Drumming Fun

On Wednesday 28th January, we had a treat of spending a whole day with Julie Wright learning the art of West African drumming. We had the oppotunity of trying out the djembe (a skin-covered hand drum that is played with both hands), the dundun (base drums which we played two at a time, with drumsticks) and a wide range of other percussion instruments. We found that drumming is not only wonderful fun, but also develops a sense of rhythm and beat, coordination, and listening skills. We did exercises that involved us learning different drumming phrases that were repeated and blended with other phrases (this required a lot of concentration!)

Here are some photos and a video from the day:

A circle of djembes with various percussion instruments in the centre. There is also a set of dunduns in the bottom left-hand corner.

Drumming together a traditional West African song from Senegal

This is a session we had where one person kept a steady beat on the dunduns, while the rest of us added different improvised sounds using the djembe and other instruments. This exercise required us to listen to each other to keep the overall sound balanced.

Geni e o Zepelin

This is the original song that my show is based on - Geni e o Zepelin by Chico Buarque.

http://www.goear.com/listen.php?v=6ec11cd

Rod Pieces

Here are our upcoming rod puppetry pieces:

"Câme-isole" [Camisole]

by Celia Constantinesco

"Symposimum"

by Kate James-Moore

"A Flor E O Zepelin" [The Flower and the Zeppelin]
by Natalia Vaz



"Nautical but Nice"
by Kay Yasugi




"Wolfsbane"
by Kat Schumacher

'Hatching' Stars in Bradford

On Thursday 22nd January, Kate and Kay performed their Star-themed marionette pieces at the Bradford Playhouse's second 'Hatch' night. 'Hatch' is the theatre's new experimental arts showcase night, with a programme packed with an eclectic variety of performance, film, installation, live art and participatory activity, including:

* A screening of 'Gift of Fire: Nineteen (obscure) frames that changed the world' by US filmmaker Ken Jacobs
* Short films by Lee Canning and Michelle Heighway
* Video installation by Angelo Picozzi and Karl Dallas
* Participatory paper banner project by Jennyanne Smith
* Audio visual performance by Brian Gilson
* Needle felting with textile artist Kate Ryan
* Performative lecture by Simon Warner
* Work in progress dance by Slanjayvah Danza
* Live art boxing by Nicolas Kilby
* Dance Theatre by Victoria Gray and Kip Johnson
* Poetry jazz performance by Nightdiver

There was an unexpectedly large crowd gathered around our marionette shows, and our little puppets were very well received. Here are some photos from the night:

Kate and Caroline setting up Kate's show, "Luni Lou and the Great Escape"


The 'Hatch' Programme

Kate and Kay - feeling very relieved after the show and anticipating celebratory fizzy wine and crisps once arriving back home (which was made possible thanks to a quick drop by Tesco's)

Guardian Review of Faulty Optic show

Fish Clay Perspex
Shunt Vaults, London
3 out of 5

* Lyn Gardner
*
o Lyn Gardner
o The Guardian, Tuesday 20 January 2009
o Article history

Some people wake up and discover that they have turned into a giant beetle; others pop out to the beach one day and end up with a giant fish attached to their heads. So it is in this triptych of loosely connected short pieces from UK puppeteers Faulty Optic, subtitled Incidences of a Quirky Kind. And yes, they are extremely quirky. As is always the case with Faulty Optic, you are plunged into a bizarre micro-world where anything can happen - and what does happen, however strange, seems perfectly normal. It is a tribute to the imaginative and technical flair of the company that you can quickly accept the fact that someone's head can become a beach upon which a fish gets stranded.

1. Fish Clay Perspex
2. by Faulty Optic
3. Shunt Vaults,
4. London

1. Until 24 January
2. Box office:
020-7378 7776
3. Venue website

This is all well and good, although in this instance, the three-part nature of the piece hints at something not yet fully fledged. With the surreal comes a need for clarity in the storytelling that is not always fulfilled here. I found myself marvelling at the invention and enjoying the madness of puppet pottery, cotton-wool waves and scribbled cats that turn into devils - but I'd have liked to know a great deal more about how and why you get trapped in a strait-jacketed world of Perspex. And who are the armless, pointy-footed figures that dance about like Isadora Duncan?

The show is maddest in the Perspex section, and funniest in Clay. But it is most emotionally acute and satisfying in Fish, when a baffled puppet with personality tries to make sense of an apparently senseless world.

Men's corsets??

This is a video i've found on YouTube which shows this man tiding up a corset on himself.. The speed of the first part contrasting with the slow of the second bit.
Movement wise i thought it was interesting.

Women's sensuality : French cabaret song..

