Stella Polaris Year

Ship of Fools

2010-06-15T13:53:00.002+02:00

Our next project along with the youth group was to be the 'Ship of Fools', you can see earlier in my blog from Poland as to waht this performance is about. We were now going to work with it again, creating new characters but keeping with the same storyline.

We started the same process in working with our characters and devloping their history, this was intense work and something that I very much enjoy. We have the time to work with ourselves, a prop that is connected to us and explore were we came from and what our mission is. I worked with a new character this time 'Goldwin'. This was because I felt I had progressed more in character work and was developing ina different way then with the character I worked with last time.

Throughout this rehearsal process, I felt I learnt more and more, from directions given to other people and also the realisation that I had developed more and was more in tuned with how we work when preparing for a show. I felt I was 100% into my character, I was able to feel all the extreme feelings of my fool and work with this in a professional way.

We played our performance twice, one being at the day of joy 'Gedens Dag' at Fossnes Center, where the theater is based. This was a very successful day, where I was apart of the Angel Choir, which was such a nice experience, as I now know all the songs and I can really connect with the group and the audience. I also played my clown character during the day which was also a very nice experience as we took part in a race with the audience members, this was a development in my character as I had to have physical contact with the public.

This project was very successful for me, it was the point when I realised how much I have learn't here at my time with Stella Polaris, I was working with a clear focus and a good professional energy which provided my characetr much more room to grow.

Didier Danthois clowning workshop

2010-04-28T16:33:00.002+02:00

Since being in Norway, I have being learning a lot of new skills, developing as a performer and starting the creation process of developing my own work. An opportunity arose for me to take part in a 3 day workshop with clown Didier Danthois. It was a clowning workshop with a difference, called 'Awakening the Fool at Heart'. You can see his website http://www.sacred-clown-as-healer.co.uk This was a different approach to any clowning I have done before, he touches the art of healing, we really look inside ourselves and connect with our movements and also work with Indian Raga singing which was a great experience for me.

I went to this workshop wanting to develop my clowning techniques as this is something I love to do and also I want to make more of a connection to certain parts of my clowning for my Edinburgh Fringe performance that I am creating. We worked over 2 days with a large group,looking at basics of the clown and movement and really connecting to our emotions. The third was optional and was a day were you could work with specific scenarios or characters that you would like to develop. So this was a perfect opportunity for me to experience this day.

I developed my character and learnt how to connect with myself to develop my emotions in my clown and also discovered that singing is very much apart of my clowning character. The Indian Raga singing really opened up my sensitivity and made me feel more confident in developing my character.

I highly recommend this workshop, as it really gives you time to think and connect with your inner fool/clown.

Children's Theatre

2010-04-28T16:26:00.002+02:00

I mentioned in a previous post that I would be working with Children's theatre at Stella Polaris, well last week we had the performances which went very well. It was a very busy time, but both groups put on a great performance. Our first and youngest group performed at the local Museum, we had two great audiences and the children were enthusiastic and eager to perform. It was a very intimate and cosy setting, with the audience very much in the center of the action. Our second and oldest group performed over two days in the forest, they performed to a very busy audience then twice to a local school who very much enjoyed the setting out in the forest.

Working with this Children's theatre was a great experience for me, as I have been working with youth theatre in Scotland for many years, working with a new group in a different country was a completely different experience for me. There was many different qualities to consider, that being the language, working to Stella Polaris's theatre ethic and working with 2 others from different countries. It was hard work but very rewarding I learnt new techniques, I feel I developed as youth theatre practitioner and learnt more about myself in this style of children's theatre work.

Holmenkollen 2010

2010-03-25T09:22:00.004+01:00

On Saturday 13th and 14th March, Stella Polaris took to Holmenkollen for the ski jump competition. We have been in training for many weeks and now it was time to show what we had produced.

We have been working on various different qualities for this performance, using circus, dance, song, shaman and clowning. We were to produce small performances that would happen during different times of the day at the championship.

During this training, I have also had responsibilities with making costumes and props, this is something I grabbed with both hands to experience all angles of putting together a performance. The training sessions had been very much like the Christmas show training, except now we had various characters to work with.

CLOWN: I was very happy to be working with another in a clowning routine. We were to develop a new character that would welcome the public as they arrived at the ski jump arena. The entrance was a very steep mountain and we were to be stationed at various points to bring life to the public. I very much enjoyed this process for my new clown character, we were able to experiment with costume, props, movement and language. GRETA from Italy was produced and she was a feisty character but very much lovable. She had her friend ELLA from France and together they were a humorous duo. With larger than life's assets, they gave out free hugs and smiles to all the public 9Over 20,000 each day) that arrived to Holmenkollen. I was very happy with my character and the performance we produce with her, it was definitely a challenging role to be standing on a mountain in the snow for a few hours entertaining thousands of people that arrived. We even managed to get on TV too, yes Greta and Ella get everywhere!!

