And here's some pics from the Custard Factory on the 8th ...

We performed the Good Thunder at the Custard Factory as part of the Arts all over the Place - Arts and Mental Health festival.  Everyone really enjoyed the performance and the audience said it was very good!

The links to the video are here:

part 1:    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF1tzNOvcmA&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

part 2:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdkVGHQ4jlU&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

And here are some pics!
  Hope you enjoy them ...

New venue, new story, new time signature!

The second week at The Universal Social club (didn't post last week, still in recovery, and trying to get photo's of the performance.  Will put these up next post).

In brief, the two sessions have mainly been getting to know the new space, and paying renewed attention to the second story in our trio of Japanese Fairy Tales, the Kettle Badger.


Yesterdays session was interesting, as some of the questions raised by group members to other group members were quite personal, for instance, "which screw do you have loose?"  Responses to this question varied, and whilst I did say to group members that they did not have to answer or could answer in any way they please, most people chose to come up with something that was actually quite personal and meaningful.  I hope that this is a sign of the trust and intimacy that has built up within the group, and that was consolidated during the performance last week.  


By facilitating the making of personal connections with the room, and with each other, I aim to continue to build on the sense of comeraderie and togetherness in the group.

I am aware that my own style of facilitation is changing, and have reflected on this, trying to work out what is changing and why.  


Mainly I am taking much more of a leader role.  I think there are three factors at play here.  First of all, I am becoming more confident in my own style and what I am imparting to the group. Second, we have another performance in a relatively short period of time, and I am ensuring that the progress of rehearsals is in the direction of development of the performance.  Third, the group as a whole seem more confident.  This means that group members are keen to offer and develop ideas.  This is fantastic, as the more people offering ideas the better - and it gives me the opportunity to respond in kind, being stronger and more positive in my own approach.  We are all familiar with the themes and style of our performance, and so can now play with these much more freely than we did before.

We have changed the time signature for this story.  Whereas for the Good Thunder the time was a slow 10 regular single beats, in the Kettle Badger, there are 10 slow triplets, with the bodran being struck on the first note, and the tambourine on the third, of each triplet.  This gives a skip to the beat, which goes with the lively, lighthearted style of the story.

We are beginning to see the more subtle meanings and suggestions of duplicity in the story.  For instance the priest and the market seller, both have their own materialistic, self serving agendas.  the Badger kettle secretly knows much more than it lets on, and is able to cause much mayhem.  There is a great moral in this story, as the one person who is able to benefit from ownership of the Tea Kettle is the Tinker, who has no particular agenda and comes across as genuine and open.

We have decided that we will not construct a tea kettle, at least for the show on the 24th November.  This is because it will be time consuming, possibly expensive and probably difficult to work with dramatically.  Instead, we are going to call upon the magic of physical theatre.  The actress playing the tea kettle, will 'become' the tea kettle, and then the badger, at different times in the story.  Her physicality, and that of the people in the creative space, responding to her and each other, will describe and define the kettle, which the audience can then percieve using their imagination. 






Interpersonal relationships in the group
In terms of interpersonal relationships, and this is important for all groups, including drama groups, as well as for therapy groups, it is important to me that bullying and exclusion are avoided.  Working with therapy groups this can be extremely challenging, as the therapist aims to facilitate fullness of expression of each group member, however, one persons creative expression, could involve making jibes, criticising or in other ways putting down or excluding another member.  The other member will then find any sort of expression much more difficult.  


In a fully functional group, presumably, there would be no reason for jibes or criticisms or what we might call 'scapegoating'.  The job of the facilitator, or therapist, if it is a therapy group, is to decide how much of this they will tolerate in order to allow group dynamics to take a natural course, and hope that the scapegoater and the scapegoated develop some awareness of the patterns of their relationships.





 

Extra Rehearsals, body paint, nerves?

No Pics again.  Wish I didn't keep losing my camera.  Still, I'm sure it will turn up.

So I can't show you all how good the costumes are getting, and how 'in character' everyone is, and how big are the bags under our eyes...

It is of course one of lifes many many ironies, that the more you are doing, the less time you have to talk about it, so I'm not going to write much at this point, because I'm doing so much and don't have time!

Basically, we've got another extra rehearsal at the Community Fire Station, Hopefully everyone is going through the music over and over, especially the dancers, who need to be really familiar with all the cues (the development of perfect timing is crucial at this point, as there is music, dance, movement and narrative all going on at the same time, and that has to be perfectly co-ordinated.  The music is our timing structure, and we will need help from the composer to bring us in in the right places, as the rythm of the music is quite fluid  Our ears will hopefully become very attuned, as we search for audio cues in the subtle soundscapes pieced together and interwoven with the Japanese original.

Costumes are looking great, and now we are just adding extra detail.  We are looking forward to getting together with the face painters on about 2 hours before the performance.  This isn't ideal, as the actors won't have had a chance to get familiar with themselves in their full garb.  In addition to this, it will be our first time in the space provided at the Custard Factory, and in front of an audience.  So, all in all, it will be an adventure for everyone.  There will be a bit of improvisation as we fit ourselves physically into the space, and a bit of last minute cognitive adjustments as we see ourselves and each other in full paint and costume for the first time.

All in all it's going to be an excellent experience, and a fitting start to our performing adventures.

I may not blog now until after the performance, but hopefully will have some good pictures for the next entry!

Bye for now.