This a song called "Les nuits d'une demoiselle" by Colette Renard, a french comedian and singer.
This song speaks about what this "demoiselle" (miss) is doing all nights, and the fact is that she is masturbating. But she's using very poetic and hilarious expressions to say it.
I just like the fact that she is talking very nicely about her own sex, while if we think about, most part of the time we remember ugly and bad words to describe it.
So the way she's assuming her sensuality, her physical power as a woman, please me(probably because it is part of my piece as well).
I'm sorry that is in french, but i can still translate few of them if you want me to!

Woman dance

This is an video of "La Danse Serpentine" by Loïe Fuller (american artist and dancer, 1862-1928) who created a new form of dance by playing with body movements, very light fabrics and colored lightning. The movements that she gives to the fabric are very interesting and the visual look of it as well. She started to tour in Europe, Germany and France, and her first representations in Paris were a huge succes : the dadaïsts were very interested in her work and mainly the women artists.

Movement in art

The first image I chose is Le Carnaval d' Harlequin by Joan Miro. The very important range of characters that are in this painting and the fact that they all have their own type of movement really makes it look like a giant carnival dance. Plus the amount of strong colors that Miro used to depict them give them a lot of energy, so of movement.

The second image is The Night by Max Beckman, a german post-world war 1 artist. I really like his work and this painting in particular because the way he drew and painted the different characters , which all seem very tense and have those specific positions , gives this impression of movement and tension in their body. I even feel very contracted , tense, when I look at it. So the movement in this is light in their action but strong in their tension.

The third image is Number 8 by Jason Pollock. The way he is using the fluidity of the paint by trowing it on the canvas gives an amazing impression of movement in all his work. Especially in this one because of the use of different colors while others series he made use fewer and colder colors .

The fourth image is two photographs of Loïe Fuller , an american artist (1862-1928), doing The Lys Dance.She created a new dance form using light fabrics, colored lightning and body movements. Those pictures had been taken as a part of her work. I think that seeing the frozen mouv of the fabric and her body gives the feeling that it continues, even if it doesn't.

Movement in art is surprising by the way that it's always still. Like in puppetry different forms of art can give feeling and impressions of movement and energy while they're just still images.

Giving life to still objects , in a way that's all what puppetry is about..

Samba - references

This is a song by Cartola, one of the most important Brazilian samba composer. This song is called "O mundo é um moinho" (The world is a mill) and it's a song that he did for his daughter that, by the age of 16, decided to became a prostitute.
It is a very beautiful and sad song, I wish you could understand his words... But at least you can listen!

http://www.goear.com/listen.php?v=17028c1

Examples of some Kabuki style dance

A Girdle to Set You Free

Here is a scene from Mona Lisa Smile which I think relates a lot to our recent discussions on Feminism (the first half of the clip is more relevant than the second half). The film is set in a private women's college during the 1950s.

"Watson tries to open her students' minds to their freedom to do whatever they want with their lives. She encourages her students to believe in themselves, to study to become career professionals, and to improve their economic futures. She uses her art teachings as a vehicle to put across her opinion to the young women that her students need not conform to stereotypes of women made by society, or the roles made for them by society, as women born to become housewives and mothers. She feels that women could do more things in life than solely adopt the roles of wives and mothers.
In [this] scene of the movie, she shows her students four newspaper ads, and asks them to question what the future will think of the idea that women are born into the roles of wives and mothers." (Wikipedia)

Movement in Art

The first piece of art that I've chosen is from a very important Brazilian architect called Oscar Niemeyer. He belongs to Modernism, and his style has lots to do with curves. The work below is a cathedral that he did in Brasilia, capital of Brazil, and its shape for me is almost moving. You can feel the extension of each column going to the sky…

The second piece that I’ve chosen is from a very important Brazilian artist called Tomie Ohtake. She is Japanese, but she came to Brazil around 1930 and naturalized Brazilian later on. She is a painter and also sculptor and I find that hers sculptures really shows movement. Her art is abstract, but her paintings don’t usually show much movement as her sculptures do. The monument above is at São Paulo – Latin American biggest city and where I live – in the most important avenue of the city – just next to my house… come visit me!

The third piece is from Pablo Picasso and it’s called “Weeping Woman”. For me, movement is a primary impression on cubism in general. Seeing one image from several perspectives and putting all together in one “moment” is almost like when I watch a stop-motion animation – I can slice the movement.

Finally, the fourth piece is a futurist painting called “Charge of the Lancers” by Umberto Boccioni, and it portrays the movement of a horse. Futurism is all about movement in its essence, as we know… I have the same feeling in this painting: it looks like a slicing of the movement, and all the steps were put together in one picture.