Unfortunately we weren't able to perform all our short performances due to location and the way the days ran at the competition. But with great management and direction we all adapted and put ourselves in the public and made close contact through walkabout scenes.

For me this was a very unique experience, to work with this great theatre company in an spectacular setting in a very high publicised event was something I may never do again. I developed a great new character, experienced the Norwegian skiing culture and felt like I worked very hard and produce great results.

SNOWY DAYS

2010-02-24T09:41:00.004+01:00

So the past few weeks have been filled with much snow, which has been incredible as I have never experienced this kind of snow before and also training and performing in this. I have been digging out our vehicle's, digging a path to our front door, training and running. I can definitely say that I am making most of the snow.

So we have been focusing our attention on the performance at Holmenkollen, Oslo for a ski jump competition. This will be an intense two day performance, with both parade and short performances including fire, acrobatic, masks, dances and clowning.

We have been in training for this artistic work and also in practical work, where we have been making large animal figures (pictures to Right). This is a nice project to see being made, working alongside crew members who are experienced in this and also getting the chance to put your input into the creative side. This is a practical task I find enjoyable, making large animal figures and masks, the process is very interesting the end result is always very satisfying. I have also been working on the costumes for this production. This has also been an experience as we have been left in control of seeing that these costumes are ready for performance. It has been nice to work in this area too as I have had some experience in costume making but now I am learning to make all different types of costumes, from birds to fox hats to waistcoats and trousers.

Within the artistic side I have the opportunity to work with clowning and buffoon for a character in part of the performance. I will be working with one other and we have the artistic intention that we are fertility clowns. This is because as part of our performance we lead the audience up the mountain to the arena where the skiing and our performances will take place, so we will be entertaining the audience as they go up and provide them with fruit and chocolates, and this will be a job for these clowns. I am very excited to work on a new element that I enjoy so much, and especially for this new performance, it gives me new motivation and lets me use the skills i have and learn new ones from my directors who are highly experienced in this field.

The children's theatre is also going very strong we are on our way to creating the two performances where I will be taking the role of Artistic Director for these performances. This is something I am very excited about as I have clear vision of which direction to take these performances and with the other two practitioners we all have the same ideas and focus for each performance. One performance will be a the local museum where there is a art exhibition called 'Holy Toys', it is nice as there is a Edinburgh Artistic in this collection 'Hew Locke' and three Scandinavian artists. We will be creating a performance within an area of the museum and will incorporate elements of the exhibition. The other performance will take place outdoors within the Forrest, and will involve mask, puppet, clowning, dance and song.

So as you can see from the photos there has been much snow, and now we are on a small winter holiday and return next week to proceed with intense preparation for Holmenkollen 2010.

Year 2010

2010-02-06T14:37:00.002+01:00

Hello and welcome back to my blog in the year 2010.

So I have started back with Stella Polaris after the holiday break, and it is very nice to be back. We have a full schedule ahead of us, and I am sure it will all come very quickly. I have posted some new photos as well and some videos.

There Is plenty of snow out here and we have performed outside twice which was an experience, and a great one at that. It somehow created more energy and fire within the performance.

We did a performance for a skiing competition which happened in the local town of Stokke, and we performed a street performance of 'Celebration of Life' and then a parade to the award ceremony were we did a fire show. This was my first performance in the celebration of life and the parade, I worked with the big elephant mask in the parade which is something I haven't worked with before, and it was a challenging task, to keep the movement of the elephant dancing and walking on the icy roads. the next performance was for Colgate, and this was a small performance in a beautiful location looking over the city of Oslo.

We are currently in training with a couple of programmes.

'Meeting of Dreams'
This is an improvisation training, in building characters and scenes. We are asked to prepare text and a skill, and we bring this to the session, and along with warming up and other technical training we go into a world were we discover different characters and situations. This is proving to be a very beneficial and personal experience for me, as you use your own emotions and experiences and put this into the exercises. I am starting to develop nice characters and also have started to learn the Accordion as my skill.

'Youth group training'
We are currently in training for a performance at a huge ski jump competition in Oslo. This will take place on 13th and 14th march, were we will do parade and performances to over 30,000 spectators each day. This is a big event for Norway and attracts many people to come and enjoy this weekend. the performance will include, many circus skills, Tissue, trapeze, acrobatics, juggling etc and also fire performance.
So we are currently training for this performance at present.

