Stories

Andrew J. Burton

Here are some pic­tures from Street Spir­its The­atre Com­pany in per­for­mance. We do audi­ence inter­ac­tive social action the­atre (usu­ally The­atre of the Oppressed) and per­for­mance art in west­ern Canada. Our web­site is www.streetspirits.com

Kym Dakin, US

Kym Dakin has been a pro­fes­sional actress for over twenty years. She has appeared on and off-Broadway, in national tours and region­ally at such the­aters as Syra­cuse Stage, Den­ver Cen­ter The­atre, and Actor’s The­atre of Louisville. She is known for her solo shows “Spec­ta­cles in Soli­tude” and “HeART­ful Mean­der­ings”, per­for­mances that placed her on the Maine Artists Tour­ing Ros­ter and the Maine Alliance for Arts in Edu­ca­tion. After becom­ing the proud mother of Skyler (age 4), Kym switched her pro­fes­sional focus to Inter­ac­tive The­atre. As Direc­tor of Short Fuse: Inter­ac­tive The­atre Tools for Cor­po­rate Change, she has been work­ing in a vari­ety of schools and busi­nesses through­out New Eng­land, includ­ing Pierce-Atwood, Time-Warner Cable, Fairchild Semi­con­duc­tor and Legal Ser­vices for the Elderly. Kym has taught and directed per­for­mance arts in a vari­ety of venues includ­ing Bow­doin Col­lege and the Uni­ver­sity of New Eng­land. She is cur­rently work­ing with Annie O’Brien on a col­lec­tion of women’s sto­ries enti­tled Anger­Play!: a Cel­e­bra­tion of Women’s Cre­ative Fire, and is enrolled in the Mas­ters pro­gram in Adult Edu­ca­tion at USM.

Kym is the direc­tor of Short Fuse, which uses cus­tomized inter­ac­tive the­atre pre­sen­ta­tions as an expe­ri­en­tial train­ing tool in busi­ness and edu­ca­tion. “Our work has taken us into com­pa­nies and non-profit orga­ni­za­tions all over New Eng­land. We address Human Resource issues such as diver­sity, sex­ual harass­ment and vio­lence in the work­place as well as sales train­ing. In addi­tion, Short Fuse has per­formed comedic cel­e­bra­tion fare in numer­ous venues.”

Chris Wildrick, US

Chris was born in Philadel­phia and grew up in Eas­ton, Penn­syl­va­nia. He grad­u­ated from Williams Col­lege in Williamstown, Mass­a­chu­setts, lived in Boston for a bit, and then went on to the Uni­ver­sity of Wisconsin-Madison for his MFA. He has since lived in Chicago and Las Vegas, but is now set­tled down with his wife and two cats in Mur­phys­boro, Illi­nois, where he teaches at South­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­sity at Car­bon­dale. Chris’ artis­tic inter­ests include con­cep­tual, per­for­mance, and sys­tems art. He works on his own as well as with the col­lab­o­ra­tive groups Earl and 2funBasTards. (www.chriswildrick.com)

Adina Bar-On, Israel
HOME OF COURSE, 2002 (approx. 40 min.)

In “Home of Course” a full rec­tan­gu­lar rich red spread cov­ers the knees of a seated woman dressed in black. The red spread is cut by the woman to the form of a flag than unfolded to the shape of a house. Pro­jected move­ments of the face and hands in rela­tion to the red shape cre­ate imagery asso­ci­ated with The Sac­ri­fice. The use of voice in this per­for­mance, as a deaf mute per­son, takes apart the form of word enun­ci­a­tion. This work is my attempt to ques­tion what appers as the inevitabil­ity of destruc­tion in the process of con­struc­tion.
VISION, 2003 (approx. 40 min.)

The vision is ini­tially that of a woman wear­ing black with her hair con­cealed under a dark mate­r­ial. She stands, with her eyes shut, then sits clutch­ing a white bowl whose open­ing is con­cealed by its tilt. It only appears by the slight nods of her head that she is observ­ing — us, or her-self. Her fin­gers con­cealed, inside the bowl, seem to touch sub­stance inquis­i­tively, then her fin­ger seem­ingly delin­eates forms in the space in front of her and then color.

