It is quite indescribable the feeling after Monday's performances....Being presented with thankyou presents and cards made by the students from Bluegum and Room 2 was incredibly moving. As a performer I felt a level of resonance and energetic feedback from our first 2 audiences that I would expect from a mainstream audience. This is the biggest and clearest indicator to me that the embedding process worked. I can remember doing my first performances of the Jub Jub Tree at Sir David Brand last year and struggling to cope with minimal level of feedback from our audience. I think it is probably two things - 1. I now can read and understand students' communication styles better so their responses are clearer to me. 2. The students did engage with and understand our performances to much greater degree because during the residency we did wade further and further into the material together....-Planting the Jub Jub Tree, meeting each character, making something to represent each character, being each character and singing their song. Coming into the forest installation and making forest sounds. There was a very high degree of ownership and familiarity with the story for all the classes we have worked with.
Ros who works in Bluegum, spoke about Robbie's very high level of participation. He not only sang the songs we had learnt in class but also participated in other songs throughout the show. He jumped into answer the question "Who ate the leaves from the Jub Jub Tree" with "Donkey". He insisted on taking a sample of each sensory input he could - a bit of sand, some seeds, some glitter, only parting with them when he wanted to play a percussion instrument. Travis so chuffed that he souvenired a rooster feather. Alicia said Joel was so into it - she had to stop him from getting up and joining in many times. Especially when it came to the touching elements like the soil and water.
From Room 2 Katie, distressed when she arrived, calmed down immediately with the opening song. I also noticed Abby trying to make the hand actions for the animal characters.
With our second performance we had Banksia (whom we have worked with) and Redgum whom we haven't. This was a very interesting contrast. Jack from Banksia had a hoot - big smile on his face..... With the Redgum mob just had to try stuff out to see what worked. Not knowing them at all it was harder to interpret their responses - certainly lot's that was clearly positive. Graeme their teacher gave feedback that they really got into it.
Ros who works in Bluegum, spoke about Robbie's very high level of participation. He not only sang the songs we had learnt in class but also participated in other songs throughout the show. He jumped into answer the question "Who ate the leaves from the Jub Jub Tree" with "Donkey". He insisted on taking a sample of each sensory input he could - a bit of sand, some seeds, some glitter, only parting with them when he wanted to play a percussion instrument. Travis so chuffed that he souvenired a rooster feather. Alicia said Joel was so into it - she had to stop him from getting up and joining in many times. Especially when it came to the touching elements like the soil and water.
From Room 2 Katie, distressed when she arrived, calmed down immediately with the opening song. I also noticed Abby trying to make the hand actions for the animal characters.
With our second performance we had Banksia (whom we have worked with) and Redgum whom we haven't. This was a very interesting contrast. Jack from Banksia had a hoot - big smile on his face..... With the Redgum mob just had to try stuff out to see what worked. Not knowing them at all it was harder to interpret their responses - certainly lot's that was clearly positive. Graeme their teacher gave feedback that they really got into it.
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