June already!
The PaperBoats is half a year old and we’re blowing in the wind, looking for answers my friends.
Provocations 1-5 have mapped the path to this point. Welcome to provocation number 6!
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“Your provocations are interesting but I am unsure how to contribute to this dialogue? Is there part of this platform that I am unaware of? At present I just read the emails." Sarah Neville
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Good question!
First up, I’m wanting to share a sense of things as they are. So these early provocations are setting the scene so to speak.
That said, I’m looking to get to a point fairly soon where the models of performance-making, sharing and participation are clear enough to invite discussion.
The first project, I’m calling The Number One Tutu Show.
It is designed to model and test some of the ideas of The PaperBoats platform.
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Adelaide, Austin, Wellington, Singapore
“when tribes meet, accommodate each others needs and arrive at something new that transcends their differences, the two-ness becomes two-gether-ness”.
The small number of partnership communities involved in this first project will create performance-content around:
- a common activating idea,
- a limited palette of objects
- a pre-ordained, performance-conceit.
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At this point in time …
the activating idea is:
- to explore two-ness in every which way
the limited palette is:
- rolls of receipt paper and black rubber hoops
- boxes and bowling balls
the performance conceit is:
- an immersive, largely non-verbal, interactive performance event
- where 12 boxes or gifts contain 12 provocations or invitations
- to prompt and engage the performer and audience "tribes"
- who travel a performative journey from "two-ness to two-gether-ness"
- framed by 12 pieces of music
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collective creativity
“It’s more fruitful to be generous to one’s fellow artists than it is to be competitive."
We've developed a sharing communities agreement, which describes how ideas and content can be shared within the closed community of partners involved in the project.
Our sharing model will help us create:
- better performance outcomes
- develop broader connections
- open up new possibilities for partnerships and funding.
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from “seed" to “conceit"
Over the years of collaborating on visual theatre works, I’ve become alive to the power of elemental forms like boxes, balls, circles, squares, water, paper, rope, light and sound.
(images from Patch Theatre's Me and My Shadow, Special Delivery, The Moon's a Balloon and Emily Loves to Bounce)
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The “line” as a simple element, seeded the beginnings of this inaugural PaperBoats exploration.
I have consistently used binaries like work and play, whimsy and logic, the need of nurture and the allure of independence, as ways of exploring themes and ideas in my work. So “two” becomes another area of interest for this investigation.
I connect strongly to Bruno Bettleheim’s observation that "stories of two guide us to a point where opposites become reconciled, bringing that which is unbalanced and incomplete to a state of balance and completeness – not somewhere between the two extremes - but to some third position that transcends them both."
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As a binary idea, I began thinking about “lines that divide” and "lines that connect”.
These "lines" could be:
- physical
(a wall that divides; a rope that connects)
- psychological
(a belief that divides; an experience that connects)
I began playing with rolls of receipt paper and small hoops and wondered what sort of show could be made where these were the only physical elements we had to play with?
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the dot and the Line
I came across a 1960s book, The Dot and the Line by Norton Juster, which has been animated and orchestrated for Metro Golden Meyer.
Please watch it - it's 10 minutes of pure delight! Just click on the image below.
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The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics
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However, I began to realise that “the line” was "too conceptual" and "too dry” as an activating image, so I kept looking for a better “hook” into the ideas that were emerging.
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kind and kindness
Rachel Leathart, a dancer I met in an audition last year, proved to be a wonderful source of inspiration. After travelling the world dancing for more than a decade though the 90’s to 2003, she and her partner dedicated the next phase of their lives to raising a family of 4 children.
She told me that her approach to life was framed by two ideas - "keep things simple” and "be kind.” "All else follows”, she said.
photo: Alex Makeyev
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It struck me how powerful and profound the notions of “simplicity" and “kindness” are.
If “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” (Da Vinci)
then maybe “kindness is the deepest expression of humanity”.
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"Kindness” relates to the care and concern we show our “kind”. But what is “our kind” and what does an investigation of kindness tell us?
Slowly, the “line" idea morphed to become “Tw2o of a Kind” with questions about sameness and difference, the power of two and how lines connect or divide us”
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But after a while, Tw2o of a Kind felt too ernest as a title.
So I started to call what we were doing The Tutu Shows. I liked the whimsy this title evokes and its inference of two-ness. There’s something cheeky and irreverent about it. Something that invites lateral thinking.
The activating statement for The Tutu Shows simply became: exploring two-ness in every-which-way which incorporates everything that has been collected and absorbed in the journey so far.
immersive and interactive theatre
Recently, I’ve enjoyed watching Sally Chance and her performance-making team as they created a new interactive and immersive performance-game for 2-year olds called Touch and Go. (performing at ArtPlay and Out of the Box Festival this month)
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I was fascinated to see how, in this piece, they have alternated “viewing segments" with “doing segments" across the duration of the performance.
So in attempting to develop a conceit for The Number One Tutu Show, I find myself wanting to explore how we transcend the audience-performer divide in a performance for 3-7 year olds and carers.
I’m seeing the show as an invitation to celebrate: "theatre as a game", "acting as play" and "creativity as the miraculous coming together of the uninhibited energy of the child with its apparent opposite and enemy; the sense of order imposed by a disciplined adult intelligence.” * quote by Norman Podhoretz
I imagine the audience of children enter the "world of the performance” and discover, by being in it:
- how it works,
- how they fit in,
- what they’ve come to do
- how they get to "do it"
- and how they "return home”
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a synchronicity of two's
I’ve been using Max Richter’s recomposition of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons as music for our improvisations. I discovered, to my joy and surprise, that it is comprised of 12 pieces around 4 minutes each and totalling the magic 42 minutes that I consider to be the perfect length for children’s performances!!
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independent makers
We’ve begun to make content with some independent makers in Adelaide by having them respond to simple provocations within the framework I’ve described.
We’re having fun.
We’ve begun to share ideas and content across the partnership communities.
We’ll soon begin performance-making processes with the Adelaide College of the Arts and the University of Texas in Austin.
By the end of the year, we’ll know much more about the possibilities of The Tutu Shows and how The PaperBoats platform can inform and support the process of creation.
We’ll share our journey with you.
new partners
The PaperBoats is not a producing company. It's a platform for makers to create ideas and content for quality performances of all kinds for children.
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When we discover what outcomes might arise from our inaugural investigations, we'll be seeking interest from other artists and producing partners such as festivals, venues, arts organisations, companies, universities, funders and philanthropists.
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If you wish to respond, comment on, query, discuss or contribute to any of these ideas, please email me: dave@thepaperboats.com
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This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory group.
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