The universe, black light... and hula hoops

This years' play was set in space. Like last year, we decided to play around with black light to see if we could give some of the scenes a more "galactic" feel. Last year, we experimented a lot with using white under black light (the play was about ghosts , after all!) and this year's the theme - the universe, the stars and planets, astronauts - seemed to lend itself equally well to black light.... but it was all just as white! We were desperate to get our hands on a bit of colour, and see how that worked under the lights. So, we found a funky way to sneak a bit in (and pay homage to the iconic TV series, Star Trek, in the process):


For the psychedelic saturns, we covered hula hoops in pieces of material cut from reflective waistcoats (which react really well under black light) and we stuck circles on the kids' tummies in a contrasting colour as the planet.


When working with black light, the focus is usually on perfecting the illusion. It's all about hiding the mechanisms because the magic is usually in not knowing how the visual effects we are seeing were achieved. However, we felt this scene was actually enriched by the (inevitable) "imperfections". When a child drops their hula hoop - lets us in on the secret as it were - the magic is strangely heightened for the viewer (in my opinion). Which is why we decided not to hide the kids as they come off stage and to turn the lights up just a fraction "too soon" in order to break the spell a little... Does it work? What do you think? 

Watch the whole show here.

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.

Prop-making III: light sabres!

No play about aliens and space travel would be complete without a light sabre or two. And if you are doing a play with 22 kids, you are obviously not going to get away with just a couple of them, either! So, this year we had to come up with 20 light sabers. And naturally, since we had access to black lights, they were going to have to glow in the dark!

First thing to remember about black light: normal white paper reacts incredibly well! So, all we had to do was to wrap our light sabers in white paper and keep the lights on during the battle scene.

We wrapped lengths of irrigation tubing in foam (for safety!), leaving a handle length at the end. Then we glued on strips of white paper (papier maché style) with runny white glue.And voilà!


Rehearsing with the light sabres:

To make the light sabres glow, we had the black lights on throughout the whole performance. The paper reacted even with the other lights on, giving the sabres a very "realistic" glow.

We turned the lighting on and off during the alien battle scene (like a very slow strobe effect) and the children assumed different fight poses every time the lights went off. In these moments, all you could see were the sabres glowing spookily:

See the whole play here.

Making props: getting everyone involved!

This blog is essentially about the theatre workshops we run for kids in the Alpujarra mountains in southern Spain. The workshops themselves are all about helping the kids work as a team and encouraging them to see things through to the (bitter!) end; to see theatre as something they can relate to (and take part in) and to get them thinking visually and relating to music emotionally...

However, slowly over the years, a growing number of adults have been getting involved in the plays we put on. Many of them are parents of the kids taking part and others enjoy the plays we put on and just want to get involved. As far as I'm concerned, this is great news! It has made the whole project much more of a community thing - and it has opened people's eyes a bit to just how much work is involved behind the scenes (which is never a bad thing!).

So, prop making has become quite a social affair. We get together at the weekends during the six weeks of the workshop and mass produce props with impressive gusto. If you are planning a prop-making session with a group of volunteers, it's worth bearing a few things in mind:

• not everyone considers themselves "artistic" (and can sometimes feel intimidated by the idea of getting "creative") so:

• give clear instructions and think through strategies beforehand (stencils, pictures as examples etc.)
• save the basic jobs (painting base coats, cutting, sticking) for these people
• find creative ways of getting people involved (for example, someone may feel happier kicking a ball round with the kids outside, which is a great way of helping out but doesn't involve paint)

• make an extensive list of props needed several days before the first workshop (this is your chance to make some serious progress with the props, so get the most out of your help!)
• make sure you have enough scissors, paint brushes, hammers, glue... etc. for lots of volunteers to get involved
• divide up the list into jobs and if you know who is coming, think about who can do which job
• make sure you have all the necessary basic materials
• it will help your "morale" considerably to feel you are making progress with the props, so use your prop sessions (and helpers!) to tackle the bigger (or more time consuming) projects (and save easy snipping jobs for in front of the telly!)
• if your volunteers are bringing kids with them (as is often the case) think through some entertainment options - having pens and paper on hand will cut down on the number of extra volunteers pestering you to help (unless you are planning on getting the kids involved); a ball or hula hoops if there is an outside space; is there someone who would volunteer to help keep them occupied? -  and perhaps have a few teatime snacks to hand for later.

