Its the down period, the quiet time between the close of the summer season and the opening of the winter festivities. As you can see whilst taking booking for Christmas 2014 we have been hard at work with our programme of re-invention. This October will see the final outings of our Goblins and Hairy Chairs in their current incarnations, the old characters are being retired. In preparation fur and foam have been flying in the workshop.
Austerity sucks
Just back from a week of shadow puppet making workshops in Wales. It was a fantastic project to deliver to across 5 days in four schools, using puppetry to animate the students understanding of their curriculum. We covered the Tudors, the Victorians, World War 2 and Ourselves. The students worked in teams to create projected environments and shadow puppet figures within performed scenes, colliding images, music and text to share their understanding with their class. It was an amazing week and great to be re-united with the boroughs Arts Officers who have nurtured our company for many years.
It was also bitter as the Council in question had invested £20 million in Icelandic banks prior to the crash. The loss of this money, compounded by austerity, means that their Arts Team like many others faces the axe. All over the country passionate adults who believe economically poor kids deserve rich cultural experiences, are no longer employed to ensure that all young horizons, re-guardless of background, are broadened. Government tells us this is to ensure we do not pass our debts onto the next generation, whilst across the land poor kids are being short changed because of losses that were not made in their name.
Once again it is the innocent who pay the price for others ambition.
Heres a picture of a goblin.
Goblins Reloaded!
First look at one of the new Goblin Chef characters that will replace our existing pair post Halloween. The Goblins were the first characters that Jamie and I ever built and the founding stone of what would become Creature Encounter, so it was through the conception, building and performance of this pair that we learnt what not to do! Re-inventing them eight years later provides an interesting opportunity to test the principles we have learnt along the way, will they work more if they embody everything we have learnt?
Return to Witham
This Saturday our small band of performers heads off to Witham International Puppet Festival, joining us in the van will be old favourites The Penguin Family and the Hairy Chairs. If your free and in the area come and enjoy a host of animated performance.