[cross-posted from Dale’s blog]
Forging ahead, Marc, Dale, Carol Lee, and Laura in attendance.
Carol Lee has finished two sunflowers:
They are quite magnificent. We began to see a lot of possibilities now for choreography. Dale suggested that we keep in mind the Silly Symphony cartoons, with their simple and repetitive patterns. They’re a lot of fun to play with, and very easy to make into characters.
Dale reported on his adventures in Hedgehog Land: he worked with Sherry Lambert’s kindergarteners again on the MMH Arrives sequence, and they’re getting quite good at it. He then tested them on some ideas he had for the Marmalade Man Makes a Dance to Mend Us, where he asked them to strike hedgehog poses on the beat. Then they played follow-the-leader, taking a step and striking a pose on the beat. It worked, so we’ll actually be able to stage both MMH pieces! He also sent letters home to the parents so they could decide whether their hedgehog would be able to participate in the May 3 performance.
Then we forced ourselves to get to work on visuals for Sun & Moon Circus [SMC].
Marc continued his study of the circular bed, the Gang in pyjamas, King of Cats as ringmaster:
That’s a magic lantern the Tiger is holding, projecting moons/stars/suns onto the circus action around them.
Carol Lee grumbled about being a three-dimensional artist (i.e., hot glue) being forced to work in a two-dimensional framework, but she approximated successively nonetheless:
Here she has the sunflowers listening to the Moon’s lounge act. Looking at this idea, it occurs to Dale that we can actually write in a vocal part for the Moon in the circus sequence, sort of a Cirque du Soleil descant thingie.
A simple image, for creatures clapping. We probably could come up with a few more, paws and fangs, to add to the mix.
After working with paint last week, Dale went digital this week, using a program called ArtRage. It’s very gorgeous, and it comes in a free version for both Mac and that other platform, from Ambient Design. There’s also a $19.95 version that has layers, worth it if you can afford it.
Here the tiger is awakened by fitful, flashing light, streaming through his window. He has managed to get his paws on a bit of it.
We do not have workshop next week, April 3, because it’s spring break and Dale and Marc and Carol Lee will be in New York City. In fact, by this time next week, we will already have had lunch with Nancy Willard!
Avenues for drawings. Thinking, again, about the Inn as always under construction. Chorus kids dressing as staff AND masons, builders, etc (with aprons, tools, etc, angels with compasses doing working drawings, etc).
Blake’s mixed feelings about his media. He saw the engraving process in metaphysical terms, but he also felt confined by the conventions of academic representation; his drawing style (I’m pulling on scholars and critics, here) always transformative with indeterminate shapes, merging the anatomical with the etherial, pushing to evoke a beyond….So perhaps we can have fun with some of the images of construction, of putting the Inn together.
Let’s find some archetectural drawings (plans, elevations, geometrical rendering, etc) from the period (late 18th, early 19th century. Maybe use something there as a way in to illustrating flats and other scenic elements. But we turn the drawings toward…a beyond…toward imaginative impossibilities made strangely possible.
What if the giant sheet we pull into the playing space and perhaps render as rent, is translucent and can take projections from above and underneath? What if it was a sheet of fanciful Inn design, a sheet of “blueprints,” which could be illuminated with stars and other magical effects.
Irony of a sheet of design that has been torn in half…out of frustration?…as if it is still not quite right…but out of the tear comes…the beyond we’re looking for…
Those are awesome ideas. I love the idea of projecting working drawings for the Inn on the rear sheet, projections that could be changed at will.
The idea of the Inn being a work in progress is very appealing as well.
We need pictures.