Workshop Diary Part 1: Notes from ricca ricca*festa 2017
Published by Nessa Roque,
Last July, I went to Okinawa for a creation workshop program. This three-part series is me wrapping my head around those two weeks. Be warned: they're long. I discuss the process of the workshop, overshare some travel stuff, and put in all the sharable media (photos and videos) we’ve gathered. Yes, yes!
Go to Part 2: Workshop and Collaboration Process
Go to Part 3: postscript: messy ramblings
THE PROGRAM
ricca ricca*festa 2017 - World Theater for Young Audiences Creation Series
Workshop: July 16 to 29
Performance/Showcase: July 30
ricca ricca*festa Festival proper: July 24 - 30
This programme invites 2 renowned directors from the UK to run a 2 week workshop with Japanese and Asian performers. Assuming to create a production which can be performed anywhere in the world, each workshop will focus on 2 different approaches. Through the workshop the participants learn the creative process of the director also share their own creative approaches. At the end of the workshop each group will present a short performance and share their experiences and background of the performance they made.
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WORKSHOP NOTES
During the first three days, the two Workshop Groups all worked together as one big group. Alex facilitated theater games that dealt with focus, sensitivity, sharpening our eye for composition and interesting choices. Gill and Rob facilitated exercises on viewpoints and ensemble work. Here are some of them:
* Slideshow (click on the right side of the photo to see more):
*Slideshow (click on the right side of the photo to see more):
*Slideshow (click on the right side of the photo to see more):
Walking together without a leader: walking down the road, crossing the street, and getting back to the workshop space under the heat of the Okinawa sun! :)
Worth mentioning here in detail is an activity that Gill and Rob facilitated, which turned out to hold a key element in their creative process.
Before flying to Okinawa, Gill and Rob asked everyone to bring food from our childhood. We sat around this huge piece of paper and we shared stories about the food that we brought. After each story, we would ‘paint’ using the food.
We would gently spread the food, throw it, crush it, whatever. We ended up with this strange abstract food art (that maybe only we can appreciate LOL! Stay with me).
Afterwards, we needed to choose someone else's “food story" that connected with us. Using that story as a prompt, we then started drawing images on a small piece of paper using pastel colors. We were free to draw impressions, images, anything, based on that story. We then placed our drawings on the floor, where the person who shared the story sat in the circle earlier. (Wow, this is hard to explain.)
After looking at the drawings, we then wrote a haiku based on the drawing we just made.
Listening to what others found in my story through their drawings and haikus was very moving (Thank you Shoko, Keita, and Fish!). Expressing what I felt about a story that I heard was equally rewarding (Hi Izuru!). It felt like we were thanking one another by responding to each other’s stories with our drawings and haikus.
Aside from being super fun, I would later realize that this was at the heart of Gill and Rob’s devising process: employing other mediums of expression (like drawing, or writing poetry, or playing a game) to distill, frame, reframe, and re-articulate one another’s stories and ideas. By asking us to respond to each other’s work in different ways (like drawing a story we heard, or writing a haiku from a drawing), we discover new things. Together, we are able to take the stories and images even further, and it becomes an organic (and fun) way of collaborating or sharing the creative process with others.
*Slideshow (click on the right side of the photo to see more):
*Slideshow (click on the right side of the photo to see more):
Click here for Part 2