gaye started off as a psychiatric and general nurse before realising she needed a larger stage than a bedpan! Trained at East 15 Acting School and enjoyed a number of years acting mostly in fringe theatre, toured two self written one woman shows. After her two best performances, her two sons, is now a freelance drama worker currently concentrating on work with adults with learning disabilities and reminiscence drama with older people, as well as flexing her emotions with a fellow actor in a roleplay company.

Mark T. - Musician, Workshop Leader & Timespan Director

Mark T has worked as a workshop leader since 1992, working with all age groups and levels of ability. He has been a musician since 1977 and has recorded five CD's and LPs and performed at Arts Centres, Clubs and Festivals throughout the UK and Europe as well as on radio and TV. During 1997-98 he presented a fortnightly world music programme on BBC Radio South. He also lectures part-time at the Henley College. He is currently very interested in new music technology and ways of accessing it for people with disabilities.