22 June 2025: The Celebration of life of Jude Bird at Theatre Porto, Ellesmere Port
In the spring of 2008 at the beginning of Liverpool’s European Capital of Culture year, we at the Aspire Trust were commissioned by Kensington Life Bank to co-construct an arts and creativity strategy for the Life Bank and to identify mechanisms for how this strategy might be implemented and sustained. We called the project, Listening to the Life Bank, and engaged a team of five artist researchers to undertake the research in collaboration with the staff, users and other stakeholders who were part of the Kensington Life Bank community. Our approach involved interviews, observations and taking notes through a series of 3-day visits spread over one ‘typical’ Life Bank week. Our aim was to ‘listen’ to Kensington Life Bank and collect data – opinions, photographs, sounds, movements – to inform the development of that future arts and creativity strategy.
Jude Bird was a central member of our team and ‘listened to the life bank’ with us through her own creativity lens, dance and movement.
I’d like to share some of the notes taken from Jude’s own listenings. Her expertise and commitment to communities and her own creativity shine through and I hope we can hear a unique, force of nature at work whose vocational calling was unquestionable, inspiring and always entertaining. I won’t be attempting a Kiwi accent. Liberally scattered through her words are quotes from other inspirational figures which she brought to bear on her own reflections of what she was experiencing in Kensington Life Bank in particular, and perhaps her own life’s journey in general.
DAY 1
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
(T.S. Elliot, Burnt Norton, The Four Quartets)
My starting point. Mon dieu I have 12 pages of notes. I have spent a fortnight cursing you all for your discursive notes and now I know why!! I reflect on Nicko’s last posting: phrases of dance: Enter / sign / converse / move -I can choreograph that! Greet / welcome / direct / sign / inform / navigate / orientate – this is developing into a full-length work.
A friendly lad directs me to Lyn. A warm, light airy welcoming space after the first frost. I’m offered a drink and introduced to Mary and Allan. Wend my way upstairs and bump into John who I know slightly from zazen meditation. I like the mezzanine (where does that word come from? mezze is mixture) it’s a Birds Eye View -just right for me.
I ask about the history of the site. it used to be Brae St school (of course, when I worked at the Everyman Youth Theatre, we did outreach work there) Outside is a sandstone Liver Bird and the old school belltower. There used to be a park and 3 bowling greens here. (where past and future are gathered?)
Esther arrives and we greet as long-lost friends. She tells Mary and Alan about the multi-cultural project I was involved in at Blackburne House nursery when she was there. Lyn appears and she and Esther hug each other. Colin from finance appears. He is gathering folk to explain the complexities of the finance system: a nice tableau. Two people on either sofa and a person on each chair. In a square. A still point. Entrances and exits. Comings and goings. To-ings and fro-ings. I decide to go and observe from those perspectives and go downstairs.
Two men are learning on the breakfast bar. They keep shifting position-leaning, standing, leaning, step back, step forward, turn into room, sit at table. get up in unison and move to doorway, meet and greet Yolande and are gone. I have just witnessed a duet.
I’m observing when clip clop clip the heels of a smart professional enters stage left. Asks me if I’m being seen to! I say thanks I’m actually doing something. She says she was just checking I wasn’t being ignored. (The observer affects what is being observed. if you look away the particles behave differently. )
What am I manifesting? Anne Melia, who I know from a past incarnation when i did training with the early years Behaviour Team, is cursing because the Pilates teacher hasn’t turned up. Well dear reader I ended up teaching the Pilates class. Went well, very responsive and positive feedback. Saaed then arrived and was duly told off by the women. I mention Capoeira and he is keen. I tell him about Lisa Harrison who is the dance teacher at the academy and suggest he contacts her as they have a community remit. he asks me if I want to take over the Pilates class as it looks as though I had something going with the women. We get “on one” about health and safety, risk assessments, the nanny state.
Sit upstairs on the sofa-feeling a bit talked out. Reflections on glass table top.
Flowers in vase, windows and lampshades, blue sky. A still point. Below the sounds of children and adults talking, feet scuffling, chairs moving, cutlery clattering- a soundscape of the building.
Anne finds me and asks if I will teach the Pilates class in future! I say I will think about it. Downstairs I meet baby Daniel. he is doing a hand dance, he points to the corner and raises his arms to the ceiling. I sit opposite him and give him my hands, he “teaches” me to clap. Small groups are scattered about the space talking and eating. two toddlers are moving amongst the tables. baby daniel is peeling a banana.
Dave joins me and asks about Pilates. He says he has a back problem and he can feel it in his testicles. it only happens every 18 months, he says he has a long back and short legs. We discuss backs and remedial exercise, core stability and Masai barefoot technology. Group leader starts and introduces a drum to a circle of parents and toddlers. We do heads shoulders knees and toes, then the wheels on the bus, then musical statues. The leader talks into the cacophony and I don’t hear what she is saying. The instruments are put back in the box. Doe a deer is played on the CD player. I reflect that I know every b- word to every song from the Sound of Music. Street cred in the gutter.
