DARK TALES FROM THE HISTORY OF 20TH CENTURY NEUROSCIENCE
THE BRAINLAND COLLECTIVE
Brainland is an ongoing creative project with a growing number of contributors.
Stephen Brown (composer/cellist)
Born in East Ham, London, Stephen was lucky enough to learn the cello at school with William Roskelly, and to have opportunities to perform orchestral, chamber and solo works. He also managed to have some conducting lessons from Sir Adrian Boult. He met Andy when they were both studying medicine at King's College Cambridge, and later at medical school in London they teamed up with Ken to produce shows and reviews. He trained in psychiatry and neurology at the Maudsley and King's College Hospital and held several academic appointments before becoming Professor of Developmental Neuropsychiatry at the Peninsula Medical School. He met Heather through his clinical and research work in epilepsy, and being intrigued to learn she was a poet, suggested she join the team for 'Brainland'.
Since retiring from medical practice his time is mainly divided between playing and composing. His four string quartets and several chamber and orchestral works have been performed in various settings in Cornwall and Devon including Truro Cathedral. During 2018-2019 he worked with Ken to set some poems by the poet Wilfrid Gibson, one of which, 'In Hexham Abbey', was performed in Penzance in September 2019. Since then most compositional energy has been absorbed by working with Ken, Andy and Heather on 'Brainland'. For more information click on the photo below to visit Stephen's website.
Heather Angus-Leppan (poet/writer)
Heather has been writing poetry since she could hold a pencil, and her poem “My Island” inspired an Indie Australian film of the same name when she was a little girl. She won an Arts Council Film award as a teenager for “Morning” which charted the first struggles of a duckling, poems set to Flutes of the Andies, and involved waking up at 4am for months to get beautiful sunrise shots, no mean feat for a teenager. The day before decisions had to be made, her mum told her to do medicine rather than science law, a decision which she has never regretted. It led her to a fascinating career in Neurology (chosen because she was pretty hopeless at it as a medical student and she thought it would keep her on her toes). Men, Neurology, babies and medicine (not necessarily in that order) kept her busy for a few decades. Friendship with Stephen led to joining with new chums Andy and Ken, the rich and lovely collaborations for Brainland and re-awakening poetic instincts to explore how personalities and twists of fate shape medical discoveries, trends and ideas. She is looking forward to future growth and productions of Brainland and its offspring!
Andy Platman (writer/dramatist)
Andy started writing sketches and directing revues at school. At Cambridge he co-wrote and directed the Medical Society revue and continued to write and perform with the Cambridge University Light Entertainment Society. Coming to King's College London medical school, he collaborated with Ken and Steve doing revue and pantomime to great acclaim. After qualifying as a doctor and training as a GP he spent 30 years practising in SE London and now, in retirement, is part of an active writing group. Recently he has had three of his 10-minute plays performed In Sydenham and on Broadway!...Barking Broadway. An opera-lover since his teens, Brainland is his first opera collaboration with his old buddies and Heather.
Ken Barrett (visual artist/illustrator/writer)
Ken is a mixed media visual artist and writer based in East Sussex. He gained an MA in contemporary visual art at Falmouth University in 2010 and has since worked on a variety of research based projects, including the Arts Council funded, mixed media, Formby Project. His work since 2015 has focussed in particular on the history of 20th neuroscience, drawing on his earlier career as an NHS neuropsychiatrist and academic. Brainland carries particular resonance because in the 1980s he carried out doctoral research at the Burden Neurological Institute in Bristol, the base for four of the characters in the opera. To visit his website click on the image below.
Chiara D'Anna (director/actor/teacher)
Chiara D’Anna is an Italian actor, director, movement coach and Commedia dell’Arte specialist. She studied in Italy, Poland and the UK. She holds a BSc and MSc in Geology from the University of Turin, an MA in Physical Theatre from Royal Holloway University, and a PhD in Performing Arts from London Metropolitan University. She teaches at RADA, E15 Acting School, Goldsmiths University in London, and the Accademia dell’Arte in Arezzo, Italy.
Since 2010 she is the Artistic Director of Panta Rei Theatre, a London-based theatre company that strives to create visceral, poetic and visionary performances inspired by the Grotesque, the Absurd and the Surreal. Chiara’s artistic vision is fuelled by her passion and commitment to pushing artistic boundaries. Her work spans from adaptations of plays to site-specific immersive work, multimedia performances, solo shows and opera.
