Trestle's Summer School Blog

At the start of a week of Trestle Summer School, 2nd August 2010, twelve children aged 5 to 10 meet an artistic team of director (Emily Gray), performer (Georgina Roberts) and musician (Philippa Herrick) and take inspiration from Lewis Caroll’s Wonderlands of both Alice and Through the Looking Glass.

A question: can Trestle fully immerse the group in a world in which the artists share theatre techniques and the children make sense of them to create a thoroughly enjoyable week long theatrical experience?

Another question: can Trestle achieve the challenge of researching our next show for this age group without distracting from the major theme and ambition?

Day 1 – We begin with: a theatre building set up to be explored, a group of expectant children, most of whom do not know each other and the dramatic arrival of our performer, falling down the tower of the refurbished chapel, Trestle Arts Base. This character asks ‘Who am I’. ‘Where am I?’ ‘What am I’ and as we move around the building, following the clues and sounds of the White Rabbit, the children embrace the mission to discover who this intruder is by showing us who and what they are.

We end up in the theatre, which has become an installation of Wonderland and the children readily enter the otherness of this world; the contrariness of Wonderland is soon shared between us as each child is measured in vegetables “you are a runner bean”, “you are three beetroot's and a spring onion” and umbrellas become banqueting dishes, apples become powder puffs and recorders become hat stands. The intruder is named Ah-Um by the children and some secretly suspect she might be Alice.

Day 2 - No time to dwell on identity today; time has indeed fled and we are in the kingdom of the Red Queen. The terrifying and absurd monarch arrives and we discover it is her birthday, so games are to be played, rules to be made and unmade, winners and losers to become muddled and heads to be chopped off. The children adapt games to suit the Queen, for example, “What’s the time, Mr Wolf?” becomes “How many jam tarts have you Red Queen?” to which she replies, “A crumb, a puff of flour, a smear of jam”. She commands us to learn Spanish rhythms and flamenco poses, so a bull fight can be played out before her. A Jabberwocky made out of a parachute with bins for eyes is made; it dies and there is much galumphing.

Day 3 - The White Queen celebrates her non birthday and we enter her wood, full of tissue paper petals, ethereal sounds and strange creatures. Imaginations run wild as we create hand creatures inspired by Indian mudras (hand gestures) and body monsters made by four hand creatures evolving into a shape made by 4 bodies. Junk puppets are made and brought to life through breath and sound led interactions. Instruments are also given breath and move as if they were creatures, making sounds and conversations. The creative brilliance of the children is evident in their ideas; one suggests an auction in the wood of the White Queen and the group invent objects which were then bid for, not by monetary value, but by crowns, jewels, sneezes and cosmic entities.

Day 4 - With the presence of the White Rabbit comes a chorus of rabbits, caught frozen in the headlights of the imagined Red Queen’s stare. Masks are worn and worked with as the group prepares entertainments for the imminent tea party of the Sad Patter, no, the Glad Matter, no, the Rabbit just can’t get his words out right so nonsense is spoken and understood by all. We borrow ideas for entertainments from Oscar Wilde’s short story, The Birthday of the Infanta, which conjures a world not too far from the strictures and absurdities of the Wonderland gardens and courts.

Day 5 - At last the most frequently requested character of the week arrives, the Mad Hatter himself; he is eccentric and Scottish, unnerving and charismatic. He helps the children to create the experience that they want their parents to have in the afternoon; he is demanding and kind and then he falls asleep, leaving them to set up for their performance.

There is no script and there is no rehearsal. The week’s work has been grounded in Trestle’s approach to physical theatre, creative learning and storytelling. We invited the children in as individuals and demanded from them the depth of creativity and bravery we would expect from an adult professional. If we as professional artists have engaged and guided the young people in skilled way, then this culmination of the process will genuinely show the audience what the week has been like and draw them too into experiencing Trestle’s work.

