Farewell, Monster

A rainy Monday is the perfect time to make a long-overdue blog entry.  The eight weeks since my last entry seem have passed in a blur.  For at least the last fortnight I have been completely submerged in 'There's a Monster in My Piano' which is the new show from Garlic Theatre.  The title says it all really.  The story features a toy piano from the famous (in toy piano circles at least) Michelsonne factory in Paris which burnt down in 1970.  These pianos are now rare and sort after.  You may laugh but know this: Yann Tiersen, composer of the Amélie soundtrack, plays a Michelsonne piano.

Being a show about a piano, and not being a pianist myself, I enlisted the help of Norwich piano teacher and jazz musician Simon Brown (pictured with Monster).  He covered the Chopin, ragtime and boogie woogie piano elements.  However, I'm rather pleased with this little piece, half of which we used in the show, which shows off the toy piano while simultaneously demonstrating why you won't often hear it national radio.

It's a waltz followed by a march.  The march bears a very close resemblance to a famous classical piece of music which I'll leave you to identify.

The show was a monster in more ways than one.  As well as involving the sampling of the piano, there are three animated sequences that needed music, foley and scripts recorded and applied.  And the show as a whole is almost never silent.  So it was a relief to declare it 'in the can' at the dress rehearsal on Friday afternoon and kick off the weekend on a high.

Beverley Puppet Festival 2012

A mini tour performing The Chalk Giants and Claytime took in Beverley Puppet Festival.  The weather plays a big part in any event using outdoor spaces but I think this would have been a great event even without the sunshine.  The highlight for me was Sockobauno's Little Fawn Caravan.  Not just because it is a wonderfully intimate space in which to view a performance.  Shane Connolly's two shows were masterpieces: tragic, comic and totally riveting, adults and children came out raving about them.

Other images I captured included the hurdy gurdy man playing for a dancing cow.  And I wish I'd caught the giant Punch a moment sooner as he waved from the railway bridge. But I like the juxtaposition with the booth in the foreground.

Birds of prey

The recent news item about Rufus the vanishing, and reappearing, Wimbledon hawk reminded me of some workshops I ran last month.  These are a relatively new departure for me, about which more later, mixing 'found' and 'junk' instruments with storytelling. They took place in a marquee at Holt Hall and I was sharing the billing with friend, author and performance poet David Mason.  

At the other end of the marquee a mandala making workshop was to take place. Nice and quiet.  But the bird drawing workshop leaders didn't like the space they had been given in a nearby gazebo - too windy for both the birds and the paper, apparently. And then the cuddly toy store felt they'd been left out on a limb so they moved in too.  Finally, when it rained, we had an influx of people looking for somewhere dry to eat their lunch. 

All this gave David a captive, if somewhat 'we'll-talk-amongst-ourselves', audience to try and out-shout.  For me focussing the children on the activity, especially the part where I tell a story, was challenging.  But somehow having the birds at such close hand made it all worthwhile.

Apologies for the qulaity of the pics.  Not for the first time, I left my camera at home and had to rely on my phone.

At last - The Tomb of Spirits

All the rewrites and timing alterations are complete and 'The Tomb of Spirits' opens at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge at 2pm today.  Here are some photos from the last rehearsal I attended, which featured half a dozen or so students coming in to photograph the proceedings.

The three cues are all very long, the third over16 minutes, but I will post an extract or two in the near future.

Teaching and performance commitments in Norfolk make it impossible to attend but I shall be thinking of Sally Brown, Anthony Best and director Steve Tiplady at two o'clock this afternoon.

A very old flute indeed

Another from the BBC: Apparently archaeologists have discovered flutes made from bird and mammoth bone. The flutes, from a cave close to the River Danube in southern Germany, are about 45,000 years old.  The BBC article is here while the source article is from The Journal of Human Evolution.

The picture, of one of the flutes from two angles, suggests a swannee whistle but I'm pretty sure that what appears to be a stick protruding from the bottom of the instrument is just a label.

Why the British talk about the weather

My first real brush with the outdoors this year involved a weekend at what will be this year's Midsummer Camp venue.  The last weekend in April and, although not especially cold, it never really stopped raining.  Blind optimism, poor judgement and bad luck caused me to turn up with a strange tent and no car to retreat (or escape in).  And I quickly discovered that my tent had no fly-sheet.

The following weekend was to be the Body Land Movement dance event in Cambridgeshire (see recent post).  I was looking forward to this but confess I didn't fancy another wet camping experience, even though we had been allocated a yurt and the site boasts a kick-ass sauna. And there was another reason why I was apprehensive.

A highlight of the wet weekend in Suffolk was watching a mediaeval band, in costume, playing wonderful music. An experience made all the sweeter by the knowledge that I was about to be rescued from a second wet night in a horse shelter.  One of the players complained of cold hands so, in a fit of mediaeval chivalry, I proffered my hand-warmers.  These garments, a gift from my daughter, make playing outside possible at all times of year.  And now I'll be without them until I return to Suffolk in mid-June.

But just as it looked like the rain would hold off, in spite of near-zero temperatures, and the dance weekend would go ahead, news reached us from Cambridgeshire.  The river had burst its banks, flooding the woodland where we were to camp and hold the workshops. The dance floor and the main infrastructure was unaffected but parking, camping and walking about would be impossible.

Now, only two or three weeks later, we have blazing sunshine and temperatures in the mid twenties.  And who knows what it will be like in September when the re-scheduled event takes place? So, if there's nothing else to talk about in Britain, there's always the weather.

That's the kitchen on the right.  Drinks by the pool, anyone?

Procrastination

It's about time I posted.  It's been a busy week with three shows on the go, two in rehearsal and a 'show and tell' session about the R&D (research and development) for Pied Piper.  But I'm a firm believer in procrastination; it allows time for assimilation and for fresh ideas to appear.

So I've been doodling. I first came across Norwich based artist Sarah Beare when I saw an animation of hers at the Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts. It had been made for an exhibition called 'Unearthed' which featured Japanese and European figurines from the early Stone Age. Sarah's animated figure was a response to that.

More recently she has been making small silver figures, a mere 31mm long, called Dolossies.  Last year Sarah made an animation to illustrate and explore their potential.  The animation was silent but, we agreed, crying out for sound.  So I took Sarah's starting point - hitting a bunch of keys - and had a go.  And, as it is such a short piece, I had two more attempts. My intention was to take a very different approach each time but somehow I kept mining the same vein.

If you're interested in the figures, and other larger figures being specially manufactured in China to Sarah's specifications, then she has a website. And Sarah's blog, which tells the story of the figures as it unfolds, is at http://www.sarah-beare.blogspot.co.uk/

Each clip is only 35 seconds long.