Wednesday 28th May - Day Three

We sneaked in an early writers meeting this morning, slightly concerned that we have not got enough time together in between the workshop sessions, particulalrly with the two schools sessions coming up.

We decided to switch over to small group work with the actors today, and created some stimulus cards for improvisations. First we decided to set up some discussion of difference between our three nations, still exploring the idea of our story as an allegory of the relationships between those countries. Then we would go quickly through improvisation from the stimulus cards, which we created to explore some of the areas that were repeating, and coming into closer focus - the idea of being lost, being in forbidden territory, child solution to extreme situations, or to being in positions of responsibility, and the means children find of dealing with difference.

The session was really good, particularly when we got on to the cards. The assessment of difference was fairly superficial in some ways, dwelling on difference of cultural habit more than anything else. The group is much better at improvisisng situations and characters than concepts. Also, we have done so much improvising as children, that we need to discuss whether this is where we will end up, or will we find a shift in setting, away from children as the protagonists?

Then in the afternoon we set off to Daizawa Elementary School in Setagaya, for the workshop there. After some discussion it was decided that everyone should go, because we were going to have a large groupo of children, and we should work in three separate spaces. When we arrived, the spaces turned out not to be available, so we were all together in one large group, but it worked out very well. The workshop with the children was strikingly similar to those in Korea, ina way. Certainly if we had expected them to be more reticent, we need not have worried. They were perhaps a little less physical, but once the first stand-off was past, the differences were minimal. The main content was an exploration of monsters, which are becoming a strong theme in the work now. The children's monsters were pretty literal ones.

We played a greeting game that worked well. Say hello in one of our three languages, if the person you say hello to uses the same language, you join them in a chain, and move on. Each time you choose the same language, the chains join, until the group is one big chain....

After this the group went into smaller groups with the adult actors, and they created their monsters. Some impressive creatures too.

After the session we had a long and fruitful writers session in a dark jazz cafe in this studenty, bohemian part of town. The story is being closed down on, and the level of agreement within the writing team is strong still. We are not sure whether there will be some shift into a parallel or allegorical setting, and we want to expore some of that further.