Sequinned Minnie.

Vest – H&M, £3.99. Jacket – vintage from Fat Faced Cat vintage, £10 (sale). Hot pants – ASOS, £8 (via unwanted gift). Minnie Mouse ears – Mind in Camden (charity shop), 50p.

.I feel like this outfit is textbook Laila. I’m really not into planning outfits and my general “going-out” look (or “going-on-stage” look) is basically put on whatever clothes are nearest, throw on something sparkly, add some novelty headwear and then hope for the best! In these pictures (taken after a show at VAULT) as well as some charity shop ears and my newest sequinned item I’m wearing my trusty studded white boots, and my vest and dance shorts from rehearsals earlier in the day. Add to that my leftover show make-up from that evenings performance (classy) and my black and red camera bag and that’s my whole thrown together after-party vibe!

.These photos are from the week of performances I did at VAULT and I promise this will be my last post on the festival! Essentially every night after our show the whole cast and crew would hang out at the venue (big underground labyrinth of tunnels and rooms) and party, so being easy to spot was a good thing amongst all the other people! I’m aware some people save sequins or vintage for special occasions but I’m not like that at all. I don’t want them to just hang on the wall for fear of damaging them; I want them to get a bit frayed from messy piggyback races and end up smelling of smoke and spilt drinks from too much jumping around on a crowded dance floor. Clothes are for living in and not just looking at after all. :) What does your textbook outfit look like?

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Rehearsals

I absolutely love rehearsals. Orchestral rehearsals, where you can go and sit in a room with 30 other people and forget everything outside the room in order to focus purely on the music in front of you. Band rehearsals, where I know James will be able to translate the inarticulate jumble of notes I can already hear in my own brain. WOLF PACK rehearsals, where not only do I get to air all my ideas about staging and music but I get to do it with a group of people who love and understand me and will therefore keep me in check from becoming a tidal wave of confusion. Theatre rehearsals, where I get to learn so much about another art form that so interests me from people whose knowledge of an audience and communication far surpasses my own. Dress rehearsals, the final pitstop before the event where you can start to anticipate how the whole performance will feel once you’ve added an audience and a ton of adrenaline into the mix.

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I’m lucky that most of the time I’m rehearsing with like-minded people who end up becoming close friends. It makes such a difference to collaborate creatively with people who you know and trust. The saying goes that “life is not a dress rehearsal” but I disagree; you could argue that our whole lives act as a rehearsal for what comes next. We are all constantly learning and progressing: finding out how things work, how things feel, how we react to certain things and how to communicate and present ourselves to the world.

The last three weeks.

The last three weeks of my life have been dominated by a week of concerts at VAULT festival by WOLF PACK. WOLF PACK is a performance and music group I set up two years ago. Initially I set it up as a way to get through my horrific postgraduate degree but it quickly became a creative outlet for the ideas I had in my head and a platform where I could create the kind of performances I wanted to be involved in. My favourite events as a teenager were immersive theatre productions, exhibitions of performance art, small, intimate gigs and surreal plays. WOLF PACK is a combination of all those things.

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We performed two different shows over the week, BODY and TEXT. For TEXT (above) we all dressed as literary characters (see how many you can guess from the photos) and for BODY (below) we all took on slightly different personas within a gameshow environment; alongside our cheesy gameshow host were two team captains (including me), a doctor, a nurse, a few sports nuts and a naked guy.

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We had so many wonderful audience responses and many great nights out at the festival during our time performing there. I’m so grateful to VAULT for inviting us to play at their wonderful festival! If you’re interested you can find out more about the project here and VAULT festival is on for another three weeks so get on down there if you haven’t already…

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Working Girl

This is what a day in the life of me looks like at the moment. I am currently working incredibly hard on a week of upcoming concerts with WOLF PACK and this is just a random day last week. I started off with a marketing meeting at the Hospital Club in Endell Street with my WP colleagues and we stopped for sandwiches after.The afternoon saw us working at C4CC on our upcoming concerts. We are so lucky to be supported by this amazing centre; it makes such a huge difference having an office space and to be working alongside so many inspiring and creative people and their ingenious projects!

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 If you have anything to do with theatre and live in London I am sure you’ve heard of VAULT festival as it’s been featured in pretty much every paper going!  We’re performing a week of concerts at VAULT and it’s my job to come up with creative ideas, make sure the actors and musicians sound good, the show is entertaining, the set and props look interesting and that the tech team, cast and crew have everything they need to do everything correctly at the right time. I’m so excited WOLF PACK are taking part and investing huge amounts of time to make the concerts as brilliant as possible; it’s definitely a labour of love. In these photos I’m searching through this amazing old textbook based on the body: looking for costume/prop inspiration for our BODY themed concert. Aren’t the diagrams great?

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In the evening I went to rehearse with my composer friend. He wrote a piece for WOLF PACK and I’ll be singing in it. By the time I got there it was about 8:30pm and I realised I’d only eaten a sandwich in the whole day so his lovely housemate created this plate of food to keep me going. I got home about 11pm – whenever you get near a show the working days inevitably get longer and longer, but it’s worth it! Tell me about your typical work day – I pretty much only know people working in the arts world so I’d love to hear about what you guys do!

If you’re interested further in my career I was interviewed  a couple of months ago by Youth Arts Online.

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