Getting Inspired... with photos

I spend a lot of my time browsing the internet looking at photos. It's a great way to trigger ideas for staging a scene or for finding inspiration for props and scenery (largely because someone else has done all the hard work for you - the framing, the colours, the details, the light are handed to you on a plate - you just have to come up with the idea). So, for anyone looking to be inspired or wanting to get creative, here are some of my favourite sources for photos:

• Google Images: just add a keyword or two and get looking... It's a great way to think outside the box - get creative with your search terms and see what you find
•  Steve McCurry

• The Photo Argus A resource for photographers, you can find really unusual collections of photos (like '25 images of coffee', for example) and you never know what you might find....

•  Your beautiful photography

 

• ffffound A collection of photos posted by users. Invite-only to post but anyone can browse.

• National Geographic  One of my personal favourites for really stunning photos

•  Links tother good collections of photos:

- http://dpshots.com
- http://pelfusion.com/inspiration/60-stunning-pictures-and-photos/
- http://www.youthedesigner.com/2010/08/05/photography-inspiration-a-collection-of-panning-photos/
- http://photooftheday.net/
- http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/04/28/really-stunning-pictures-and-photos/

Where do you go for inspiration? Let us know of any websites you think should be included!

    

Related articles

• National Geographic's Visions of Earth (mymodernmet.com)
• Autumn in the United States: Photos by National Geographic (lennymaysay.wordpress.com)

Getting going on the staging...

 

When we're just getting going on a new project, we spend a while looking around, getting inspired. For our production of "Where the Wild Things Are" we broke the story up into scenes:

• Max's bedroom
• the forest
• the ocean
• the island
• the journey home

We knew we wanted to represent these scenes in as vibrant and visual way as possible. But we also knew we wanted to do it without any traditional scenery, using the kids (and props) to do the job instead.

As everything takes place in Max's room, we decided to use the bed as the one central element and have everything else pulled on and off stage, out of boxes, whipped out from behind the curtains by the kids as needed. So, things had to be portable, easy to take out and put away. (As an example, the blue blanket on the bed became a large, circular sea when pulled of in the sea scene).
 
To get inspired, we looked at a lot of photos - photos of everything and anything (not just of trees!), as you never really know what's going to spark off the idea.

For the Forest Scene, for example, we looked at Maurice Sendak's illustrations:



and photos of real life forests:

http://free-desktop-backgrounds.net

http://mominchapelhill.blogspot.com
 

And these definitely gave us the feel of what we were after: muted greens, hanging foliage... We experimented with long lianas, made out of trussed up binbags, held up by the kids but there wasn't enough feeling of 'density' about the forest, so we kept looking.

Strangely enough, it was this photo, of a piece of performance art, that triggered the final idea:

http://www.moussemagazine.it/blog/?p=6392

We took long stripes of lining material in different shades of green and sewed off cuts of material in muted greens and browns to the underside. When the kids pulled them across the stage and then held them up, Max's bedroom was suddenly transformed into a gloomy forest.


Image by Lisa Saeboe via FlickrThe younger members of the group,the 3, 4 and 5 year olds, weaved in an out of the 'trees', adding a dash of magic.

Got any staging ideas for representing a forest? We'd love to hear them!

Related articles

• Fluidity Of Content And Design: Learning From Where The Wild Things Are (uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com)
• Maurice Sendak releases new book at age 83 (cbc.ca)
• Puppetry in the cinema (filmspotter.wordpress.com)