Our second week in the studio was hosted by The Mill Arts Centre in Banbury, a gorgeous Arts Centre right next to the canal in an old converted mill. As well as the usual challenges small venues face, The Mill was also recovering from recent flooding and we experienced a second smaller flood during our rehearsal week, temporarily throwing our rehearsals into jeopardy but thankfully we were able to continue rehearsing, although the building had to be closed to the public for a few days whilst they pumped out water and cleaned up the mess.
The first half of this week was devoted to creating and filming shadow play for the projections in the show. During the R&D last year we had started to play with shadows in rehearsals and also in workshops with children and families. We experimented with both live and projected shadows using different light sources, screens and different areas of the room, walls, floors and ceiling. Workshops with families taught me lots about the concept of shadows and how engaging they were. Children loved creating shadows with their hands but the level of skill needed was very difficult for them (and us too). However, they loved watching us, their parents and other children create shadows and I observed them enjoying moving/dancing/copying what they saw on the screen with their own bodies which was exciting.
The concept of noctural animals in the show is taking shape and I made a decision that all the animals were going to be UK nocturnal animals, the kind that a child would likely have seen in their garden or would know about. I also made a decision that all the shadows needed to be created by the dancers, either with their hands or their whole bodies, linking into the idea of using creative play and imagination using the tools that you have. Anything added to create the shadows needed to be things which could be easily found in the house, such as bits of clothing, cloth or in the case of the frog (see image) a couple of small sponges. We spent many hours learning how to create hand shadow puppets, trying to recreate them and looking at images of the animals themselves for inspiration. Dancers, Katie and Ayesha became brilliant at making shadow animals, although we learnt that even a hair out of place plus the position and strength of the light in relation to the person making the shadow made a significant difference to what it looked like.
I enlisted, Mark Anderson, from InfuseDANCE to help me film the shadow projections. Mark is both a skilled film maker and a dancer/choreographer with the benefit of having the dance perspective I needed. Mark will also edit the films, which includes layering some of the animals on the screen as we needed to film each animal one at a time.
I had lots of fun with the dancers making an interactive shadow sequence with a dancing frog. We created the dance material first which initially evolved from a 'happy ghost' we found in the R&D. Using this as a starting point we explored froggy movement and integrated it into the sequence.
Meanwhile, Ant had written a brilliant piece of music which was reminiscent of 'Mexican frogs having a party', giving a wonderful uptempo feel to the whole scene, backing up the idea that there is fun play going on in in the bedroom, whilst dad is downstairs. I wanted the frog to jump from screen to screen across the space and also to dance with the performers. We took the material we had created and made shadow versions for the frog to do on the screen. The frog's appearing and disappearing became a fun game of 'where am I'. This section will lead into a section where the performers make their own shadow screen so that the audience can come into the space and have a go at their own shadow play. There are many challenges around this whole section which brings digital projection, tech, audience interaction and requires precision from the performers, both musically and physically. When we have nailed this in rehearsal its going to be joyous.
We ended the week, joined by Lou for some more dramaturgical input and celebrating Ant's birthday with a special birthday warm-up, cake and nibbles at lunchtime, he thoroughly enjoyed working on his birthday.
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