Group Juggling, group energy, sub groups

I love doing the group juggling.  It is a really good thing for us, as it brings out the side of our group that is playful, adventurous, and unpretentious.  I think that it would be fantastic to incorporate these into the routines we put together for The Machine.  Only one problem, at least half of our group can't throw or catch. 

But we can practice!

This is great  - a way to test the theory that anyone can do anything if they really want to, and another theory, that practice makes perfect...

Note to self - check that everyone in the group wants to be able to learn to throw and catch.

Also, just to be on the safe side, we will also invest our time into choreographing the physical movements of the machine, which is something that we are all already quite skilled at.  The actual period of the Machine Project starts next week, as we begin to rehearse at Gnosall Fire Station.  The group juggling isn't just a way for us to learn to throw and catch rings and clubs, it's mainly a way to bring about the important group complicite that will be essential for us to perform The Machine.  It's also very physical, and entails us using and developing our group energy. 

The Group Energy
This is something that the group produces and it is extremely important in performance.  We want to entertain, above all.  We want to attract audiences, and having attracted them, to hold their attention.  Initially, we attract audiences by our presentation, in the case of attending family festivals, this presentation it intended to be quirky and amusing. 

The Group Skill
Having attracted members of the public to watch us by having a quirky and amusing energy, we then need to keep them engaged in our performance.  This is where the skill factor comes in, and we need to really play to our strengths, using the tried and tested techniques in performance that we know look good.  However we also need to be constantly testing our personal boundaries, and making sure we don't get trapped in inhibiting comfort zones.  In this way we hone and develop our skills over time.

Sub Groups

Whilst we played with the juggling equipment in the park, we experimented with using sub groups.  That is three of us stood in the middle and juggled clubs, and four around the outside juggled rings.  This gave the impression of quite a complex whole, despite the fact that the individual subgroups weren't doing anything that complicated.  We did video this, but due to much hoop dropping, I've decided not to put the video onto the blog.

Watch this space - hopefully next week we will be able to show something.

Costume
Billie has started to think about putting costumes together.  We are on a tight budget, and so need to be economical.  Saying that, the costumes are a really important part of this performance, so we are really grateful that Billie has taken this on at this point, hopefully giving her time to come up with some really interesting steampunk/clockwork/automata styles.  I'm sure the rest of the group will all be helping her with ideas.

Promotion
Thanks also to Sara who is putting together a small sound byte each week or fortnight, in which as a group we describe a bit of what we are getting up to.  She will be sending this off to Stafford Radio in the hope that we get some promotional airplay.