There is the depic­tion sub­stance line and color as visual insin­u­a­tions; A men­tal dis­course on the painterly, on the aes­thetic per­haps. But mostly, this is about insight and fore­sight and oversight.

ENCHANTED RIVER WETLANDS

copy­right Annie Edney 2003

“Enchanted River Wet­lands” is a large-scale out­door the­atre com­mu­nity event.  It is made by the com­mu­nity, for the com­mu­nity and about the com­mu­nity of Albury Wodonga.  Spec­tac­u­lar and breath­tak­ing in its affects, this event is a direct expres­sion of the com­mu­ni­ties thoughts and feel­ings about the Mur­ray River, inter­preted with the assis­tance of pro­fes­sional com­mu­nity arts work­ers in the fol­low­ing art­forms:  cir­cus skills, writ­ing, poetry, shadow pup­petry, giant sculp­tural images, mask mak­ing, fire art, lantern mak­ing, dance, music and singing.

In the long term it will pro­vide skills devel­op­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties that will be enhanced by the annual nature of the event.  A pro­gram of mas­ter classes, guest lec­tures, com­mu­nity work­shops, edu­ca­tional pro­grams in schools and smaller pub­lic events are planned in the region for the cre­at­ing of “Enchanted River Wet­lands”.

This year the pilot event has been in the mak­ing.  Edu­ca­tional mate­r­ial has been devel­oped with the sup­port of sev­eral envi­ron­men­tal bod­ies, and many vol­un­teer hours.   Pre­sented on a CDRom, it begins to tell a story about the crea­tures who live on and in the Mur­ray River.  (This story will be con­tin­ued in the per­for­mance.)  As each crea­ture is intro­duced in the story a pho­to­graph appears, with infor­ma­tion about that crea­tures habits.  So, as the stu­dents read the story they are learn­ing about the crea­tures who are char­ac­ters therein.  There are also teach­ers notes with direc­tions for drama games and activites … with the “Enchanted River Wet­lands” music play­ing all the while.  So stu­dents will be able to study the issues cov­ered in the edu­ca­tional mate­r­ial prior to artists com­ing in to work­shop the artis­tic  com­po­nents of “Enchanted River Wetlands”.

“Enchanted River Wet­lands” is a com­pre­hen­sive com­mu­nity project focussing on a part­ner­ship between the arts and the envi­ron­ment.  It’s about involv­ing as broad a cross sec­tion of the com­mu­nity as pos­si­ble, and as many peo­ple as is practicable.

Con­nect­ing the process of mak­ing art to some­thing deeply impor­tant in the maker’s life means the work is very potent, and the pas­sion most com­mu­ni­ties have for their local envi­ron­ment is a won­der­ful theme.

And the process of devel­op­ing the work pro­vides a very acces­si­ble means of becom­ing involved.  It’s avail­able to all, no mat­ter what skill or expe­ri­ence level.  Every­one who has an inter­est can be involved.  All ages, gen­ders, races, pro­fes­sions — every­one has a vested inter­est in his or her envi­ron­ment. Although inter­est­ingly, most feel dis­en­fran­chised enough from it and at a com­plete loss as to what to do.  So when you say: “here’s a project where we want you to make work that is your cre­ative expres­sion of your envi­ron­ment” all sorts of quite pow­er­ful things hap­pen, as peo­ple come in to explore their cre­ativ­ity in an encour­ag­ing and safe place. 

Rela­tion­ships form between peo­ple who would never nor­mally speak to each other.  I’ve watched the CEO of the local com­mu­nity health organ­i­sa­tion mak­ing lanterns next to the mother of a young man con­sid­ered to be at risk, along with three of that woman’s grand chil­dren.  And these rela­tion­ships can develop when the event hap­pens on an annual basis.

