Stories of Departure at ArtPlay

A month ago the pianoBoat project ran a 5-day shadow-storytelling workshop intensive with thirteen 8-to-12-year-olds. The workshop and the show at the end was part of ArtPlay's dedicated year-round program of children's art activities at Birrarung Marr in the centre of Melbourne. It was an amazing experience working with a relatively small group of inspired young participants for 5 afternoons in a row. The significant amount of focus required of all involved, ended up creating a wonderful sense of camaraderie along the way to a surprisingly entertaining show for parents and friends.

Shadow-puppets are quite a tricky medium - not nearly as complex as marionettes, it's true, but nevertheless demanding a fair bit of abstract thinking and subtle hand-eye coordination. We were impressed by the fact that everyone got the hang of what was going on so quickly, each in their own way.

The premise 'Stories of Departure' was to create a story filled with characters journeying through a future where the climate had changed and technology had also moved with the times. We introduced the group to concepts of Biomimicry and encouraged them to think of the most imaginative ways in which the special qualities of animals and plants might be taken advantage of, literally or through scientific adaptations.

The drawing and writing games that started things off, successfully got everyone's creative brains in gear. The results of the collaborative writing and drawing games quickly got us all laughing too at the absurdity and hilarity of strange creatures and curious misinterpretations.

Having departed for a somewhat mutant future, the next task was to create characters, complete with names, homes, animal companions and other special attributes. The 13 brave imagineers tackled the assignment with a diverse and idiosyncratic array of approaches. Most clearly went with the known quantities of characters they'd drawn elsewhere, locating them in an adaptive future world. While we'd painted a mildly dystopian vision of times to come, the children were gently encouraged to use the powers of the imagination to devise more cheerful outcomes for the shadow-puppet people they were drawing.

After drawing came the exercises of determining where puppets would be articulated, and of tracing the component parts onto black card. A whole lot of fiddliness later, the puppets were taking shape and escorted back to the workshop in Brunswick for a strengthening coat of shellac. The reassembly required plenty of split-pins, fiddly linen-threaded-joints, tape, rods, and patience.

Once on rods the games could begin again in earnest, as the shiny new silhouette-characters were made to act out happy and sad moods set by the raucous accordion tunes. After that came more complex and nuanced emotions, and a whole bunch of improvising while running repairs were provided by the project leaders.

By Friday the character development had expanded to include the participants themselves as well as their new 2-dimensional friends. Inspired it seems by the conpsicuous mustache on the otherwise hairless head of pianoBoater Raku, almost the whole group ended up with handsome black paper mo's attached by masking tape. Meanwhile scenarios were being devised in 4 sub-groups, and practicing was underway on multiple screens. Each group was given their own section of an epic panoramic digital set, which itself was composed of various drawings with wild visions of biomimetic architecture and advanced urban agriculture rising over the clunky remnants of our modern era.

For more information on the excellent offerings at ArtPlay of fine arts and craft made specifically for, by, and with children, follow this link: www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/artplay. Keep an eye on ArtPlay's 2011 programs as they are published, which may well even include some further adventures with the pianoBoat project…

sailing Under The Radar in a windy river-city

the pianoBoat project performed in last month's Brisbane Festival, in Under The Radar's Street-Feats program. We presented a 4-night season of Howard Grey's Unsame Day, a show that brings together many of our favorite mediums. Animated 2D drawings are combined with video silhouettes of shadow-actors, and enriched by live shadow-puppetry. All this is projected on to the sail of the mobile boat-set and performed with live piano-accordion and narration.

The boat; onsite; pre-show

Once the excitement about being selected for Street-Feats had died away, it all came down to one word really – logistics. It's a pretty long ride from Melbourne to Brisbane, and the passenger trains refused to carry our cargo, so we ended up in a crowded airport lounge negotiating endless queues with the entire set condensed into 2 bike-boxes and 2 suitcases. Arriving into a balmy Brizvegas where even the festival organisers were admirably relaxed.

The boat bolted back together as planned – until it came to rigging the sail onto the newly jointed bamboo mast. So rehearsals had to make room for last-minute repairs. Exhausted by the effort of
getting the whole show on the road, it wasn't just the bamboo threatening to give way in the heat and unseasonal rain. With hours to go the laden boat-set was hitched up to the folding bike and towed over the appropriately named Highgate Hill, and on into a gusty city centre. We might have been arriving at the site of an utter humiliation had it not been for the invaluable assistance of an ace tech support crew who supplied sand-bags, mike-stands, electrical tape and a bunch of good-natured enthusiasm. The scheduled performance time arrived with a miraculous calm as the sun slipped behind the horizon. All the sweat and tears that got us there were missed by an appreciative audience as the show itself went off surprisingly smoothly.

Excerpt from the animation

A risky and ambitious concept, our street-theatre model of mobile shadow-puppetry certainly wasn't without its hitches and shortcomings. But by the 4th night the whole adventure was running pretty smoothly. Now that we've tackled most of the technical hitches of exporting animation files, building collapsible sets and setting up in unforgiving weather, it's time to revisit the show itself. Which, as a somewhat experimental work-in-progress, inevitably needs some reworking. We look forward to returning to Queensland in a couple of months to present a more resolved version of Howard Grey's Unsame Day at the Woodford Folk Festival. By which time we'll be ready to take the show pretty much anywhere, not least back our beloved adopted hometown, Melbourne

Teenagers, Shadows, and Midwinter in Huonville

Shadow puppetry and troubled teens may not seem to go together like strawberries and cream, but, after some workshops in Huonville, i think we could call them avocado and honey - a mix you don't often hear about round here, but is surprisingly well suited. Working with a small mixed class of 15-18 year olds who had dropped out of school, then re-entered the education system via the HuonLINK program, we weren't at all sure what to expect. We went in with a 'mini film clip' workshop plan, figuring that music could be a good and unthreatening way to bring shadow-puppetry into the participants context.

Most got enthusiastic about choosing a song and photo they liked, with some relationship in either mood or content. Then came the hardest part - getting these teens (most with incredibly low self-esteem) to come up with their concept. Having mostly worked with creatively interested kids, where you are fighting off the floods of ideas, I was a bit shocked at how much encouragement and support these 15-18 year olds needed.

With limited time, we got them behind the screen, and it's always so great seeing the different ways people approach it. Some had carefully planned all entrances, exits and inbetweens, while others just went nuts experimenting with their puppets possibilities. It was also wonderful seeing how the groups worked together when behind the screen, and watching an awareness of placement, speed and distance grew. While often associated with children, shadow puppetry is actually quite cerebral, so, when put in a contemporary environment (through music\imagery), can be challenging and engaging to many age groups.

Caravela

Rosa Maria falls in love with a fisher boy, despite their differences, she being a woman of the earth and he, a man of the sea. Their coming together brings untold richness to their lives as she learn the ways of the ocean and her gifts. Her lover gains from the beauty and bounty the earth bears up.

They meet in springtime and experience a full cycle of the seasons together in happiness. She grows and sells her flowers and plants and he goes fishing in the nighttime, returning in the afternoon. Their love affair makes the two of them deliriously happy. However, there is disapproval amongst concerned families and neighbours who foresee that with the difference in their different natures, it will end badly.

the pianoBoat project is delighted to announce the upcoming launch of an exciting new show with long-time collaborator, the astonishing Fado vocalist Carolina Cordeiro. A singer who has only discovered her raw talent in her mid-20s, Cordeiro is based in Melbourne but sings and plays the music of the city of her birth, Portugal's ancient crumbling port of Lisbon. A deep tradition of passion and poetry, Fado can be difficult at first for the uninitiated, with its tendencies towards tragedy, apparent melodrama and unusual modalities. Cordeiro however cuts through this with an arresting clarity and freshness that has been shooting her to attention and acclaim in Melbourne's multicultural music scene.

the pianoBoat project brings further levels of seduction with a rich and layered world of visual metaphor, translating the Portuguese poetry of the lyrics in our synthesis of textured projections and surreal shadow-play.

Fria Claridade (loungeroom version)
Carolina Cordeiro - vox & guitar; Raku Pitt - piano accordion

The show will premiere at the Wild Dog Gathering on the 27th of November. See www.wild-dog.com.au for more info on this event and to buy tickets.

Watch this space for announcements of seasons and festival appearances of this unique piece of storytelling shadow-theatre with an exquisite musical heart...