'Children's Theatre'
We have started the children's theatre, which is going very well, I am working with 2 others and we are working very well as a team. We have two groups, and we already have our shows in place, with one being performed at the local museum, and the other at the theatre base. It is nice to work with the Norwegian children and teach skills from Scotland, and teach them some history and language, which in return they teach me about Norway. The two performances will be in April.

We have just celebrated Stella Polaris 25th anniversary, which was very nice to be apart of. We had a lunch and watch films that were made whilst we were on our 'exchange of theatres' with Gardzienice in Poland.

The daily life of the theatre is a life I very much enjoy, from the programming of events, making costumes, fixing props, daily morning training in singing acrobatics, skills, dance and fire. I feel at the end of every day that I have worked and learned something new.

What's next?

2009-12-10T14:52:00.003+01:00

So after the holiday break, we have a few projects in store, one that I am excited about and that is the children's theatre for Stella Polaris. We pitched a project idea to the directors and it was accepted to go forward and run for the new season.

I will be working with two others for this and my role will be the artistic director to bring both performances to a final piece which will be shown in April.

The two projects will be for different ages and will work on mask, circus, dance, song and storytelling. We are currently waiting for the final numbers and the project will start mid January, so keep looking and I will update.

We will also be working on our individual artistic work with our director, working with a poem or text or character. This will be a lengthy intense work process over numerous weeks to produce a strong character.

Please look at the website www.stella-polaris.com for photos and videos from the past work in Poland and events coming up.

Happy Christmas......God Jul x

Christmas Performance

2009-12-08T16:03:00.003+01:00

We have been training for 2 months for our Christmas performance, this takes place every year at the centre where the theatre is. We have been training acrobatics, focusing on pair work. Ethnic dances, cappoera, singing, fire skills and circus skills. The skills we chose to focus on what skill we needed to improve on, this for me was double stick, poi and big flags.

We trained intensively as a group and then worked on individual needs. This was a great training period for myself as i learnt many new skills and noticed a significant improvement with certain areas of my work especially the pair acrobatics.

The performance is a part of a christmas market and the lighting of the christmas tree, the show takes place outside on the circus stage. The essence of the performance comes from many inspirations, from tribal dances to trapeze each element celebrates the life of christmas.

Throughout this training I was also working on practical aspects, costume making and props. The show was a great success, with a few hundred people as audience and the snow came at the end to finish off the successful day.

From this training and performance schedule I have gained on my skills and pushed myself further as a performer and physically to keep up the energy needed for this theatre work. I look forward to the next work, as I have now developed a routine to work on training both creatively and professionally.

Residential exchange of Theatres with Gardzienice in Poland

2009-10-30T12:55:00.006+01:00

"The project idea is based on the long term cooperation of two experimental theatres: Poland's Centre for Theatre Practices 'Gardzienice' and Norway's 'Stella Polaris'. Both of them search for artistic inspiration in archaic and traditional cultures as well as in natural environment. For both cultural education in the field of arts is an important element. Thanks to that both centres play a significant role in creation and shaping the theatre milieu in their countries"

We headed to Poland at the beginning of October, where we packed 1 bus and 2 van full of equipment and travelled from Norway-Denmark-Germany-Poland. We arrived in Gardzienice which is just outside Lublin 2 days later. The programme for the month was to hold workshops with the students from the Gardzienice academy and perform two shows with them and then the final show would be from Stella Polaris to finish off the two month project.

As this is a collaboration project, Stella Polaris officially opened with a performance called 'Celebration of Life'. Followed by speeches then more entertainment in gallery of Gardzienice Theatre.

WORKSHOPS:

The workshops covered acrobatics, juggling, stilts, dancing, singing, stick-work and character work. I experienced all areas of this workshop as a participant as I am still learning with Stella Polaris.

PERFORMANCES:

DREAM OF SHAMAN- This a performance about Nordic mythology, the world of magical skills with shamans and priestesses. Transforming into different animals in order to heal themselves and others around them. This was a performance that i have been in before, working with the big masks. Here in Poland I played a norn, one of the priestesses. Here I sang, danced, performed with fire poi and fire sticks. This was a great experience for me, as I fully experienced the fast paced performance quality of Stella Polaris.

SHIP OF FOOLS- A story about a mysterious ship which sailed from harbour to harbour and collected the insane, the outcasts, those who didn't belong anywhere. This was a process in which I enjoyed very much, a lot of workshops in character work to find your inner fool. We worked intensively with our individual character training and working with characters out in the Forrest using acrobatics as a tool for development. This was a great experience to work with Polish performers, to experience working with other languages. This performance took place outdoors on various heights of scaffold to create the picture of a ship.

