First session at the MACC and TelusTV

On Monday, March 4th our class had our first session at the Moberly Arts and Cultural Centre or as we call it, MACC. After our gym class, we walked down to the MACC and met Ms. Winston AND two representatives from TelusTV. How exciting! As Ms. Winston led us through an introduction to puppetry, TelusTV rolled film.

After reviewing standing and walking in neutral and engaging the class in a get-to-know you activity, Ms. Winston talked about the “bunraku” (Japanese) style of puppetry that we will be taking inspiration from. She showed us how to give “life” and “breath” to an inanimate object. Ms. Winston used a crumpled up sheet of brown paper to demonstrate how important a puppeteer’s role is in moving any puppet through a space.

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Walking Figures Field Trip – March 1

On a rainy Friday morning, our class along with Ms. Winston and her colleague, Mr. Caleb used public transit to take a trip to the “Walking Figures” sculpture at the Broadway/City Hall SkyTrain station. We walked from the school to catch the #100 bus to the Marine Drive SkyTrain station. Along the way, the class wore their faceless paper masks to become anonymous silent performers for unsuspecting transit passengers. We got many quizzical looks and a few questions, but the class did a wonderful job staying in character for most of the time.

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Standing and Walking in Neutral

On Thursday, February 28th, 2013 our class enjoyed our first official session with Ms. Winston. Since the “Walking Figures” sculptures we are taking inspiration from have no heads or are “anonymous,” we started off by making faceless masks out of brown paper. We tore a shape, crumpled it, cut out the eye holes, attached string and ended up with a simple mask. We then wore our masks down the school hallways to the small gym. We got some confused looks from passers by and could hear questions like, “Why are they wearing those masks?” The feeling of being unknown was very different for us, but it gave us a sense of comfort because people did not know who we were!

Once we made it to the small gym Ms. Winston led us through a series of exercises to help us discover what it means to be “neutral.” She taught us how to stand in neutral – feet about shoulder width apart, hands at our sides, body relaxed, no emotion on our faces and breathing normally. Then Ms. Winston taught us how to walk in neutral at different speeds. Finally, she taught us how to be aware of the space around us by having us explore the gym in a grid-like pattern. We were only allowed to walk in straight lines. It was an incredibly fun morning of exploration!

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I had the most incredible time at Moberly Arts and Cultural Centre last Friday with an energetic crowd of twenty Langara students, about to complete the Recreation Leadership Program. Within two hours, I was to be their insight into what a community dance artist needs and expects from a Programmer or recreational/community facility. After a sharing of thoughts, experiences and questions, we got down to the real business—some fun and dancing! We began with some cardio warm up to some hip hop tunes to get us in the mood…In no time, these brave participants (and Vince, their instructor) were flying across the room on hands and feet, improvising through different tasks and discovering new movement pathways. A bunch of games and dances later, we split off into smaller groups to create pieces of choreography to show each other. Turns out, these students are all choreographers in the making…

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This post is written by Ms. Soga, teacher for the Grade 4/5 class at Moberly Elementary school. Content provided by the class blog site.

It’s Biennale time!

Maggie performed her solo show, “Just Enough- A Puppet and Clown Show” at Poppins Preschool located within the South Vancouver Neighborhood House on Thursday, November 8, 2012.
“Just Enough” is a 40 minute show designed for ages 3 and up. The story is based on a traditional Yiddish folktale which has since spread, transformed, and been retold in many cultures around the world. “Just Enough” gives a whole new spin to the notion of recycling, as beloved objects find new uses. The story involves a grandmother who makes a quilt from the materials she has collected over the years, and gives it to her granddaughter. With each piece of fabric a memory is shared. It’s a story about growing up and change. Although Grandma may not have much, she will always have ‘just enough’ for a great story.

The pictures show me sharing the grandma puppet with the kids. They always enjoy touching her face and figuring out how she works.

It was such a great audience of 3 and 4 year olds. They each had their own little plastic chair to sit in. And once they realized that this show was going to be hilarious, they opened up a lot and started interacting wonderfully. I could even see the preschool teachers laughing and playing along too!!

Thanks to Caleb Vallevand for operating the music cues.

Thanks also to Poppins Preschool and South Vancouver Neighborhood House. I look forward to more engagements in the future!

  
The art and text activities that Juliana and I have led throughout our Alphabet Stories project have come to take some beautiful and surprising twists. We originally conceived a variety of drawing and poetry exercises to create the content for our South Hill library installation. But then, we became inspired by the hand-tattoed maps which the South Vancouver Youth Centre students created for our “We Are Here” project. So, we chose to expand upon our engagement tools by incorporating activities that used the hands and body. The images above document adults, from the Library Book Club and ESL group, shaping various Roman letters with their hands.

Additionally, through a process of inquiry, we asked each of our workshop groups to brainstorm a collection of words that best represented the spirit of our installation. Then, each group voted on the most resonant words. As Alphabet Stories aims to reflect the colorful array of languages present in the South Hill community, the following poignant words emerged as the winners: peace, spice, and symbol. Consequently, students from the Khalsa school tattooed these words on their palms, (with temporary markers) in Punjabi letters, to summarize what this project means to the Sunset community.

And finally, these industrious students had fun shaping some of the Punjabi letters with their own full body, creative choreography.   These young artists demonstrated great imagination and cooperation in this collaborative effort.

Today, I met with the students at the South Vancouver Youth Centre to begin a month-long engagement, the results of which will contribute to the soundscape component of the We Are Here community map. To spark the students’ imaginations about what maps can be used to represent, they were asked to map (on paper or on their own hands) anything in their daily lives that they wanted to represent. Below, are the incredible examples of their work which came out of this exercise. These include a map of one of the student’s faces; a walking route in Richmond which charts the spots where a particular dog typically “relieves” himself; and a hand tattoo of one student’s daily routes to her school, library and boyfriend’s place. I look forward to returning to work with these creative teens, to begin our walking and biking tours to record the soundscapes of their neighborhood.

Maggie facilitated 2 puppetry workshops for ECE teachers at Sunset CC preschool. In the first workshop on October 3, 6-8pm we ate Indian food and then dove right into making puppets. Using my massive piles of fabric, foam, and of course, hot glue. I think we all got stronger skin on our fingers after that workshop. See what the teachers made below.

After the puppets were completed we discovered how to use them in the classroom. We played some clowning exercises. We learned about focus, holding moments, and sharing moments. Then we split up into groups and created our own puppet scenes.

Thanks so much for your participation and enthusiasm. I hope to see all the teachers at Sunset CC again soon.

These workshops were made possible by the Neighborhood Small Grants Program (Vancouver Foundation). Thanks to them too!!