Alternative Tourist Information Stations!

Me as a Random Navigator - Canterbury High Street

Wide Eyed Theatre and Adam De Ville came together to create a brand new project ... ALTERNATIVE TOURIST INFORMATION STATIONS! 

Our first destination was in Canterbury, and we took part in Canterbury's Wise Words Festival. Our Alternative Tourist Information Station was anchored along the high street and offered alternative bespoke tours of the city. New street signs appeared to provoke and inspire whilst Random Navigators took to the streets to interact with the public.

Central to our work is the ambition to install within tourists the notion that the visitor experience comprises not only the major attractions but also ancillary experiences such as talking to locals, discovering the hidden and enjoying the spaces between attractions.

I took part in this exciting new project as a Random Navigator! I walked around the town with various sign posts and began to interact with the public. Provoking interesting reactions and getting people to think. 

I also got a chance to do some filming of the day and went around helping with the microphones! Very exciting!

The alternative tours were really well recieved, and dispite the rain, everyone had great fun!

We had great fun interacting with other performers and members of the public! Find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/touristinfostations or hashtag us on twitter or instagram #touristinfostations

http://www.touristinformationstations.co.uk/ 

Kayleigh Putko x

Book Binding Tutorial

I first learnt how to ‘book bind’ with Jo Dyer at Animate Arts , and the addiction began. Just about everyone I know has received one of these wonderful little books from me. Whether receiving them or making them everyone is amazed at how lovely they are. So I decided to share the tutorial with you.

I frequently use this workshop as a starter to The Arts Award as they make fantastic and personalised portfolios that everyone wants to fill.

For our first Kent Arts Award Advisers Forum we decided to pass the skill on once again to ‘encourage’ people to share the award with more people.

This is me looking proud with my first ever creation!

Here is the tutorial...

You will need:

•  card (this can be nice spangly new card or even better repurposed from packaging like cereal boxes and the back of pads of lined paper)

•  Scissors

•  Glue (stick or spray is best as it doesn't wrinkle the paper)

•  Gummed tape (the kind used in mounting pictures) or masking tape

•  Paper for pages

•  A needle and thread

•  Paper for your cover (wrapping paper or something special that you have saved)

•  materials to decorate

First you begin by placing two pieces of card together with a small gap between them (this allows your book to close better and not gape open). Create the spine of your book by taping the two pieces of card together

Lay your cardboard on top of your chosen cover paper and cut out the corners as though you are wrapping a present. If your paper is to small to cover both pieces you can always do the covers individually as in the picture.

Once the pages are cut you are ready to glue.  Do one side at a time glueing the paper down to create the front and back cover (smoothing any bubbles) then glue the flaps. Make sure the covered side is neat, don't worry about the inside at the moment as you will neaten this later. 


Now leave this section to dry...


Next to make the pages! Fold the size of papers you wish to have inside your book (It's best to fold them separately as they sit together nicely). Use a pin to prick some holes down the fold, at about an inch apart, depending on the size of your book. With a needle and thread do a basic in and out stitch down the length of the spine then come back up filling the gaps. ‘Wow I can sew!’ says anyone who can’t sew. As a tip start and end on the outside so you don't see any threads inside your book.

Now it’s time to glue the first and last pages to your book. Cover the surface of your first paper page with glue. Position your paper pages inside the cardboard cover making sure the spine sits in the gap. Stick the first page to the cover. Then you do the same with your last page. Your book is almost there! 

 

Where the pages are glued to the book glue some other paper over it if you wish to make it look really smart and hide the binding.

 Now comes the best bit, decorating! We used stamps to personalise the books and scrapbooking/card making supplies to add embellishments. You can make fastenings to close the book from ribbon or string.

This is an example of one of the first Arts Award activities inside the portfolio.

And here are our finished books waiting to be used.

Participants: Wide Eyed Theatre, Kent Arts Award Advisers, and Fran and George who are doing their Arts Award

Venue: Turner Contemporary, Margate

Tutorial written by Vicki from Wide Eyed and Fran who is doing her Silver Arts Award

Playschool: Showtime!

SHOWTIME!!

We started the morning off with some focus exercises to get us all ready for the day ahead and of course for the show in the evening. We played 'Freeze, focus, collapse' and a variety of other games to get ourselves awake and read to go.