Shakers are given out and the group shakes along to the song. Shakers are put back and the drums are given out. i consider here that it would be a good opportunity for the kids to make choices but that ain’t happening.
Out come the disinfected wipes and the shakers are wiped down by the workers and put back in the box. The kids beat 7 bales out of the drums. the drums are collected in. Whistles are given out and we are all assured they are sterilised. A child starts to dance in the middle of the circle and is told to sit down so she goes outside the circle and dances. Go out and sit in the table and chair area. write up notes. have a brew. Brain death is feeling imminent. Now I have to go home and write this up AAARGH!!!
DAY 2
A relief to see Ellie and Nick We agree all the work should have been done in two’s. Brew and discussion of a triangulated approach. i feedback about yesterday. We agree 3 points in downstairs open space where we will sit. Write for 10 mins feedback in Atrium then move to next spot and repeat. Kind of researchers’ musical chairs.
Lyn comes past me and we talk about yesterday. She thanks me for doing Pilates and wants me to do more. A group of 3 women sit at a table in a triangular formation. Backs: someone stands at tea servery and the serving person has her back towards her. Activity on the landing. Door’s opening. Footsteps.
More people join the group of 3. I’m surrounded by books about Liverpool. i open the one about galleries and museums on Merseyside at the page about the Lady Lever which is billed as the Taj Mahal of Merseyside. Funny I’ve not long ago referred to the Lifebank in those terms. I make contact with a couple of women who recognise me from work i did in Kensington a couple of years ago.
The signage is all at adult level apart from the signs saying job vacancies!! Loo signs with legs, skirts and a sitting person with a circle. I always feel a fraud going to the skirt loo as I’m usually wearing trousers.
Two women arrive with a big display case-they are setting something up in the entrance area. Ann and someone else walk past me two people are in reception.
Two people are on the beige sofa. Two men walk past me with yellow rubbish bags. This is a moment when people are in pairs. Percussive feet, deliberate steps, pathways, floor patterns, socked feet, tyre tracks, heels and toes.
Image on the door a baby with a breast- says breastfeeding is welcome here. Too cold to get boobs out today. I could be really bad. We play writing poems line by line. its good fun. begin to descend into mild hysteria as we take turns going into the Respect exhibition full of stall holders however zero public as kids not allowed upstairs therefore the parents aren’t going!
Ellie goes for a massage, Nicko goes to investigate. He has collected heaps of glossy publicity and reads a list of physical conditions and then a strapline about self esteem which he didn’t think was a physical condition. What on earth are we witnessing, the downfall of resilience. a society where no child can play without 3 adults supervising and an over professionalised world. Debilitating professions -thank you Ivan Illich.
DAY 3
How nice to go to the same place 3 consecutive days-oh the joy of the freelancer’s life. It is a different energy when I am here on my own. I blend in more. Everyone is being ultra helpful and accommodating.
It’s a largely female environment. Given a chance women want to co-operate. Today I am surrounded by co-operation. I am reminded of tribal societies. The women co-operate and support each other to rear the kids, make clothing, gather and prepare food. The men are “out there” doing the hunting. What about the subgroup apinae of the social group Apidae. Bees. Yes, this is a hive. The workers buzz about and feed the larvae. The queens have ultimate control. The odd drone drops in and out.
Nick arrives in a flurry all of a doo da having been to a meeting at Clubmoor. Nick asks me to visit Clubmoor that afternoon to rekkie it!
I meet Liz who works in the garden and outdoor spaces. She started coming to the Lifebank as a parent. She was a software engineer but since having children has / is re-training in horticulture. She started off wanting to grow things at the back of the site and then delivered a course for parents. Last week she did bulb planting with the nursery- she did most of it so it wasn’t “too messy”. I ask if messy is a problem.
She pauses and says well they are asked not to come in their best clothes. maybe we will get some kneelers outside. Now she does the garden although initially it was a change of role and she felt she had to “prove it”. A professional came to look at the community garden and she felt he had an attitude and looked down on her. They are thinking of branching out and developing an allotment project.
I say that’s a great idea you could produce food for the Lifebank. Someone stops to chat and Liz says she is being cross examined. She says she really likes working out the front because people stop to chat to her. She has a huge pile of marmite butties and a lot of bulb catalogues. I am sharing Carolina’s dates. I ask her why she is in Liverpool (she comes from Alicante)-because of the cheap housing she says. She has made friends at the Lifebank and the school is good.
Time to go to Costa del Clubmoor……..exit Jude stage left.
“The world fears a new experience more than it fears anything. Because a new experience displaces so many old ones. The world doesn’t fear a new idea. it can pigeon-hole an idea. But it can’t pigeon-hole a real experience. ( D.H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature (1923)
RIP Jude Bird, 1 May 2025
One of the many results of the Listening to the Life Bank research was the production of the ‘Creative Dining Tables’ which did exactly what they said on the tin: reflect the creativity of the Life Bank communities through the media of art and food. Here are some examples.
The Arts and Creativity Strategy which we produced for Kensington Life Bank is also available here: