“Teamwork and co-creation lie at the heart”: Dogsy Ma Bone Musical Launches Liverpool Biennial’s Inaugural Touring Programme

C. James Fagan revisits Liverpool Biennial and a Turner Prize artist in a brand new venue and town, as part of a special tour. But what can a dog-themed musical tell us about collaboration?

I’m in Rochdale and it’s strange.

Not the city itself. There’s nothing intrinsically strange about that, apart from the fact they built part of it over a river. There’s a lot that’s familiar: the architecture, the people. It might just be the simple fact that I’m somewhere new, somewhere outside of my usual art hangouts of Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds.

I’ve come to see a project that is also visiting Rochdale; specifically, a project which — like me — comes from the other end of the Leeds-Liverpool canal. The Turner Prize nominated artist Marvin Gaye Chetwynd is presenting a solo exhibition of Dogsy Ma Bone at Touchstones Rochdale, which was originally commissioned for the 2016 Liverpool Biennial. If you visited the festival, you’ll remember Chetwynd’s installation formed part of a huge maze at Cains Brewery in the Baltic Triangle. You know: the one with an unforgettable dog wallpaper.

That doggy wallpaper currently covers three walls of Touchstones’ gallery. The grand building in which it is currently housed is not dissimilar to that of the Harris in Preston. I’m a stranger to the history of the Touchstones, but I get the impression that it is carrying on a certain Victorian ethos: a space to learn and to experience new things.

Perhaps this is the intention in which the Liverpool Biennial has come to Touchstones and five other venues across the North. This is the first stop of a Touring Programme, taking artworks commissioned and shown at the 2016 Biennial to new venues including Bury Art Museum, the Turnpike in Leigh, and Pavilion Leeds. It seems to be an attempt to broaden the audience of the Biennial, and to establish creative links between far-flung, creative communities.

Yet how does this idea manifest itself in reality? It would seem that it would be in the selection of the artist and the individual work(s). If you want an artist who celebrates collaboration, then Marvin Gaye Chetwynd is an excellent choice.

For teamwork and co-creation lie at the heart of Chetwynd’s Dogsy Ma Bone. A musical that draws inspiration from Brecht, Betty Boop and Bugsy Malone: this is the framework Chetwynd passed onto 78 young Liverpudlians who have created the songs, props, costumes, and sets central to the development of the piece.

Like Chetwynd’s other works, the result doesn’t seem to rest in just one form in the gallery. It is manifested in an installation of doggy wallpaper and costumes, a projected film, and – for today only – a live performance. These objects seem less out of place in Touchstones then when they originally appeared in Cains Brewery. Likely due to the fact that they are now in something more akin to a traditional gallery space, rather than competing with a warehouse and many other artworks.

Today, there are speeches, and then the performers enter. The children are dressed in costumes that look like they reference medieval passion plays; they manoeuvre their props without any signs of self-consciousness.

There is a sense that the ethos of Dogsy Ma Bone isn’t about getting it right. It would be easy to describe it as ramshackle, but that feels like lazy journalism; it would be doing the whole endeavour a disservice. For applying the term ramshackle would imply carelessness.

That simply isn’t true. Dancers may go out of sync, a performer may miss their mark, but Dogsy Ma Bone isn’t about that. Rather, it seems to be about creating an atmosphere of cooperation, dedication and enthusiasm. Chetwynd as director allows her participants ownership of the piece, and through that, a clear enjoyment of what they are producing. This, in turn, fills Touchstones’ small gallery with a large amount of goodwill.

As Chetwynd leads her young stars with affection, I begin to wonder how many of these kids will become involved in the arts in the future. It seems to me that it is likely. After all, one of the most important things to do if you want young people to participate is to foster a sense of enjoyment in the act of creativity; making it clear that there isn’t a single prescribed way of making art.

This line of thought maybe be based on half-remembered school days. But it is often between the ages of 6–16 when opinions of art (and what it can be) are formed. One can hope that contemporary artworks like Dogsy Ma Bone will create a pocket of people for whom the idea of “anyone can do that” is a positive rather than a negative.

What Dogsy Ma Bone succeeds in doing is to foster an idea that art is accessible to everyone – arguably one of the main motivations behind Liverpool Biennial’s Touring Programme. Pushing contemporary art outside the boundaries of the city where it can be looked upon with new eyes; and possibly kick-starting discussion of what we mean in terms of a “Northern art scene”.

So interaction between different art organisations can create something that will promote reflection on the nature of art and the people who view and produce it. But if I was to be critical, I would ask if an idea of inter-city co-operation can be fostered by showing work so full of Scouse idioms in Rochdale? A place which is closer to Leeds than Liverpool? The concern is that the Touring Programme might fail in making connections with a new audience; one not familiar with the Biennial at all. Of course, this requires time. As it stands, it might (at worst) appear as cultural colonialism, or as a brief, fleeting curiosity.

These criticisms feel quite harsh as, after all, this just the beginning. We have to hope that the Touring Programme can act to create something special that expands the artistic ambition of not only Liverpool, but its sister towns and cities right across the North.

C. James Fagan

See Marvin Gaye Chetwynd’s Dogsy Ma Bone at Touchstones Rochdale (Gallery One) from 11 March–8 July 2017. Open Tuesday-Saturday 10am–5pm (FREE admission)

This original article has been co-commissioned by Liverpool Biennial and The Double Negative to celebrate the Biennial’s Touring Programme in 2017–8. The tour sees artworks by leading international artists who exhibited at the 2016 Biennial travel to six different locations in Northern England: Barnsley, Brierfield, Bury, Leeds, Leigh and Rochdale. Read more here 

As part of the Biennial’s wider touring activity, Dogsy Ma Bone will also be presented at Tate Modern from 20–25 June 2017 for the Tate Exchange programme

Images, from top: Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, Dogsy Ma Bone, 11 March 2017 at Touchstones Rochdale. Photo: Pete Carr © Liverpool Biennial. Dogsy Ma Bone cast with artist Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, Mark Doyle (Curator at Touchstones Rochdale) and Polly Brannan (Education Curator at Liverpool Biennial). Photo: Pete Carr 

Video: Marvin Gaye Chetwynd: Dogsy Ma Bone from Liverpool Biennial on Vimeo