By: Rusthall Community Arts | August 19, 2020

Written 28th February 2019


This full day workshop devising with music and sounds, inspired movement and improvised scenes. A group of eighteen explored what images and sounds they could make with 10 feet poles. They first stood in a circle with the poles angled down to the centre and slowly raised them till they created the same shape reversed, poles ends meeting at the highest point in the centre of the circle, reminding us of ancient round huts. We played with the sounds of poles clicking together. The circle led to devising part of the  “ceremony of dousing and the birthing of the stone children” One could imagine a mother in the centre of the circle digging for her child. The group then passed poles round in a circle hand- to- han...

Category: Legend of the Rocks 

Tags: Music 

By: Rusthall Community Arts | August 19, 2020

Written February 23rd 2019


Roddy Maude Roxby led a full day devising workshop with masks. I decided to begin the workshop programme with masks because I knew they would have a strong influence on finding the world of the play. The faces that we find in the Rocks around Rusthall are the natural starting point as they are the characters who will people our play. We had fifteen people at the start of the day, and with others coming and going throughout the day we estimate 25 people got the experience of seeing the masks. Roddy introduced not on;y full face and half masks but hat masks that stand above the wearers head who look through the neck. There were others that you wear flat on the top of your head, you lean forward to show the faces to ...

Category: Legend of the Rocks 

Tags: Devising 

By: Rusthall Community Arts | August 19, 2020

Written 15th February 2019


We are approaching the devising of Legends of the Rocks as if the story already exists and all we have to do is discover what it is. Thinking of the play as something to be discovered, rather than invented means we feel less precious about our own ideas, that we accommodate our ideas to what else is happening; eventually ideas merge with others and then, when they are facts, they become the property of everyone.

The first thing we are seeking to discover is what we call “The World of the Play”. What sort of culture exists in this world, what are the people or creatures like, what do they believe, how do they live and move and breath, what are their concerns?

 

As director it’s my role to interpret what we f...

Category: Legend of the Rocks 

Tags: Devising 

By: Rusthall Community Arts | August 19, 2020

Written 12th October  2018

Legend of the Rocks first workshop was an introduction to composition. The day took the form of a typical composition workshop and I simply talked more about the reasons and thinking about the process than I would normally.  I’ll leave explanations of the process out of my report here because you can read about the principles of composition in more detail here on line. Basically the composition workshops will help you to work in harmony as a group, give you material to inspire ideas to create theatre and prompts you use different viewpoints.

 

The workshop to the same basic form of a composition session:

 

•  Preparation

•  Group building

•  Techniques

•  Presentation o...

Category: Legend of the Rocks 

Tags: Devising