Read yesterday’s post here. (No Flickr pics for today)

Day Ten: World of Paper

Today I had a full day workshop with Gary Friedman and Sharon Gelber, using paper as our medium. 

I’m going to try and remember as much as possible, which will be difficult, as we did a lot and I didn’t have a chance to take notes – which is what I normally do during all my events. 

First, it should be said that Sharon does occupational therapy, while Gary does the puppetry; so the warm ups were taken by Sharon, and then Gary would step in and take us through the creative processes. This works very well, as it means each one is focused on getting the most out of their particular areas. 

We started with some basic warm up stretches, and then got into doing a bunch of walking/dancing/physicalisation exercises. 

By using different pieces of music, we were asked to stretch out our body – 20s music was used to get us to dance flapper style, while more tribal music got us to move low to the ground. It was very tiring by the end of it, but it was like doing an aerobics class, and definitely worth the effort. In fact, I’m less tired today than I was on Monday, when I did the Visual Narrative class on Monday (and today’s class was twice as long). All of the things we did in terms of warm up were designed to get our senses awakened, and Sharon took us through some steps to both wake up the body and the mind. It’s one of the best warm ups that I’ve done, and that’s saying a lot since I’ve done about 10 years worth of acting classes – and absolutely hate this type of stuff normally. 

We also did some fun stuff: walking in one direction around the room, when Gary asked us to turn, we’d go in the opposite direction. When he called out a number, we had to get into groups with the same number of people. When we failed to get the right number, Gary accused us of being bad, and that we’d be sent downstairs and be fed to the crocodiles. At one point, he’d called out 7, and I’d managed to be in a group with 9, and asked us which ones would be going to the crocs – I didn’t want to be taken, so I ran behind the group hoping not to be noticed. But alas, Gary saw me and since he knew my name already, I and one other person was taken to the crocs (or rather, he grabbed our arms and led us to the door, at which point he forgave us). All sorts of fun things like that, tongue-in-cheek moments, were spread out through the day, so it was never boring! 

Once we’d gone through this process, we lay on our backs, in the dark (we were using a space at the Blue Room, and instead of having natural light, or fluoros, there was a single profile light on a stand, pointing to the ceiling. It created a quite mysterious atmosphere) and one by one were given a large piece of brown packing paper. In fact, the exercise was ‘paper meditation’, so the piece was laid on top of each person’s body. The idea was to keep your eyes closed and experience the paper; texture, sound, etc, and yes, even taste. This was a wonderful idea. I was one of the last people to receive a piece, and so I spent the first few minutes listening to the crunch, crackle, tear, scrunch and play of everyone around me. It was like listening to a rainstorm, and very relaxing. 

This introduction to the paper allowed us to experience the medium first, rather than put our ideas onto the paper immediately. It freed our minds to the possibilities of what we could create – and create we did. 

The next exercise was to pair up with someone and perform a short scene on a particular topic. Each topic was given out by someone in the class. Mine was ‘spirals’, and I got together with one of the other classmates and together brainstormed how we were going to apply it in paper form. It occurred to us to twist the paper into a long piece each and use it like a snake, and at some point I suggested we make a snail out of the two long pieces. 

The first pair to show their scene was incredibly good – their topic was ‘forest’, and they used two pieces of paper, one representing the forest, the other a machine that gobbles it up and spits out single flat sheets of paper. Well, Gary – and of course the rest of us – thought it was wonderful, which intimidated me because I started thinking about my ‘spiral’ piece and thought it wasn’t as good as this first one. But we got up and performed our spiral snail thing, and everyone liked the simplicity of the scene, as well as the clarity of what we were trying to express. And suddenly I remembered the stuff Neville Tranter said, and realised that all the tutors and puppeteers have the same basic hints, but all manage to say it in a different way so that each time you get another dimension to the gem of information. 