The Sharing
In come parents, grandparents, carers and aunties for an hour of the utterly unexpected; experiential live art meets physical theatre performance in an installation setting. Trestle have lost the children in Wonderland and the audience have to coax them to appear – in dappled light, poems of defeating great beasts are told, the children lecture their parents on the exotic puppet creatures of the White Queen’s wood, the adults dance to the demands of the Red Queen and suffer elimination, the Mad Hatter invites us all to a virtual tea party. Only once the entertainments have entertained, culminating in the futterwaken fashion show, can the real tea, cake and jam tarts arrive and be shared by all.

Parents comment on their children coming home each day with questions the adults cannot answer, the performance opens some parents’ eyes to new types of theatre; the children also appear to have grown each day. There has been great enjoyment and in terms of creative learning many valuable life skills have been developed, we hope with a lasing effect. The performer has delivered brilliant performances in role, becoming a different character each day, all of which the group has engaged and improvised with. The musician has used exemplary facilitation skills; encouraging instrument playing and rhythmic performance which are story based and musically open. As director, I have shared the physical theatre skills that Trestle uses and supported the children in their play with them.

Responses from parents about their children:

He showed increasing enthusiasm as the week went on. He was desperate to come from about 8am every day.
Absolutely loved it and had lots of fun.
So lovely to see them looking so comfortable in the space

From a practitioner:

What the children brought to it was genuinely integrated into the work; it was far more than a workshop!

by Emily

http://infinitesouls-carp.blogspot.com/

Howling at the Moon Fool

I started working for Trestle as Marketing Manager just before Christmas, and in these few short months I have already been bombarded by giraffes, fairies and arctic weather conditions, seen two key members of the team off and away on maternity leave and their wonderful replacements hit the ground running straight into 2010 and the spring season. I can’t help feeling that this is the beginning of a new phase for us here at Trestle. The Glass Mountain marked the end of our three international collaborations and our current production Moon Fool; ill met by moonlight heralds the beginning of a series of co-productions with emerging companies.

My journey to Trestle began bizarrely, a long time ago when I was studying at what was then Melton Mowbray Performing Arts College. I was fortunate to be taught my acting lessons by, among others, one Sally Cook – now Melton was a serious Performing Arts College, it was a place that at the time was a little controversial – I studied a Btec course which was still considered a sure fire way of not being able to get into University (a point I later proved wrong). Sally, unbeknown to me, had been a founding member of a theatre company that was known as....Trestle. Well, I took her mask and physical theatre module and it has formed a major part of my practice and my life ever since.

Melton and Sally lead me to Dartington College of Arts, a place which at this very moment is disintegrating in the same way as (children of the 80s, please stand up) Never Ending Story’s Fantasia. The tiny grains of sand that remain have settled in Falmouth – hopefully into a place where people are still allowed to dream of things that amount to more than money. The course at Melton was created by two ex Dartington students who experienced the place at its time of true shining during the 1960s and the reality of their vision helped form my view of live arts.

Dartington is not a place to be mentioned lightly, especially at this time of mourning and rebirth; I refuse to admit that the heart of the place will die, but I can't convey how much I hope the essence of why we all went there remains in spirit. My college, our college, our community, spans and crosses graduation dates and years of study and exploration- Foxhole and Higher Close, of reminiscing via Google maps and hitching up the hill, (well remembering when hitching was just something you did), of all the things you should have figured out when you were there before life came stampeding towards you and put it into context... finally, the lectures slept through, but the twelve hour durational performance that was the reason you slept in, of yoga in the gardens and gin outside the SU. Any time spent in the company of such an auspicious place (and I do think that Dartington is that), is a privilege and it stays with you throughout the rest of your life.

After Dartington the world seemed vast and tiny simultaneously and like any contemporary arts graduate I stumbled through individual projects, taught, worked and wondered. Within a few years I was fortunate enough to find steady employment in a Theatre as a Marketing and Press Officer. The Alban Arena in St Albans is hailed as Hertfordshire’s premier entertainment venue and hosts everything from Jools Holland to the Tweenies (not quite where I saw myself when I was at University), but for two and a half years I was nurtured and allowed to focus my skills and began to understand the engineering of commercial theatre. Without this experience, I could not have made the journey back to the Theatre in my heart.

