Days 4 and 5 - Westminster Under School
Posted : September 22, 2016
Day 4 - 15 September
This evening we were exploring the first half of The Girl and the North Wind, a Nordic folk tale. I asked the boys to improvise some dance moves inspired by the Norwegian folk music I've chosen-they came up with some fantastic suggestions and I'll now go away and loosely choreograph a dance for the beginning and the end of the story. There are a number of challenges in this piece: the troll hag is a puppet operated by one of the boys, Bruno. As a puppeteer myself, I know how hard it is to convincingly play a character using puppetry. I have a feeling he'll be very good though as he's really embracing the character's voice and idiosyncrasies. The second big challenge is the magic that happens in the story. We have to convey a table cloth that spreads itself and is groaning with food, a goat that poos solid gold coins, and a stick that has a life of its own. I'm planning on using some of the boys as object manipulators to help with these moments, that's if we can all stop giggling at the goat doing a pooh.
Day 5 - 17 September
Today we had a whole afternoon to break the back of our longest, and probably most complex story, Beauty and the Beast. It was occasionally hard for the boys to keep focussed during the group scenes and it really helped when we had Mr Hill in the rehearsal room offering ideas. However, we came up with some great theatrical moments and I'm really looking forward to seeing the snow storm scene in performance, as well as the rose garden depicted with colourful umbrellas, and the essential element-the live sound effects performed on stage.