We worked on all of the scenes and made sure they were completely up to scratch, we then ran them on stage so we knew exactly what we were doing on the show night. So effectively we did a staggered que-to-que until around 2:30pm. We then sat down and had a drink before preparing for a dress rehearsal.

With everything backstage ready to go, and the "techies" ready with the lighting an sound, we ran a dress rehearsal at 3 o'clock.

At 4pm we went over the notes from the run and made sure that everyone knew what they were doing, we then took a break for dinner.

After we had eaten it was time to get backstage and in costume for the show! Everyone was so excited, and as we stood in the wings getting ready to enter the stage, we could here the hustle and bustle of the audience. It was fantastic!

The show went really well! Everybody did brilliantly! It was a brilliant week, just a shame it went so quickly!

Well you know what they say ...

Time flies when your having fun!!

By Kayleigh 

Playschool: The final touches ..

Thursday 29th August

It's the day before the show!!

We spent the morning going through all the scenes and working on the blocking. We worked through each scene individually and tweaked everything to make sure it was all polished.

Meanwhile our wonderful techies worked on the lighting ques and were busy in the box programming our lighting.

Then at 3:15pm we did our first run through of all the scenes!

By Kayleigh 

Playschool: Consequences ..

Wednesday 28th August

By mid week we had devised 6 scenes and we were now in the process of linking all of our ideas to create one story. One technique we used to come up with some ideas was to play the consequences game. We all sat in a circle and wrote a sentence of a story each, we then past it around so everyone was adding to everyone's story! By then end we had 8 completely different stories!

By the end of the day we came up the idea of using a seance to integrate the devised scenes we had. Everything was beginning to fall into place, our set design began to piece together and we started to feel like we had a solid story.

For the rest of the afternoon we worked on devising some of the seance scenes and some more material to fill the gaps and add to the story.

By Kayleigh 

Playschool: The Costume Cupboard ...

Tuesday 27th August


Day 2! On Tuesday we began exploring the ancient costume cupboard and beginning to create some improvised scenes using costume pieces as stimuli. We gathered in groups of three in the theatre and chose a piece of costume that interested us. From there in our groups, we began to think about the following :

- Who might have worn this?
-Who were they?
-What is the story behind this?

With the answers to these questions, we then began to improvise our ideas within our group to try and create a story.

 During this rehearsal time, individual groups went over to the costume cupboard in order to get more inspiration and have the chance to explore all the hidden stories within the bunker. The costume cupboard is packed full of amazing, unused costumes and we felt it was amazing to get these costumes out and start using them. While at the costume cupboard, each of the groups wrote down 3 words that they felt described the costume cupboard, 3 words to describe how it feels to be in there and 3 things that they had found interesting or liked.

After lunch, all the groups performed there improvised scenes and stories and by the end of the day we had 4 solid ideas that we wanted to build upon ...

By Kayleigh 

Playschool: Day 1 Monday 26th August

Badge making * Games * Improvisation

Day one of Playschool! How exciting!

Everybody arrived at the Gulbenkian Theatre at 10am and we all gathered in the cafe, exchanging names and introducing ourselves to new unknown faces. Once we got into the theatre we started the morning off with badge making! Everybody came together on the stage and had a chance to create their own badge with their name or initials on it. It was a great activity to get everyone talking and meeting the new group!

After the crazy badge making mess was cleared up, we played some improvisation and focus games to get to know each other and begin to work as a group. After several failed attempts at 'Red ball' and 'The pattern game' (focus games!) we all took a break and sat down for lunch together.

After lunch we continued to focus on improvisation and performance skills, we played lots of games and spent the afternoon getting to know each other.

By Kayleigh

Playschool: In The Beginning ...

In the Gulbenkian there is a costume store that has been long forgotten … inside there are many secrets and we have found the key!

We invited some young people to come and help us explore and be creative at PlaySchool – a 5 day summer ‘school’ for 11 to 21 year olds.

The ideas that unraveled created something very exciting ...

During the week, a piece of theatre was devised from scratch and performed on the Gulbenkian stage on Fri 30 Aug at 6.30pm. Playschool gave young people the chance to develop their skills including acting, writing, set design, technical theatre and movement.

We invited participant Kayleigh Putko to blog about the week...