Movement in Visual Art and Sculpture

This futurist sculpture shows us movement through the act of action and recovery. The left side in mid action and the next two are depicting the process of landing on the ground. Each bend of the joints and angle of the limbs show us how this man has landed from his leap…though I’m sure it was quite painful for him to land on his knee like that



This sculpture evokes the feel of movement because it looks like a freeze frame from a dance. The bodies half in mid air and half on the ground. Also, to craned necks and very extended limbs and fingers give the impression of movement because they are almost reaching for something. The arch of the back also appears as though they are mid move since no one could be still in the position with the effects of weight and gravity


The motion is shown through the contrast of the stillness of the background and the blurred images of the cars and the street. Somewhat of a futurist look on motion, since with speed, before our eyes things are nothing but a blur.

Painting by Robert Minor. I find that the movement in this painting is expressed by not only the action of the stabbing, but the reaction as well. The dying man is reeling back and you can really sense his weight of falling by the angle of his legs and the impression that his arm is dropping. The man stabbing is in a lunge pose but his arm is also slightly blurred, giving the impression that this painting is depicting the actual moment of the stabbing to us.

Movement in Visual Art and Sculptures

For one of our assignment tasks, we had to find 4 examples of visual art and sculpture and discuss how they express movement. Here are my pictures:

"Dancing" by Maggie Squire.

Here is a statement written by the artist about the sculpture:
"Dancing... is part of my soul, I love movement in what I do because for me it is both physical and metaphysical movement. This sculpture was made from pieces picked up in a field near my home. Each figure was made of pieces from a single walk."

This piece by Maria Gurevich reminds me of the whimsical motifs in Chagall paintings. Just by suspending the scuplture in the air for the shot with her legs outstretched, the figure looks like she is floating. The slight raise of her skirt and the ruffle of in her hairpiece also allude to a passing breeze.

This is a photograph from La Clique (a cabaret show in London). I love how the camera dramatically captures the flick of water as the dancer emerges from the bath. I suppose in this way, the movement is seen by the trail it has left.

The Scream by Edvard Munch (1893). The movement is visible in the artist's sweeping brushstrokes and accentuated by bright, contrastic colours that lead the viewer's eyes around the painting.

Genders in different cultures

Here are some clips from the National Geographic series on taboos. These clips come from the same episode "The Third Sex", exploring genders in different cultures.

The 5 Genders in South Sulawesi (Indonesia)




The Third Gender (Fa'afafine) in Samoa




Eunuchs (Hijras) in India

A poem to think about

Reflecting on our discussion today about feminism (and gender in general), I was reminded of a poem I studied in highschool. It is a fragment from "The Eagle" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson:

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

After reading through this poem, our teacher made us read it again, but with the 'he's replaced by 'she's:

She clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, she stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath her crawls;
She watches from her mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt she falls.

Strangely, changing the character from male to female made me see it completely differently, which both surprised and shocked me. I remember wondering why the character seemed more vulnerable and almost tragic being female, though strong and fiercely independent as a male (this led into quite a long discussion about gender stereotypes). Although this perception has changed somewhat over the years, it is still interesting to consider how an audience can perceive characters in a piece differently according to their gender.

Rod Puppet Playtime Day 2

Today was the last day of our Rod Puppet Playtime course. Here are some photos from the day:


Learning to operate the Ningyo Joruri-style puppets. Each of these puppets require 3 people to operate them. We took turns having a go at operating the head, arms, shoulders and waist (while constantly swapping positions).

Creating a 3 action sequence.

Working in groups for a final performance. We used the puppets to create a scene set in an airport departure lounge. The picture shows a family (with a little child at the end who gets left behind)

Another shot from the 'airport' sequence. Here 3 Otome-style puppets played President Obama with 2 body guards.

A passenger with illegal goods (middle) encounters some quarrelsome air stewardesses and a flush-faced airport security guard.

Rod Puppet Playtime in London

Today was the first day of the 2-day 'Rod Puppet Playtime' workshop in London. For this course we have adapted two special types of rod puppet techniques from Japan. One type needs three operators per puppet (Ningyo Joruri), the other called Otome is operated by one person, with the head of the puppet attached by string to the head of the puppeteer. Otome was once the only type of puppetry allowed for Japanese women to perform and was first introduced to the UK by ex-LSP student Yuki Muramatsu.

Here are some photos taken during the workshop:

Warming up with balloons in the air

An exercise using sails. We explored various movements (and stillnesses) while working on being disciplined as an operator (and enjoying ourselves too!)


Playing with Otome-style puppets. The puppets were attached to a strip of cloth tied around each puppeteer (which we have called the 'obi'). There are also two strings that connect the puppet's head to the operator's head, so that the movements of the puppeteer are mirrored in the puppet. Some of the puppets also had additional feet and hands.

Making masks for our Otome puppets

Working in small groups to create short sequences. It was interesting to explore the breathing of the puppets as well as creating personalities for each character (while maintaining the balance of performing in a group).

Performing a simple nursery rhyme and incorporating actions and pauses.