The skills also develop.  Peo­ple who make a sim­ple pyra­mid lantern in the first year can come back and develop more sculp­tural skills.  The enrich­ing expe­ri­ence of work­ing along­side a team of expe­ri­enced com­mu­nity arts work­ers leaves a pro­found mem­ory.  Intro­duc­ing this project to the com­mu­nity of Albury Wodonga has been a very reward­ing expe­ri­ence.

There seems to be a hunger in this com­mu­nity for some­thing that engages peo­ple in this way, and the part­ner­ships “Enchanted River” has formed are deeply rooted in the life of com­mu­nity, enabling sus­tain­abil­ity in that annual man­ner.    It seems local gov­ern­ment, the edu­ca­tion sec­tor and the envi­ron­ment sec­tor all have an acute inter­est in this work These part­ner­ships are seedlings this year, as the organ­i­sa­tions con­cerned observe the work and the affect it has in the community.

This pilot event is focussing on the wet­lands of the Mur­ray River, reflect­ing the vital role wet­lands play in a river sys­tem.  If the wet­lands are healthy, the river sys­tem has a much bet­ter chance of being healthy too.  Wet­lands are to rivers what kid­neys are to human bod­ies.  So it’s an appro­pri­ate focus for the inau­gural event.  In future years we will focus on dif­fer­ent aspects of the river.

The Per­for­mance:

“Enchanted River Wet­lands” will begin on Gate­way Island, close to the river and there­fore the bor­der between Vic­to­ria and New South Wales.  School chil­dren and all those who have been involved in work­shops will gather, lanterns will be lit, musi­cians and singers will be warm­ing up instru­ments and voices, stilt walk­ers will hop up on their stilts, giant pup­pets will come out and have their lights lit, dancers will be stretch­ing and peo­ple will be putting on makeup.  Musi­cians, dancers and artists will be gath­er­ing.  The audi­ence will also be assem­bling and a sense of excited antic­i­pa­tion will be building.

The whole lot will then move in a mag­i­cal pro­ces­sion along the path beside the Mur­ray River, musi­cians, lanterns, Fly­ing Fruit Fly Cir­cus stilt walk­ers, school chil­dren and their fam­i­lies, pass­ing vignette per­for­mances and sculp­tural instal­la­tions along the way.

For exam­ple a group of dancers may become a move­ment the­atre piece which emerges from among the trees as peo­ple pass, mov­ing in slow motion, freeze fram­ing and gen­er­ally build­ing the sense that some­thing very spe­cial is hap­pen­ing in the audience’s own famil­iar envi­ron­ment.

The pro­ces­sion will move from Gate­way Vil­lage in Vic­to­ria to Norieul Park in NSW, where the the­atre spec­ta­cle will be pre­sented.  This will involve stilt danc­ing, giant sculp­tural lanterns and pup­pets, shadow pup­petry, fire imagery, the band and choir, more dance and move­ment and will be the cul­mi­na­tion of six weeks work in the community.

Reve­g­a­tion Pro­gram.  As a way to gauge how well the com­mu­nity has taken this process on, and whether it makes a dif­fer­ent to the way they think about their envi­ron­ment, we will invite par­tic­i­pants to gather at The Wet­lands of the Mur­ray River and cel­e­brate the place, the event, and the involve­ment gen­er­ated within the com­mu­nity.  We’ll do some plant­ing and have a BBQ.

PROJECT DEVELOPMENT

This project has been in my con­scious­ness for a long time.  Over the years bits of it have emerged and become work in var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties.   The first project of this kind I worked on was “Oceans of Delight” directed by Kate Clere in 1994, and staged at Phillip Island.  And I was hooked!  Clearly peo­ple needed this type of com­mu­nity cel­e­bra­tion that addressed their con­cerns, and they became involved very enthusiastically.

STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT

The work involves a num­ber of stages, each of which is an absorb­ing and fas­ci­nat­ing project unto itself.  The first is the fund­ing and part­ner­ship devel­op­ment stage.  A seri­ous inten­tion for me with “Enchanted River” is that it lives so strongly within the com­mu­nity of Albury Wodonga that it becomes a key fea­ture in the annual cal­en­dar.  To ensure that, I needed to have local gov­ern­ment/councils inter­ested, and to find other bod­ies who exist in a sus­tain­able man­ner and would sup­port “Enchanted River”.  It was a great boost when both Albury and Wodonga City Coun­cils announced they would put money into it.  The local Regional Arts Devel­op­ment Offi­cer, Chris Pidd, recog­nised the vital poten­tial of “Enchanted River”, and so Mur­ray Arts came on board, help­ing with arts fund­ing and administration.

PARTNERSHIPS

And happy serendip­ity played a hand … as she often does.  The envi­ron­men­tal sec­tor got hold of my project descrip­tion, and all of a sud­den I began to get phone calls and emails from envi­ron­men­tal­ists all over the place.  The happy upshot of that was that “Enchanted River” now has sup­port­ive part­ners in the Mur­ray Dar­ling Asso­ci­a­tion, Mur­ray Dar­ling Basin Com­mis­sion and the North East Catch­ment Man­age­ment Author­ity.  And now my self esteem began to fly!  

COMMUNITY CONSULTATION

Com­mu­nity con­sul­ta­tion and cre­ative devel­op­ment are next, and I love this part!  This is where the project really sparks into life, it’s where the work goes out from my study, my com­puter and phone, into the com­mu­nity and begins to gather energy.  We talk to a num­ber of care­fully selected peo­ple about their his­tory in this region, and how their present rela­tion­ship with the Mur­ray River was estab­lished, what their con­cerns are, and their hopes for the future of the river.  These are ordi­nary peo­ple, not experts, peo­ple who live their lives on or near the river, and who engage with it in a very phys­i­cal man­ner.  And what sto­ries!  What amaz­ing people.  

CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT

From here we take these sto­ries and spend some time doing cre­ative devel­op­ment.  And for this project cre­ative devel­op­ment is two pronged.  We need to develop the Edu­ca­tion Kit, and the story for the per­for­mance.  So we tease out the com­mon threads in people’s sto­ries and develop a story that with encom­pass everyone’s con­cerns … as much as pos­si­ble.  And a very real focus is not to be con­fronta­tional or judg­men­tal, not to alien­ate any­one at all.  So we use the­atri­cal tricks!  Invent char­ac­ters and rela­tion­ships to carry the story, tell it like it is.  This story begins in the Edu­ca­tion Kit, which is designed for Pri­mary School stu­dents, and car­ries on into the per­for­mance, in chap­ter form I sup­pose.  So when the fam­i­lies of the stu­dents come out to cel­e­brate their kids work they will feel a con­nec­tion via that story, and their chil­drens expe­ri­ence of “Enchanted River Wet­lands”. 

WORKSHOP PROGRAMS

And of course the next stage is the com­mu­nity and schools work­shop pro­grams.  Part of the plan­ning stages involves con­tact­ing schools and let­ting them know that “Enchanted River Wet­lands” is hap­pen­ing.  And plan­ning a sched­ule that works for the schools and for the artists.  We are offer­ing schools a num­ber of options in the way they engage with “Enchanted River Wet­lands”.  And a cen­trally located com­mu­nity work­shop space will be estab­lished, local artists invited to come and par­tic­i­pate and learn a new skill.

THE EVENT ITSELF

The pro­ces­sion and the per­for­mance are the event, and it’s com­mu­nity cul­tural devel­op­ment work, it’s the process not the prod­uct that’s impor­tant.  When the process is work­ing prop­erly though, the prod­uct is amaz­ing.  The col­lec­tive energy of hun­dreds of par­tic­i­pants, fed by thou­sands of their fam­i­lies and friends as audi­ence, makes for a mem­o­rable evening.  And of course it’s all for one night.  These shows are one-off, and the work very ephemeral, which cre­ates a won­der­ful fresh dynamic.  We are in the busi­ness of mak­ing mem­o­ries. 

If you’re inter­ested check out www.murrayarts.org.au and go to projects.