MAGIC EVENING- A show involving juggling, slackrope and Magic, flying acrobatics and fiery flamenco. The language of the performance is poetic, the music is intense, vibrant, winning. All is united by one, common goal: to keep the dream alive.
This was the final show of the project, and evening of entertainment, a show I thought i wasn't going to do, but a character called Hortensia was needed and I created her into a hard Scottish lassie!

These two shows and Gardzienice's Ifigenia and Metamorphosis where part of Cosmos. Gardzienice would play first on the Friday then a performance from Stella Polaris followed by a tarditional polish meal of Perogi. The Saturday included the same with a performance from Gardzienice then to a banquet meal of traditional Norwegian food in the palace with entertainment from Stella Polaris with 'Magic Evening'.

This Month was a great learning experience for me, both with learning and developing skills, technical work in building scenery and props. Working with European professionals in a workshop setting. Living and working alongside another renowed theatre and developing strong partnerships that I will hopefully work with in the future.

'When the dead awakes' Project

2009-09-29T18:30:00.004+02:00

The first project with Stella Polaris was the same project I participated in last year, only this year it was to be extended. Please follow the link below to find out more about the project and the story behind it.

http://www.stella-polaris.com/en/performances/when-the-dead-awakes

The project invloves a group of european volunteers who come on an exchange programme for a month and work towards a performance at the end. The volunteers come from many countries and bring with them specialized skills.

We train in acrobatics, fire performance, juggling, singing, European dances, stick and swords, mask work and character acting. The training takes place outdoors in the forrest, various locations surrounding the theatre.

The whole group work together as a team in all areas, from working in the kitchen to building scenery and costumes for the performance. We share songs, dances and skills from the home countries and we put these experiences into our characters and performance.

The project ended with two performances on the viking burial sites which invited the audience to travel with us in bring the dead to life once again.

Funding

2009-09-29T17:05:00.000+02:00

I have been working in America at a children's summer camp for the summer. I have been working with this camp for five summer's starting a counselor teaching drama to join the management team as Head Of Girls camp. This is a great experience for me, working within a different country with many international staff and holding a position that requires much responsibility, flexibility and patience.

I returned this year to once again experience the amazing summer I have every year but also to raise money to aid my stay with Stella Polaris.

Stella Polaris is a non-profit Theatre company and to spend a year with the company I have to find the finance to fund my stay in Norway.

I applied to many arts organisations to fund my placement here but unfortuantely I wasn't able to raise the full amount requested, so I proceeded to work with the summer camp for an intensive three month programme in order to raise enough funds.

I am still applying for various small funds that will enable me to attend certain workshops and attend further training programmes here in Norway throughout my stay.

Start Of the Process

2009-09-29T16:38:00.000+02:00

Welcome to my blog which will follow me on my year work with Stella Polaris Theatre company in Norway.

I am a physical Theatre Performer from Fife Scotland, I have trained in Liverpool Hope University studying Crreaive and Performing Arts and then Physical Theatre with The Adam smith College in Fife Scotland.

During the Past two years following my studies I have been working as a Youth Theatre practitioner specializing in Physical Theatre practice working withing Fife in Local communities and with established youth Theatre group Dundee reportory Theatre. I have also been working as an actress in both Childrens Theatre and street arts.

Also during this time and have been attending specialized skills workshops for my professional development and also travelling to Norway for a month project on a volunteer exchange programme in June 2008.

After spending a month with Stella Polaris Theatre company I learned many new skills including Fire poi, Acrobatics, Juggling, Mask, clowning and many other circus and street arts skills. On my return to Scotland I was very keen to share and develop my skills and also start work on producing my own street arts performance.

I focused on my performance and approached the CONFLUX project in Glasgow with a proposal of masterclasses and a development programme towards a performance with other professionals. During this time I was in disscussions with Stella Polaris Theatre Company to join the project once again and extend to a year long stay with the company.

So this now leads me to Norway where I am currently at the beginning of my stay developing the skills and working professionally with this company in all areas of Theatre, from performing, touring, workshops, practical, costumes and Technical works. This is all in preparation for me to take all I have learn't and appply this to the CONFLUX proposal.

This blog will include photos and videos of the work I am doing and my developments. It is for both for professional artists to look at the work I will be doing and raise interest in joining a similar project in Scotland and also for a general interest in my enjoyable experience out here in Norway.