January 2017 It's our birthday! The PaperBoats is one year old and our first two shows for early childhood audiences are in development. Let's take a look at the year that was.
December 2015 -After 20 wonderful years at the helm of Patch Theatre Company, I was delighted to receive a Creative Fellowship from the Australia Council to kick-start The PaperBoats - a new company dedicated to pioneering new ways of creating what we hope will be extraordinary theatre performances for children.
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The PaperBoats framework is summarised in the one minute video below and outlined on The PaperBoats website
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one minute video snapshot of The PaperBoats platform
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2016 - The Year That Was
The inaugural partnership were celebrating on our birthday is a co-creation relationship between Austin, Texas and Adelaide, South Australia.
In our first year, we have devised a performance for 4-8 year olds called Especially on Birthdays with an ensemble of 11 makers from a tertiary training institution in Adelaide (Adelaide College of the Arts) and a work-in-progress showing of a performance called Gimme Please with a tertiary ensemble of 18 makers at the University of Texas in Austin.
These creative development "works-in-progress" will spawn a range of outcomes.
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The activating idea for both shows was simple and open - explore two-ness in every which way.
Content and ideas were shared freely between the two ensembles during the devising process.
The two outcomes, Gimmie Please! and Especially on Birthdays were very different from one another, even though there was a substantial flow of ideas and content between the two processes.
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Our creative processes are guided by a set of 7 principles that underpin The PaperBoats activity.
The performance-makers involved have all endorsed our Sharing Communities Agreement. More than 40 performance-makers have been involved in this process so far.
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Dr Brant Pope (UT) is drawing on his observations of The PaperBoats activity in the US and Australia (in association with Dave Brown) to write a book on how these 7 principles work in practice.
He shares his thoughts below in a 5 minute vimeo excerpt from our Kindling Session at IPAY 2017 in Madison, Wisconsin.
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click on arrow to view
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The Years Ahead 2017-2019
The PaperBoats is a Partnership Platform.
We become who we are in conjunction with others becoming who they are.
The PaperBoats platform develops performance content through devising processes that harnesses the power of collective creativity with partners who share our aspiration to produce and present extra-ordinary new theatre for children.
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We will develop over the next three years, viable Professional Touring Versions (2-3 handers) of Especially on Birthdays and Gimmmie Please! both in Australia and in the US in association with producing and presenting partners.
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We will also develop a Residency Performance framework for Especially on Birthdays.
How does this work? Two directors from The PaperBoats team go into a host community and engage with an ensemble of between 6 and 12 local performers in an intensive 2-3 week process to prepare a remount adaptation of the show, which incorporates personal stories and material created by the ensemble.
The community ensemble could be from a tertiary training institution or the project could be done in conjunction with a theatre company as a capacity building process for artists. It could be an Arts Festival project. There are many possibilities.
Many of these Residency Performance style pieces are presented in festivals or commissioned by venues for a performance season.
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We're planning to develop the Residency Performance model for Especially on Birthdays in both Australia and the US in communities, where partners might include venues, theatre companies, universities and festivals .
We welcome "expressions of interest" from communities interested in helping us develop this model.
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The Especially on Birthdays Residency Performance venture has been inspired by some recent "residency performance" works being presented in Australia.
The Record by 600 Highwaymen for Adelaide's OzAsia Festival was a personal favourite and I look forward to seeing Jerome Bel's work, Gala in the upcoming Adelaide Festival of Arts.
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By 2020, we plan to give expression to Professional Touring versions and Residency Performance versions of Especially on Birthdays and Gimmie Please! in both the US and Australia.
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Welcome Aboard New Zealand - 2017
The PaperBoats New Zealand director, Stephen Blackburn, has been busy setting up a new partnership project in Wellington NZ. This will begin in July 2016 with an ensemble of tertiary theatre-makers from the Victoria University led by director Kerryn Palmer in association with The PaperBoats team.
There's more to come soon on this new thread of activity.
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We acknowledge and thank the following thought-leaders, performance-makers, provocateurs, administrators and partners for their contribution to The PaperBoats in 2016.
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In The PaperBoats “Sharing Communities” approach, all artists involved in the partnership communities contribute to, and receive from, the "sharing pool" of ideas and content accumulated across the project.
As a result, we collectively build better outcomes, develop better connections and open up new possibilities.
