Hello!
How wonderful to see you...
Can we offer you a cup of tea? Or coffee. A mid-afternoon libation? A quick gorp at an old battered tombstone? A tinker-truck for your sandpit? A giants head? A lump of coal? Some flat pack furniture? Or maybe just a in-depth chat about death?
Should you have joined Georgina and I on our first "proper" three days of residency at The Welfare, as part of our Platfform-ness, these are some of the offers we may have made you.
Disclaimer: This blog is an update on an ongoing process, so please don't expect it to make much sense from here on in, though I shall endeavour to thread clear thoughts.
Day 1: Collating Death
Sat in a dressing room, tucked behind the grand main stage of the The Welfare, we sat at a table with a big white sheet of paper. Up until this point we hadn't "formerly" logged any thoughts/ideas/assertions/inklings. So with a sharpie each we began to try and write down everything we'd ever thought about wanting to make a show for young people.
Stuff what we wondered:
- Could we make a show for pets?
- Do kids enjoy slapstick?
- How could we use digital media?
- Do we want to dance?
- Could we make a game?
- How's Billy Conolley doing?
- Could we throw a party?
- Are pet shops still allowed to sell pets*
*Actually investigated this by visiting a local pet shop. Found out that yes you can, but you have to live within a certain mile radius incase there is a fire. Which made me think that if there was a fire; are you expected to run inside the shop and save all the parakeets and hamsters? Like some sort of animal-fire-person.
- What's the stupidest way someone has died? CASE STUDY: The Darwin Awards.
...
This, eventually, after much pondering, became the subject of our focus... Or rather the focus of our subject.
DEATH: The dark marauding. The hilarious. The desperate. The stupid. The heartbreaking.
Is it a good idea to talk to kids about death? We think so.
In the afternoon we moved from the dressing room to the main stage and ended where we explored dying, and ended up having a rather enlightening chat with The Welfare's technician-come-massive-puppet-head making-co-conspiritor, who showed us the inner workings of a giant's head.
Day 2: Wynn's Super Fun Bus Tour of Ystradgynlais
On day two was very much a day of ruminating. Taking stock of all the thought's we'd had the previous day we were given a tour of Ystradgynlais by Wynn, the Programmer at The Welfare. Firstly, I must point out that Wynn's Super Fun Bus Tour takes place in a car... Secondly, although it was a lot of fun, it was so much more thoughtful. Wynn drove us from place to place whilst filling us in with tid-bits of information in-between.
We listened, and gazed out of the rain-speckled windows, being distracted by abstract weather conditions creating beautifully eerie landscapes outsides. This was such a valuable exercise for us, not only because it was a fascinating insight into the town we'll be working in over the coming months, but it allowed us to tap into what feels important. Or at least ask our selves the question: What is important? Is this important? Should we make something important?
In the afternoon we roamed around a massive graveyard, almost as if to offer a full stop to the sentence of thought we brought into this day from the one before.
Day 3: Small Things
We had breakfast, properly lovely breakfast, and started talking about how we move forward. What are our next available steps? Where are we? What happens now? Although this day had a plan, the plan quickly went awry, and we found ourselves wandering around Ystradgynlais contemplating that idea that when you're an adult everything is built to your size. Vending machines, the buttons on road crossings, payphones, door handles, cupboards, car boots, super market cheque outs, window displays, toilets, sinks, draws, railings, grave stones, furniture etc. Paradoxically, when you're an adult in a primary school surrounded by tiny objects, that feels weird. With this thought we ended our day in IKEA, wandering around the childrens furniture department, trying on weird costumes and puppets, whilst trying to sit in tiny little chairs. We don't really know why.
Mucho,
TST
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