Enchanted River
Background and project brief
by artistic coordinator Annie Edney
"Enchanted River" is an outdoor theatre community event. Spectacular and breathtaking in its affects, this event is a direct expression of the communities thoughts and feelings about the Murray River, interpreted with the assistance of professional community arts workers in the following artforms: circus skills, writing, poetry, shadow puppetry, giant sculptural images, mask making, fire art, lantern making, dance, music and singing.
"Enchanted River" is planned to be an annual community event. In the process of making the event we will train people in the community in all aspects of making a large scale outdoor theatre community event, providing opportunities for different facets of the community to come and work together, developing relationships between people who would not usually meet.
It will provide skills developing opportunities that will be enhanced by the annual nature of the event, and by a program of master classes, guest lectures, workshops and smaller public events that are planned to reinforce the workshops directly involved with the making of "Enchanted River"
The Process
Initially a community consultation will be held which will ascertain the
community's most pressing concerns about the Murray River. Once these issues
have been identified, an Environmental Scientist and a writer will go into
a school (specially selected on the advise of the Regional Principals Consultant
for DEET) to develop an Education Kit, which will then go into the six to
eight schools involved. Students will be able to study the issues covered
in the Education Kit prior to artists coming in to workshop the artistic components
of "Enchanted River".
Alongside this Education Kit, we will develop an Education Kit or Program based around the Traditional Aboriginal Relationship with the River, pertinently, this will be developed by Aboriginal people working in the local Aboriginal community.
A detailed program of workshops in schools will be
developed and the artistic team of professional community arts/theatre workers
will conduct workshops in schools over a period of six weeks (longer if the
project goes beyond the Albury Wodonga region) These workshops will include;
lantern making,
sculptural image making
shadow puppetry
giant puppets
choir
band
and dance
The Performance:
"Enchanted River" will begin on Gateway
Island, close to the central community workshop space. School children who
have been involved in workshops will gather, lanterns will be lit, musicians
and singers will be warming up instruments and voices, giant puppets will
come out and have their lights lit, dancers will be stretching and people
will be putting on makeup. The audience will also be gathering and a sense
of excited anticipation will be building.
The whole assemblage will then move in a magical procession
along the path beside the Murray River, musicians, lanterns, children and
their families, passing vignette performances along the way.
For example a group of dancers may become a movement theatre piece which emerges
from among the trees as people pass, moving in slow motion, freeze framing
and generally building the sense that something very special is happening
in the audience's own familiar environment.
The procession will move from Gateway Village in Victoria to Noriel Park in NSW, where the spectacle will be presented. This will involve giant sculptural lanterns and puppets, shadow puppetry, fire imagery, the band and choir, and will be the culmination of six weeks work in the community.
Anticipated Outcomes:
It is anticipated that this can become an annual event, and with recently
secured assistance from the Regional Arts Board Albury Wodonga, as well the
support already secured from a wide range of other pertinent parties, the
sustainability of this event is looking positive.
Once a large scale event such as "Enchanted River" becomes a regular part of a community's cultural calendar, a sense of excited anticipation builds until there are year round activities towards the making of the event happening in the community, bringing people together in a non-confrontational manner, and building on the strong community cultural development principles incorporated in the development of the project.
Such annual events bring an enrichened sense of self worth into a community which grows from an individual sense of achievement to a whole community celebration, and provides a powerful moment each year for the community to acknowledge it's pride of place and to honour it's environment.
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Annie Edney email - aeedney@yahoo.com.au
or phone 02 6023 3188
Chris Pidd email - chris.pidd@murrayarts.org.au
or phone 02 6021 5034
this site sponsored and developed by
Murray Arts