I am feeling now as if my feet are under the desk and all the elements that are encompassed within Trestle are coming more into focus every day. I am facing a period of great learning and improvisation at time when it seems harder than ever to produce work that invokes feeling and reaction; Moon Fool; ill met by moonlight is out on the road and has been met by some rave reviews reflecting both the passion and drive behind the shows conception and the power and love of all of those involved.

Work has already begun on our next co-production with new company Blindeye. Burn My Heart is based on the novel by award-winning writer Beverley Naidoo. The show will use African and European music and movement styles through a powerful mix of text, compelling storytelling and physical theatre to tell this fast-paced, devastating and highly relevant story. Blindeye’s Director Oliver Jones will be visiting Kenya, where the novel is set, to collaborate with artists during April.

Blindeye is an exciting new theatre company, dedicated to the production of and participation in work on national and international human rights issues. Both Trestle and Blindeye share a passion for collaboration with artists from an early stage in the process; Blindeye experiment with traditional tools of theatre-making to create work that is visceral, provocative and relevant to the world we live in today.

I feel now as if I am in the right place, as Marketing Manager for Trestle and as an individual. I am certain that whatever is thrown at us as a Company we can face head on and overcome.

by Rhian

When one door shuts another one opens...

Last week the tour of our latest production, The Glass Mountain, came to an end. It's funny but I can't help feeling a real sense of loss about this - after all the hard work (and sometimes even blood, sweat and tears) it has suddenly come to an end.

As Marketing Manager for Trestle, I'm involved from the very early stages of a production - working with Emily Gray our Artistic Director on the shows marketing materials, which often need to be ready far in advance of when the show itself has even been devised.

Trestle creates devised theatre and the cast always play an integral part in this process. If I feel attached to the production I can only imagine what the cast and crew must feel when they have been living and breathing the show from its development, during rehearsals and then once it goes on tour. Some of our cast and crew have been on this journey with us for over 12 months!

Of course the tour might have come to an end but The Glass Mountain will hopefully continue to live on in people's hearts and minds. And for the rest of us here at Trestle there's no time to wallow as work is already in full swing for our next touring production - Moon Fool - an inventive re-imagining of Shakespeare's well-loved play, A Midsummer Night's Dream. This is the first time in its 28 year history that Trestle has taken inspiration from Shakespeare and so we're all really excited about what this next adventure will bring.


By Gemma

Tibilisi International Theatre Festival

Oliver Jones, Trestle's Associate Director (Taking Part) talks about his recent visit to Georgia for the Tibilisi International Theatre Festival with fellow Arts Council East artists...

It's odd what you find out about people. Who would have thought that Ivan Cutting, Artistic Director of Eastern Angles, shares a passion for airline food as I do? And Turkish Airlines did not let us down, sating us with a plethora of Turkish delights as we made our way to the Tibilisi International Theatre Festival in Georgia.

Our trip was predominantly to savour the best in Georgian theatre. We also had time to discuss our recent work in our own region with fellow ACE artists, whilst also meeting producers, artists, and critics from around the globe.

The theatre we indulged in was as rich and varied as the plenteous banquets we were offered, some stunning, some, well, not so. A remarkable ‘Macbeth’ and a fantastic circus themed ‘Bierderman and the Fire Raisers’ directed by Robert Stura, was tempered by some unintelligible and rather dour affairs. There were plenty of puppets too, the best of which was a marionette and live action fusion of a Chekhov short story, that we hope may make its way to the UK.

Tibilisi itself was a fascinating mix of old soviet, and even older middle eastern architecture, and our hosts were incredibly welcoming, making our stay as well organised as they possibly could, which was very different to the traffic system which was as crazy as the man I encountered lighting a cigarette knee deep in a fountain.

Roger McCann of the Arts Council was more Georgian than the Georgians, toasting away during dinner like a man possessed, and Gavin Stride, of the Farnham Maltings shocked most with his choice of shirts.

This is the first year of the festival, and with Roger and the Tibilisi mayor behind it, I am sure it will go from strength to strength. Many fruitful relations were made with the Georgian theatre companies, and we hope that in the future collaborations will blossom. I very much look forward to Trestle being at the heart of these and that I will return to such an interesting, cultured, and friendly city.


