Our Director in Residence

Kali Quinn will be coming to Bucknell this spring from Providence, RI where she teaches clown, mask, and devising within the Brown/Trinity MFA Program. During her residency at Bucknell, she will direct the mainstage show with 25 students. Starting with themes of power, 20 half-masks, a bunch of scaffolding, and a bare stage we will build characters and create a world and story to share with audiences mid-April.

"What's exciting about this kind of devised work is that it empowers the actors to be creators and bring their own point of view to the table. It really brings out the best in each individual and the ensemble as a whole... I can't wait to see what we make together!"


Click here to see photos from a devised musical that Kali just created at Trinity Rep in Providence!


Here is an example of another mask piece that Kali worked on last year at this time at Mississippi University for Women:

http://magicalmaskedtheatre.blogspot.com/http://magicalmaskedtheatre.blogspot.com/

Take a look at Kali's website to learn more about the kind of teaching, performing, and directing work that she does:

http://www.kaliquinn.comhttp://magicalmaskedtheatre.blogspot.com/

Power Resources to Start With...

PERIODS OF POWER that we will explore through movement and relationship (thanks to a lecture by Scott McGehee of the Accademia dell'Arte in Arezzo, Italy):

One: Sovereign Power where power is embodied and emanates from the body that possesses power usually in a strict heiarchy of order.  King at the top, priest, noble, soldier,  etc.  The commedia dell'arte is based on this kind of power.

Two: Disciplinary power is power that operated through rules, regulations, laws, norms rather than individuals. It maintains itself through constant surveillance and is generally “disembodied”  This is characteristic of post French revolution society up to the middle of the twentieth century.

Three: Control power is a form of power that operated by subordinating the individual to the machine (understood as an assemblage of various parts ) including and perhaps most importantly, digital networks. That is to say that our own power can only be activated by subordinating ourselves to the logic that we must internalize (friends on facebook for example). This seems to be the world we are entering.

And an intriguing recent article:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2008/12/19/the-story-of-power.htmlhttp://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2008/12/19/the-story-of-power.html

Our space, ready for a show!

Mask, Movement, and Mayhem will be performed in the Harvey Powers Theatre at Bucknell University.

Developing our Theme

The theme of any piece is the backbone for the production. It is why the piece exists and what the cast and crew are hoping to convey and communicate to the audience. When creating your own show, establishing the theme is a crucial first step before any work can be done. Our theme, which will be developed by our cast, has already started to take shape! One of the most important exercises during our workshop in November was a storying telling and writing activity using the actors' personal life experiences. Given the prompt: "Describe a time in your life when power was taken away from you or when you realized you had great power over someone or something." The chart below organizes some of the observations made from that exercise.

 

Click on the image for a larger view:

 

Feel free to comment on this post with any observations you made of our work!

Our Masks

We spent many hours discussing what kind of masks our masked show would utilize, since they would help define the characters that were established for our story. We are very excited about our choices! The are makde by Nakupelle out of the U.K. Check them out here!

Our Pinterest Board

Here is our Pinterest board. This collection of images has helped us start our design process for this project.

Click here!

Sound Designer CJ Fujimura

CJ Fujimura has joined the Masks, Movement, and Mayhem cast and crew as our sound designer for our production. He will be combining original music, recordings from rehearsals and workshops, as well as live sound and music during the performance to create an original score. You can check out his work from recording our first workshop back in November on Soundcloud.
Click here!

Workshop Photos

Below are some photos of our early mask work from one of our workshops!

Production Meetings from Afar

One of the most important steps to putting on any show are to have production meetings. These meetings allow the director, stage manger, designers, and other crew to all come together to share ideas, plan for the week ahead, and work on any other details that need to be discussed. With Kali being away to work on other projects, we have had to hold production meetings via Skype. Despite the inability to sit in the same room with her, this unconventional method has not stopped the production team one bit. All of the meetings have be very productive and the team is ready to get to work!

Fall Workshop and Wordcloud

To start us off, let's have a review of the audition/workshop we all participated in back on November 4th. Here is a brief outline of the many activities we performed:

• "Oh Sh*t!" moments
• Game of Zip, Zap, Pow
• Added in Deer in Headlights and Viking Master
• Organizing ourselves in the space by
• Age
• Birth place map
• High School graduation location map
• Cuisine map
• *"What's the most powerful age?" line
• Question game
• One person asks, other answers
• Looking for narrative creating answers
• Story when power was taken away from you or you realized you had great power
• Share with partner
• Rotate and share previous partner's story, then rotate again
• Write down "suspension bridge" moments
• Pass stories, read, write down questions, repeat
• Find original story and discuss observations

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So to help you get those creative juices flowing, we've created a word cloud from the notes taken during the fall workshop (click on it for a better view). The more frequent the word was used, the larger it appears! 

Check it out and comment on what you find interesting and also what you remember from the workshop. 

Click for a better view!

Welcome!

This blog is for the cast and crew of Bucknell's Masks, Movement, and Mayhem Spring 2013. This blog will be both for our personal reflection and documentation as well as a meeting place. We also hope for it to become a place for the public to see our process. Feel free to comment!