26th January 2023, SAMCT, New Adelphi Building, Salford University.
Workshop facilitators: Richard Talbot plus Tom Byrne (Puppetry/Images) and Connoll Pavey (Media/OBS).
Participants: Nathaniel Davis, Ellie Holt; Emanuel Lopes de Jesùs, and Helen Varey (MA Contemporary Performance Practice, University of Salford)
Music: extract from 'Henry Poppouts', composed and performed by Andy Denney
Video: Richard Talbot
Phase 2 of Kurt & Pino, Clown and Puppet has begun. After a fruitful initial phase in 2022, we are expanding the exploration of Toy Theatre mechanisms in OBS, using a kind of playful Rough Theatre or Poor Scenography. We are increasing the number of participants and especially the connection with participants in Japan. By September we aim to livestream a devising workshop and to have created a playlist of moments from the Pinocchio story.
This time round we are using the scene/episode in which Pinocchio and Gepetto end up in the belly of a sea monster, taking the original text as a stimulus. We also sneak a look at Michael Morpurgo's version and Guillermo del Toro's stop-animation film and... and. We will celebrate the beauty of the sea and the mystery of the ocean, and ask the Japanese participants for stories and images of sub-aquarian monsters etc.
No doubt the relationship between father and puppet-son will be affecting, but in the story there is also Pinocchio's relationship with a real boy called Lampwick. This parallels a relationship between two boys in the Japanese short story for children 'The Boy from the Sea' (Umi no Shōnen ) by Ogawa Mimei (1882-1961), in which the boy from the sea gives the boy from the land beautiful gifts of coral and shells.
This year's devising will entail multimedia and hybrid workshops (i.e. some people online, some not). And we will be combining performance, puppetry, image/video backdrops, narration, music and sound effects, in the single ‘Total Toy Theatre’ space online. To achieve this we will be using simple chroma key, layering, and rough animation with puppets, cutouts and in particular using images with local significance in Itoshima, Japan and in Sefton, UK.
With a bit of canny editing, the outcome of each workshop will be turned into a 'scene' available to launch to a playlist. This will be available to view in series or randomly. The venue/platform for this will be Instagram and/or Youtube. The audience will be whoever I can pull in to those sites using algorithmic magic. But the key beneficiaries will be the folks who join the workshops as a creative outlet.
The next workshop is on May 10th, at Ainsdale Methodist church. The workshop will include one or two of those MA students, plus a couple of retired creatives from Sefton who worked on the project last year, plus 2 or 3 new recruits. We'll also be linking up with participants from Japan - Kay Aika and Naoyuki Osawa again, and newcomer Emi Shinakawa. Connoll and Tom will steer the media and puppetry again.
Then, on July 16th or 17th, in Studio Kura, Itoshima, we'll meet the Japanese participants in person, plus new recruits connected to the Studio, and - if the network connection works - Tom and/or Connoll online.
In September (end of), any/all of the above participants will finally devise and livestream with an audience. We'll be hosted by New Adelphi Theatre, Salford, with Hannah Briggs helping up with publicity design again.
At each workshop there should be a snowball effect - the outputs from the previous workshop may stimulate devising in the next. But the total duration of the short videos will probably be no more than 5 minutes. The principles are always the same: "less is more"; "process over product" !
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