Next, we had to work solo, and this time we were to have a creature and our focus would be
particularly on ‘breath’ – that is to say, focusing on making the paper character breathe into life. I chose to do a bird, using my past experience of origami on stage, and had the funny idea to make the bird fly in the air, land on the tops of a tree, which then bows with the weight, until finally the tree tips over and the bird flies away. It was nice and simple, which I liked, but Gary suggested that my bird, which was very flat paper because of the need to do the folds of the origami, should have been crumpled like the tree. So he crumpled it, and then discovered that no one in the class liked it because now the wings did not move as well. 

Well, by this time it was lunch, so we all had a break, and came back after an hour. Then we did a bit of a warm up again, just to make sure we were ready for more physical stuff, plus a bit of massage for relaxation. 

Just before lunch, we were asked to think of a story from our lives that we could share. I had imagined that we would be asked to perform it using the paper, but actually there was a bigger twist in that we would be performing other people’s stories. In the end, five people told a short story about themselves or their life, and chose people from the class to represent the characters within that story. We then went into these groups, and figured out a way to represent them. 

My group’s story was about how one of my classmates was left by her father before she was born, and the reconciliation between them. It was quite tough not to feel as though you had to walk on eggshells when recreating a story like that, since it’s so personal. Nevertheless, I was chosen to play the woman’s grandmother, and I created this big paper lady, with skinny twisted arms to hold the granddaughter in, which was good as it turns out, because the grandmother was a big Russian lady. 

Each group presented their piece, and by the time we had finished it was 6pm. Gary had to rush off to the Town Hall, so I showed him the way as I headed back to the hotel. Before I continue with my day: 

A few technical hints and criticisms were given on the technique of manipulation, but for the most part, feedback was about how we used the paper, and how we could go further ith it. 

I’m sure I’ve missed an exercise or two here, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what it is. 

I do want to add two things: that I enjoyed this workshop immensely, and that anyone in Australia (Sydney especially) who are keen to expand their imagination on how they use their materials, or those who want to find new ways of creating performance, or those who want to use paper puppetry for therapy, should take this workshop. Hell, take it anyway! (I’m not just saying this because I’m friends with Gary, but because I really did enjoy it. I’m friends with Sue Giles, but didn’t enjoy her workshop as much as this one) 

The other thing is that Gary enjoyed singling me out today – when he was asking for feedback on a certain thing (I forget what now), he started with a slow sentence: “And now I’d like to ask… the illustrious… well known… Naomi”. And I swear he was going to introduce Sharon, or someone else in the class, and got completely thrown when he said my name! Later, he was introducing me to Sharon as his “other girlfriend.” They’re (Gary and Sharon) very nice, and excellent tutors. 

Anyway, so I headed back to my hotel, but I haven’t gone to the Transit Lounge. I thought about going, but really I’m at the point now where I’ve done so much, I just need a night or two inside and on my own. 

One thing I must say I’m enjoying immensely while I’m here is the ability for me to focus on what I’m doing back home. Because I’ve been on and off involved in puppetry for the last six years, and because over that time I’ve been trying to taste a little of each medium (or type of puppet), I haven’t really made up my mind as to which I like best. However, while I’ve been in Perth, a few things have become clearer for me, and I finally feel as if I know which direction I want to head in, and what things I should be doing. It is making me rethink a few of my plans – including my online store – although I’m glad to say I’m not going to stop them, just do things more for my personal tastes, rather than trying to please everyone. I’d much rather be very good at one type of puppet, and produce a certain kind of puppet show, than try to do a little of everything and not so well. 

It’s amazing how you can come to a festival and take part in so many workshops, and learn so much, and yet the greatest lesson I’ve learnt has not been from all these great teachers and puppeteers, but from internal reflection. There’s a lot of inspiration to be had here. 

… Tomorrow, I’m heading to a panel discussion on solo journeys, a try at seeing the puppet exhibitions – again – and two shows! UPDATE: Next day’s post is here.