Chiara is best known for her collaboration with writer and director Peter Strickland in the films Berberian Sound Studio and The Duke of Burgundy. Recent film credits include The Unloved Ones, A Dice with Five Sides and Midnight Peepshow.
Click on the image below to visit Chaira's website.
Adrian Look (choreographer/dancer/teacher)
Adrian Look is a freelance dance artist and lecturer for Tanztheater. He studied dance at the Folkwang University in Essen. He has worked with several dancers from the “Pina Bausch-Tanztheater Wuppertal”- Company including Dominique Mercy, Malou Airaudo, Stephan Brinkman and Rainer Behr. Adrian is a regular tutor at The Place and Morley College and a visiting lecturer at the University of Bedfordshire.
He has taught workshops in contemporary dance (Tanztheater), ballet, and improvisation for over 15 years and has led classes for various professional companies, including
Alvin Ailey II, Tanztheater Bielefeld and the Origen Festival in Switzerland.
Adrian has been running independent classes and has taught one off workshops in London and the UK at various institutions including Rambert School, Rambert Playground,
The Place, Trinity and Laban, University of East Anglia, Siobhan Davies, Chisenhale Dance and Greenwich Dance. Adrian moved to the UK in March 2014 and formed T a n z t h e a t e r Adrian Look (TAL) in 2016.
Click on the image below to visit Adrian's website.
Francesca Prizzon (costumier/graphic designer)
Fran has been working as a Costumier for over 7 years, including working for award winning Costume Designers such as Consolata Boyle, Micheal O'Connor and Colleen Atwood on a number of feature films and series. Her background in Graphic Design also informs her work and she believes that design is a discipline in itself that sees no boundaries across all of its outlets, making sure her costume work is not only resourceful and inventive but also always aware and respectful of all the other work involved in a production. Whilst she mainly focuses on crowd fittings on larger scale productions, bringing the "background" of each scene to life, she has taken on Costume Designer roles on smaller scale films that she feels passionate about.
To visit Fran's IMDB listing click on the photo below.
Tricia Durdey (dancer/writer/choreographer/teacher)
I was four years old when I was taken to my first dancing class, to help me to get over my shyness. It was terrifying and I refused to join in – but despite this I begged to return the next week. There was something in the strange ritual of skipping, hopping and jumping to music that I recognised, and craved. And so began my dancing life. At around the same time, I discovered that the jumble of letters in a book transformed into wonderful stories, and so the world of books opened for me. Dance and writing have been partners in my life ever since. I dance as a way to survive. I write fiction as an attempt to make sense of the world. These are the gifts I hope to give to others – the love of moving, the joy of watching others dance, the wonderful connections and discoveries created through fiction.
Dance is a key theme in both my novels, published by Cinnamon Press. Dance is a way of survival in The Green Table, a novel set during the German Occupation of the Netherlands. In The Dancer at Worlds End, dance for my main character Gregor Von Loeben is a way of both escaping from and facing guilt and terror. My memoir, Upside Down in a Hoop, is about loss and letting go. It explores what it was that kept me going through tough times, the joy of dancing as a child, and the adventures I might dare to take as an adult. What began as a book has now developed into a performance, mixing words and movement. Who knows where it will lead me next.
To visit Tricia's website click on the image below.
Tim Taylor (dancer/choreographer/teacher)
Tim Taylor, Programme Manager for Dance at Morley College London since 2012, organising dance study and performance for the College community, has enjoyed a sustained period of involvement with the developing project of Brainland the Opera. A dance artist with experience in performance and choreography, he maintains an ongoing profile in performance alongside his work in education.
Julian Waite (actor/director/puppeteer/musician)
Julian is a puppeteer and performer and an associate artist with Curious Cargo Theatre Company. He devised the Winter Sprites and Meadow Sprites, two walkabout shows where cheeky characters entertain children and insult their parents. Julian was educated at Oxford University and Bristol Old Vic Theatre school, and has written on Victorian actor and cartoonist Marie Duval for Manchester University Press. He has had a varied career in community theatre working for companies like Welfare State International and producing large scale community events involving processional puppets, withy lanterns and literally hundreds of performers. He was in BAFTA nominated interactive website ‘Work’ for Manchester Art Gallery, emerging from the eponymous Ford Madox Brown painting as three characters, a navvy, a stuffy schoolmaster and a poverty-stricken herb seller. He also works as a professional musician accompanying a number of choirs in Cheshire.
Click on the image below to visit the Curious Cargo website.
Photographs of Steve, Andy, Ken, Chiara and Tim taken by Adrian Look.
