In the weeeee hours of Saturday morning, I took a flight to Bali, where I will spend the next 4 weeks for educational purposes.  As I sat in my seat in a sleep deprivation induced delerium I had a realization.  . The lights were on, the stewards were serving drinks and snacks, the plane hummed loudly. At 3 in the morning, I felt highly sensitive to all these sounds, I was agitated and uneasy.  So I put some ear plugs in, and all sound became muffled, I could really only hear my own breath.  I was filled with a sense of calm, of comfort, and of safety, like I was suddenly being held.  A vision of one boy from room 7 who I often see with protective earmuffs on came to mind.  And I felt like I understood from an experiential level why he wore them, what he might experience when feeling sensitive to sound and the comfort gained from blocking the sound out.  Not only blocking the sound out, but returning to the sound and feeling of your own breath and voice.   It was a nice moment of realization.

 I feel like I struggle to enter the world of these children if I do so from an intellectual or thought/theory based approach.  But experiential learning is a completely different way of getting it.  Oh to be able to put myself in their shoes for a moment.

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It was great that all four of us could do this together, allowing for sufficient support in the hands on aspect of interacting with the tactile elements such as dirt, water and seeds, while having live music as a means of holding the energy of the activity, and keeping the puppets animated and present.  Again, it was great to see all the kids seem to recognize us and have a sense of familiarity with us and the puppets now- most of the resistance to touching the puppets has dissolved, and the weekly repetition on the animal songs is also beginning to have effect.  This should be enhanced by the recordings each or the 5 teachers now have.  Our residency finally feels like it is starting to take shape, relationships are building with both the students and the staff. The initial formality and distance between us and the staff is beginning to break down, and our confidence with interacting with the students continually grows. 

At times I feel concerned that we are not effectively exploring  brave new ways of sensory engagement with the children, that we are not breaking new ground,  that what we do with the children are all things they have all experienced before in one form or another.  But I am beginning to understand that this process is about laying a foundation of deeper understanding  of how to effectively engage these children.  We are not sensory theatre experts (yet), we are fledglings finding our way in new territory, cerebral beings learning (on a very steep curve) about experiencing the world in a physical way.  Nor are we disability experts; relative to the teachers and EA’s, our hands on experience is limited, and our education in this field is just beginning.  So this process is about gaining the experience and understanding necessary to make informed choices as theatre makers and performers, for how to most effectively engage our audience, whatever their physical and intellectual capacity.  And we are doing our best!

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I spent Tuesday recording the animal theme songs with my friend Dave Robertson, who did an absolutely outstanding job in the production department.  I began each song with laying down a simple guitar track, then adding a more intricate guitar picking on top, these two tracks are panned hard left and right, meaning if you hear it through a system with two speakers it will sound like you are in the middle of two guitarists- a nice effect!  Then we put down a the vocal track, (you wouldn’t believe how long it took me to get my donkey impersonation right!) Then a small percussion track, either egg shakers, or a little cricket, followed by a djembe track, and these were also panned left and rightso again you feel like your in the middle of the instruments.  It also helps with the sound quality, so all the vibrations don’t have to come out of the one speaker, reducing the risk of distortion.  Gee.  I learnt heaps in this session!  Each animal has its own instrument sound (rooster- rattle, Goat- cabasa, Donkey- whirlygig (I made that up because I don’t know its official name)) so I added in little flourishes of their personal sound effects. Lastly, a good friend of mine, and a wonderful musician, Tore Pederson, added some bass to give the songs a full and complete feeling.  Then Dave compressed it, edited it and mixed it, and VOILA!!! Here they are for your listening pleasure....
Or at least they

I designed them specifically for the children to listen to in Class to familiarize them with the songs before hearing them live in the show.  Ideally there are actions that accompany them, which could be taught by the teachers prior also, to enhance the students recognition and participation in the show!  They have now been distributed to the teachers….I cant wait to find out how the kids respond to the recordings.  I hope the teachers play the songs regularly and give feedback on how they respond!!!

Rachael and I had a great time reading the 2d story books to the classes of Sarah, Anna and Deanna.  Rachael multi-tasked in reading the book, showing the pictures, and animating the puppets at the same time!  I provided live musical accompaniment. The combination of the live music and the animated puppets worked well, the movement and music were complimentary to each other.  The children is Sarah’s class seemed mostly engaged, and, regardless of their understanding of the plot of the story, they were present to and even entertained by this flurry of action and noise before their eyes and ears.  The story concluded with some drumming and dancing. The highlight for me here was when Harry walked over to me, put both his hands on the drum I was playing, using it to support himself as he stood there wiggling and bobbing to the vibration he could feel passing through his body from the drum.  This again reinforces the importance of accessing music and sound through feeling the physical vibration, not just receiving it aurally.  Tim the music teacher spoke of a big drum that all the kids can play together and even lay on! I would love to hear of any thoughts/suggestions/ideas on ways of creating more opportunities for such experience. I Have just discovered an application for I phone called “bloom”  where you tap the screen to create quite a heavenly sounding tone, which is accompanied by a beautiful coloured orb that “blooms” and fades,  where you tap on the screen determines the pitch of the tone, the tones repeat themselves and with each tap a song grows accompanied by the beautiful celestial visuals until you have a symphony of sound and colour.  It is an experience combining audio/visual/tactile, where you can compose.  I wonder if such a program would be possible to access on the electronic whiteboards…. Anyone know?

Another highlight was with Banksia, watching Samuel bounce his legs to the rhythm of the drum.  On most other occasions I have seen Sam, he has been quite distressed, so it was great too have really positive interaction with him.  Again, the drumming and dancing at the end went down well.  Its clear we need to encourage our audience to get up and move at the end of the Jub Jub performance rather than keep them seated, to enhance their experience of the celebration.

With Room 9 it was clear that a few students simply wanted to participate in a hands-on way in the music, grasping for instruments at any opportunity. I wonder if having something tactile in the hand may assist some students in staying present, though the object may take their focus at times, they would at least be aware what they had in their hand was connected to what was being presented to them.  Thoughts on this?.....

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