This last week was absolutely crazy – I filmed my acting/dancing role as Aaliyah on “Resonant Bloom” film by Qinwei Hu and Jingjing Li. Absolute dream of a job with beautiful locations, great crew, brilliant acting partner and a challenging and emotional part.
I also worked as an intimacy coordinator on “Hunger Beneath the Moonlight” film by Francesco Gabriele , such a great team to work with!
Part of the week were also a gig with my band Yavenirie Amok , training my dance solo in a park and a murder mystery event where I played an actress (!) and a suspect in a murder of a famous painter.
Tired but so grateful for a full week of performing.
Also – please sign up to my newsletter if you want to get updates on my adventures :
From a behind the scenes still to a poster: DONALD BIT ME feature by Darryl Kelly is coming out this year so brace yourselves!
Great poster art by Brianna Miller!
The film is on a finish line of the post-production.
Written and directed by crazy fantastic Darryl Kelly, the whole thing was shot with amazing cast and crew quite a while ago in south-west London. I will not disclose our location just yet so I don’t give away the plot line but just wait for the trailer 😍
And yes that’s me holding a man-puppet 🙂
Watch this space for more info and sign up to my newsletter for extended behind the scenes updates of making movies and shows, reviews, news and real life talk: zuzatehanu.co.uk/subscribe
I share more via email than on social media!
Also: I am playing a gig with my band on the 29th of June in The Good Mixer in Camden, for more info go to Yaveniriemusic.wordpress.com
Finally a thorough and in-depth review of our show The World Of Yesterday. I wasn’t even surprised when I read it and saw that the reviewer from the Eastern European Arts platform Izba Arts, on the contrary to many others that came to see our show, was not confused, surprised and resentful by our show but approached it with curiosity, open mind and experience and knowledge of a different types of theatre making.
Eastern European influenced theatre differs greatly from the Western, especially British one and what I often came across in my own as well as other Eastern European theatre works is this incomprehension of the ways it’s made and tools that are chosen to make it. If the story is non linear, even a little bit surreal and varies from a typical script-based story telling it is met with bewilderment and often dismissed. I blame the lack of context, especially historical, cultural but also perhaps low exposure to variety of theatre making in a whole world which would loosen a bit the traditional format through which the Eastern European creators are perceived.
The differences between the Eastern and Western European theatre and the reasons for it are a great subject for a next blog post which is coming shortly so watch this space.
We finished The World Of Yesterday play just a week ago and the life is already speeding up, pulling me in so many different directions that it’s hard to stop and reflect on what actually happened that week.
Well we played a show, twice!
The space was small, much smaller than we expected and were used to but we made it work (somehow).
Was it stressful? – obviously.
Was it amazing to be on stage again and become many different characters, and sing and dance, and almost cry, and be part of this moving machine which is the company, even only for one hour – absolutely.
That’s what it’s like in this business.
Often uncomfortable, never perfect, never 100% how we want it to be, always under rehearsed, with lots of pressure, last minute changes and green room dramas.
But we do come back to that place on stage, to that moment, to this feeling. We never have enough of it. Even if we are frustrated – it passes and then we try again and again.
And we dream about big stages with strong lights, full audiences and spatial mirrored changing rooms, we dream about it being our one and only, well paid job.
And we do it underpaid or for free, in tiny cupboard changing rooms, with one mirror for 10 people and one toilet, with 15 minutes at the end for changing, packing costumes and all the set up of the microscopic size stage, we do it anyway, because it’s LOVE.
The World Of Yesterday was a very short meeting of more than 10 talented people with dreams of a life different than their own. People of synchronised passions, of enough space inside themselves to compromise, be patient, let go and handle rejection, and enough energy to keep going, offer their own thoughts and feelings, deal with stress and dramas and still, despite everything, love what they are doing.
Is it incredible ? – yes
Is it impossible? – yes it is.