By Oliver

The Idiot Colony at Trestle Arts Base

This week we had the fantastic Red Cape Theatre Company bring their award-winning show The Idiot Colony to Trestle Arts Base.

The Idiot Colony is based on real life accounts of the treatment and incarceration of young women in mental asylums during 1940s England. This might not appear to be the stuff of a fun night out at the theatre; yet despite the serious subject matter the show was funny, poignant and affecting, if at times quietly unnerving.

The Idiot Colony was created after two years of research and interviews with former patients, mental health workers including those who lived and worked at St. Margaret's Hospital, Great Barr - known locally as The Idiot Colony. Trestle Arts Base, Trestle's home in St Albans, is housed in the former chapel of Hill End Hospital, once itself a lunatic asylum. Trestle's Community Company produced a promenade performance earlier this year called Out of Sight Out of Mind, which offered a journey through the building and into the minds of the patients and staff who lived and worked at the hospital over a 100 year period. Out of Sight Out of Mind, like The Idiot Colony, told stories that were full of sadness and pity, but also full of great humour and courage.

The imagery and lighting on stage was incredible. The set was simple but used to great effect. White towels were a key feature of almost every scene - most memorable were the bath and rain storm scenes. Another highlight was the portrayal of a romance between one of the patients and an African American GI; one of the actresses 'blacks up' in order to relive the love affair that saw her incarcerated in the first place.

Unfortunately a lot of the acting took place on the floor and due to poor sight lines (which surely they've experienced in other venues and might have accommodated for?) most of the audience missed out on what were probably quite poignant and powerful moments.

The Idiot Colony has won a stack of awards at the 2008 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and has had great critical acclaim. The Times called it "...an affecting, humorous piece of physical theatre" and The Metro said is was "...endlessly inventive, thoroughly disquieting. It's stunning". The full house at Trestle Arts Base also seemed enamoured with the play. Definately one to look out for as it tours the UK. Click here for tour dates.

By Gemma

Turkish teens' Trestle taster!

Last week Trestle Arts Base was buzzing with the sound of Turkish teenagers, Uskudar International School were in the building!

Embarking on an intensive theatre residency the eighth graders took a four day journey through Trestle's established mask techniques and into the unmasked physical storytelling that has characterised Trestle's work since 2004.

The work concluded with a sharing of favourite ideas that had been explored for each other, Trestle staff and colleagues.

"I don't have to rely on my voice" remarked student Tessa, on being asked what she would take with her from the project. "I know now that my body is powerful on stage."

Uskudar hope to return to Trestle next year for a similar experience, but meanwhile they will take back Trestle's unique Flamenco, Indian and Polish styles of working to inspire their colleagues and create a show in April.

Trestle Taking Part works with schools, universities, professional and community organisations worldwide to devise and run workshops, residencies and projects.

By Anna.

Looking for an MA in Drama and Education? Look no further...

Today is the first day of our inaugural MA in Education (Drama) which we are jointly running with Middlesex University. The three-year part time masters programme is designed for teachers and lecturers of Drama, Theatre Studies and Performing Arts and will be run at Trestle Arts Base, Trestle's home in St Albans, Hertfordshire.

There is a growing trend of educational institutions and theatre companies joining forces to deliver post-graduate programmes - Polish theatre company Teatr Pieśń Kozla (Song of the Goat) and Manchester Metropolitan University's joint MA springs to mind for instance. However, this is the only instance of a professional theatre company and university co-creating and delivering an education drama MA in Britain.

It's also great to be continuing our long relationship with Middlesex - Trestle's founding members were all performing arts students at the university back in the 1970s. Inspired by their course tutor, John Wright, the students set up the Company in 1981 and established Trestle as one of Britain’s leading theatre companies.

Oliver Jones, Trestle's Associate Director said, “All the hallmarks of Trestle’s work: physicality, storytelling, and devising, are now at the heart of the drama and theatre studies curriculum, and it is a perfect time to launch what we are hoping will be a very successful and sustainable MA degree”.

Interested? Contact Programme Leaders Kevin Morris (Middlesex) on 0208 411 4310 or Oliver Jones (Trestle) on 01727 850 950 or at takingpart@trestle.org.uk for more information.

By Gemma