Prop-making IV: lava!

For the play we were preparing in this summer's workshop, we needed to represent a lava-filled planet as part of a journey through space. We wanted to find something the children could hold and move in time to Holst's "Mars the bringer of war" but we had to take into account the limited stage space we had available (with 22 kids taking part in the workshop). We looked at many different possibilities: giant flags, pool noodles, fans... and decided to use strips of lining material in different shades of red, orange and yellow.

We used a big black bin as a recipient for the "lava". Having drilled holes in the side,  we threaded strips of silky, shiny cloth through the holes:

The older kids took turns to slowly pull out the lava strips:

The smaller kids stood round the edges with lava flags, swirled in time to the music:

The lava strips were flapped up and down in time to the music. The children also moved round in a circle.

The scene really needed the outer circle of kids moving round the inner "volcano". The music (and the setting - a swirling, volatile lava planet) seemed to cry out for more movement, but the scene worked (if not completely perfectly) and, if nothing else, there was a lot of visual impact in having 22 kids of all ages on stage at once.

See the whole play here.

The soundtrack game

As a student, we would play a game called "the soundtrack game" which basically consisted of choosing an apt piece of music for any given moment in time. It was a game with no real point to it (though at the time, it certainly took our minds off Finals) and it ambled on as our lives did. We were often on the look out for someone too sexy for their shirt, for example (it was the early 90s after all) and lived in hope of it one day raining men (though I'm not sure it ever did) and during our Finals, if I remember rightly, it was a toss up between 'It's the End of the World as We Know It ' and 'Under Pressure'.

Silly though it may have been, I think, looking back, that it did give us a heightened awareness of musical irony (if such a thing exists!). It meant our taste in music was eclectic (we were devasted when our Tammy Winette concert was cancelled, for example) and we were also highly appreciative of genius, 'soundtrack moments' when they cropped in a film. The self-absorbed mother (Marisa Paredes) singing "Piensa en Me" in Almodovar's "High Heels", for example! That solitary tear hitting the floorboards! Oh, the melodrama!... Oh how we loved it!

I think, to some extent, I'm still playing the soundtrack game to this day. I may not consciously be choosing apt, witty tracks to accompany my (rather domestic) life any more (she says, quickly!). But I still have a real appreciation for the impact of the right piece of music at the right moment in a film - and I think making the right choice of music is probably the most important part of developing new material for our theatre workshops (I've discussed this, so I won't burble on about it now). I still have eclectic music tastes and spend an inordinate amount of time (when I'm working on a play) listening to the same piece of music over and over again. (And I mean over and over again. I may look like an ordinary housewife, trudging - headphones on - home from the supermarket or off to get the kids, but my inner soundtrack is actually busy listening to David Bowie's 'Space Oddity', for the hundredth time that day).

And this brings me to a curious observation. Headphones! Maybe it's because, with the pushchair years finally behind me, I can actually get on a bus again, or maybe it's because I have recently moved back to the city, but I'm suddenly aware (as I somehow wasn't before) that everyone - and I mean EVERYONE (even little old ladies!) - seems to wear headphones nowadays.  So, although it may look like we're trudging through our grey, city lives as we sit there, staring blankly out of the window, we are, in fact, all enjoying our music - immersed in our own personal soundtracks, as it were! Behind those slightly dazed faces, there's no telling what orgies of reggae, salsa, rock... or the Best of Cliff Richard are going on. So, as the globe warms up around us and the economy slumps to new depths, I think this is one aspect of modern life that has actually improved. Yeap! I would venture that bus rides and traffic jams - and even walks in the park are now that bit more enjoyable, thanks to modern technology - and the presence of music.

Could it be - I wonder - that the "soundtrack game" - that silly, little timefiller all those years ago (back in the days of sony walkmans, for goodness sake!).... has finally caught on? Could it have gone global?!!

Starting from Scratch VIII: choosing the music

The stage productions we develop on our workshops centre on music. It provides the dramatic backdrop to the action and helps establish the 'mood' - and indeed to some extent - the message of each scene. So making the right choice of music is a very important (and time consuming!) part of the process when it comes to developing our own material.

Any music we use, needs to:

• be a suitable length (is it long enough? can I shorten it easily?)
• have a structure kids will be able to easily recognise (obviously all music has structure, but is it structured in a way kids will be able to follow up on stage?)
• convey the essence, the mood, the atmosphere... of the scene

To kick off the selection process, I tend to look first at obvious choices like sound tracks to films of a similar theme (in the case of "The Ugle Bug Ball", I might first listen to the sound track to "A Bug's Life or "Bee Movie") or well-known, similarly themed classical music ("The Fight of the Bumblebee" by Rimsky-Korsakov is an obvious choice, for example).

Cover of Bee Movie (Full Screen Edition)

After a bit of googling, I can start to expand the list. For the "Ugly bug ball" I find a surprising number of possible sources of inspiration:

• 'Insect Symphony' by contemporary Finnish composer Kalevi Aho (this includes pieces for butterflies, dung beetles, grasshoppers, ants and dayflies so would be a good place to start)
• "The Spider's Feast" by Roussel 
• Overture to the Wasps by Vaughan Williams
• Scriabin's Tenth Sonata, also known as the "Insect" sonata due to its trills. 
• Bartok's "The Night's Music" from his piano suite "Out of Doors" mimics different creatures at night...birds, frogs, insects.....
• Mussorgsky's "Song of the Flea"
• Grieg's "Papillon"
• Schumann’s Les Papillons
• Schubert’s Der Einsame (The Lonely) about the melancholy of a cricket, sitting on a hearth, mourning the disappearance of the summer
• "The Ant and the Grasshopper" by Leon Rosselson
•  Josquin des Prez's "El grillo e buon cantore"  is a musical painting of a grasshopper

A search for more modern themes comes up with a long list of gems  like:

• Chet Atkins "Centipede Boogie"
• "Spiders" by System of a Down
• "Bug Eyes" by Dredg

  

  Image via Wikipedia

• "Butterflies and Hurricanes" by Muse
• Nina Simone's "Funkier than a Mosquitoes Tweeter"
  
• "Insects" by 10 Years
• "Butterfly Caught2 by Massive Attack
• "Ant Music" by Adam & the Ants
• "Hey there little insect!" by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers 
• "Black Butterfly" by Sounds Of Blackness

Not all these songs will be suitable (and many will not really even be about insects!) but the advantage of throwing the net as wide as possible is you might just find something perfect, something really inspiring. It takes a lot of listening on Youtube and Spotify (and a lot of crossing off the list) before you can really start to narrow it down. but the effort is worth it in the end because of what the right piece of music can bring to your play.

Image via Wikipedia

I like to also think about juxtaposition when I'm choosing music for a play. I like it to 'sit well' with what comes before and after it and to provide contrast. I also like using vintage (or simply, older!) songs and music, as they can sometimes be used in a way that is witty. A song like Adam Ant's "Ant Music" for example might be a witty choice for a scene about..... well, the ants, precisely because it is such a, well, obvious choice... and because it will make the adults in the audience chuckle. Vintage choices provide great beats and sometimes a more theatrical musical style. Songs that spring to mind that could be used in this way for this play are Chet Atkins "Centipede Boogie", "I Got Ants In My Pants" by James Brown,"La Cucaracha" by Los Lobos or "Mean Old Bedbug Blues" by Bessie Smith. Depending on how the play itself pans itself, on the direction it takes, there is sometimes room for something a little experimental if it might resonate with audience. An example of something that could be used with our theme would be Tom Waits' spoken 'song' "Army Ants". The moment would need to be there but it could work.