All actors and other creatives know what I mean but I feel that we are not talking about it enough with the wider public.
With the people who often look at us from an outside, who come and enjoy the show but maybe don’t know exactly how that happens that it comes to life. Who don’t follow us on our every day journey to rehearsals through the chains of tube and trains, through frustration and revelation moments. But mostly trains.
Who often don’t know how many times we wanted to give up, kick this life in a butt and slide into a comfort of a 9-5 bank job.
And how many times we didn’t and all those times made this show happen.
All those times we didn’t give up created a moment for all of us to share on that one evening.
This post was supposed to be about reviews because for many years I chased the reviewers for their feedback, for this star of validation of our temporary creation.
Because I thought that the art to be shown publicly has be GOOD, in opinions of others GOOD. That reviewers needed to like our play, announce it online on their blogs and then it would matter, then we would be welcomed in the circle of artists who are allowed to create MORE.
But that was before, years before even.
Now, after all the effort and life troubles of recent years, I am proud and grateful that we can just DO it, that we can make it happen. I know so many people don’t have that luxury.
Between everyone’s jobs, lack of funding for arts, lack of time and lack of money in people’s pockets to buy a ticket we still managed to create a show in a few months, perform it on a festival and sell it out on the last night.
It’s a success despite what anyone thought about the show. It’s a success because it was made, it had an imprint on our material plane and in people’s minds and hearts and wasn’t, like in so many other cases, just a thought, just an unfulfilled dream and that’s it.
My big and warm thanks to our director Anya Ostrovskaia for making it happen and to all the cast and crew for sticking with her.
Our film WE GO AGAIN started a festival run with a selection for Direct Monthly Online Film Festival this month 😍 Big thanks to the organisers and well done to all cast and crew 👏👏👏 More festivals coming next year!!!
The Intruders film by James Kentfield in which I play the role of Zuzanna will be screened in Genesis Cinema in London as part of British Urban Film Festival on the 23rd of October at 8:30pm. Big congratulations to all cast and crew!!!
We wrapped another day of filming of #DJKill in Islington Studios on the hottest day of the year! This time I was doing a movement direction for the fight scenes. It was great to work with our lovely team again Peter Irving, Caroline Oakes, Andrea Rose, Tristan Pretty, DOP Jim Groom and director Anton Makon.
We wrapped the filming on We Go Again drama! Our feature is now going into post production slowly taking its final shape.
It was an amazing experience working with Tom and Oliver Jolliffe @jolliffeproductions and with amazing actresses Charlotte Chiew @charlottechiewvoiceover Annabelle Lanyon @annabellelanyon and Amy Jim @amy.jim.actress .
I feel we really made something special, a story about a relationship but also about a neurodivergent people struggling with life and with each other. Watch this space for more updates.
I’ve got a Patreon! And I am writing about my acting experiences of getting jobs on various projects and also giving a business of acting advice on how to get them, what steps to take when you are an unknown actor and what mistakes to avoid (which I didn’t :-).
Here is a snippet of the first of series of posts – whole article on 🔥PATREON.COM/ZUZATEHANU🔥 🔥Follow me me for more acting advice :-)🔥
This will be the first of many posts about how to get film roles when you are not a big actor with a big agent who has opportunities knocking at their door every day.
“I am not a big actress. Yet. I have skills and I have potential to do big things and many teachers and casting directors complemented my work. But I don’t have connections or famous family or anyone who could open the career door for me. I have to do it myself and I am working on it everyday. Because even if you are like me – working class, immigrant actor or actress with an accent, you can still get opportunities, you can get jobs and you can act, it’s just twice as hard. But you will if you really love it. I do, I would do anything to act a good part in a film or a play. But you need patience, persistence and hard work. And you need to find that place inside you where the love for acting lies and hold on to it, remind yourself daily why you are doing it. And always remember that moment when you are in a flow of performing and you feel so much alive!
Zuza Tehanu 