In effect, we are all share-holders of the accumulated pool of ideas and performance outcomes, which is licenced to be used only within the closed community of partners.
Benefits for artists and ensembles include:
- involvement in reciprocal processes of sharing for creative benefit
- development of new ideas and creative practice
- an involvement in better performance outcomes
- new national and international networks and connections
- new opportunities including paid work and funding
- profiling, acknowledgement and attribution across the communities
- belonging to a like-minded artistic community
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Project Partners: Australia Council for the Arts, Adelaide College for the Arts, University of Texas, Adelaide Independent Artists - "TuTwo Project"
Devising Director/Makers:
Dave Brown, Roz Hervey.
Performer/Makers:
Gabriel Allani, Nicola Grant, Lucy Haas-Hennessy, Hasan Kourghi, Temeka Lawlor, Angus Leighton, Poppy Mee, Danae Underwood, Chloe Willis.
Composer/Music-Makers:
zephyrROM comprising Zephyr Quartet & voiceROM.
Zephyr Quartet: Belinda Gehlert, Emily Tulloch, Jason Thomas, Hilary Kleinig. voiceROM: Dylan Marshall and Jarrad Payne.
Designer/Maker:
Geoff Cobham (lighting)
Technician/Makers:
Corey Cramp, Daniel Davey.
Provocateurs/Dramaturgs:
Dr Megan Alrutz, Stephen Blackburn, Geoff Cobham, Naomi Edwards, Erin Fowler, Katrina Lazaroff, Stephen Noonan, Dr Brant Pope.
AC Arts Staff Support:
Terence Crawford (Head of Acting), Jenn Havelberg, Simon Stollery, Marg Crompton, Mark Shelton, Casey Van Sebille, Paul Pearce .
Education Consultants: supporting the development of Especially on Birthdays with audiences, educational advice and research.
Reggio Emelia Executive Group: Sheryle Yorsten, Holly Baulderstone (St Peter’s ELC), Leanne Lovett (Madge Sexton Kindergarten), Kate Mount (Saints Girls ELC) Melissa Baulderstone (Annesley ELC), Rina Visser (Portside Christian School), Mary Scales, (Lady Cowrie ELC), Nadia Carruozzo (El Nido ELC), Elspeth Harley (Early Childhood Researcher)
The Sturt Street Community School: Jenni Harpas, Poh Keng, Alanna Murphy, Kerri Southwell, Nik Volk.
Adelaide Independent Artists "TuTwo Project" Content Development:
Juliette Griffin, Scott Griffin, Katrina Lazaroff, Stephen Noonan.
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Project Partners: University of Texas, Australia Council for the Arts, Adelaide College for the Arts.
Devising Director/Maker:
Dr Megan Alrutz
Performer-Makers:
Lina Chambers, Jada Cadena, Mahalia Dinglasan, Moriah Flagler, John Grewell, Christine Gwillim, Jon Haas, Alex Hanna, Anuschka Jasraj, Stephanie Kent, Jessi Rose Lowerre, Cortney McEniry, Samantha Provenzano, Becca Drew Ramsey, Veronica Rivera-Negron, Dakota Salazar, Lauren Smith, David Thomases, Ally Tufenkjian, Andrew Valdez.
Composer/Music-Makers:
Jada Cadena, Mahalia Dinglasan and David Thomases.
Designer/Makers:
Jesse Rose Lowerre (costumes), Alex Hanna (lighting), Jon Haas (media and set)
Provocateurs/Dramaturgs:
Stephen Blackburn, Dave Brown, Dr Brant Pope, Natasha Small, Lauren Smith.
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Arts and Business Planning Consultants:
JonesMacQueen - Amanda Jones and Belinda MacQueen
International Partnership Directors:
Dave Brown - Adelaide, SA
Dr Brant Pope, Dr Megan Alrutz - Austin, Texas
Stephen Blackburn, Kerryn Palmer - Wellington, NZ
Luanne Poh, Caleb Lee - Singapore
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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
To find out more about The PaperBoats please check out provocations 1 to 10 and view the website - http://www.thepaperboats.com
The PaperBoats is grateful to the partnership and support of the Australia Council for the Arts, University of Texas, Department of Theatre and Dance and the Adelaide College of the Arts for their contribution to the development of this platform.
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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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