Wellington Circus Trust Newsletter - August 2006Wellington Circus Trust is a non-profit organisation committed to fostering a thriving circus community in Wellington
Contents1. Circus classes 2. Wellington Circus Trust news 3. “Pete Tong Circus” WCT fundraiser 4. What’s happening in the circus community? 5. News of aerialists “Out There” 1. Circus classesClassesWellington Circus Trust classes will begin again in September (date TBC). There will be no WCT classes in August because the studio at Te Whaea is unavailable. Before the next semester starts an email will be sent out with the updated class schedules and a prompt payment reminder. We are happy to take bookings for aerials, acrobalance and circus fit classes for the September block and confirm with you the dates and times after August 14. Please send e-mails to info@circus.org.nz. The price of classes may increase but if you get in quick and pay before the end of August you�ll avoid any extra costs. Karori classes and practice sessionsJenny Ritchie will be running instructed tissue classes during August. For more details please contact her on juniperjenni@yahoo.com. So as to compensate for the reduction in classes during August, “open practice” sessions will be available at the scout hall. These are for advanced beginners upwards. Where Karori Scout Hall Cnr Campbell and Croyden Street (map available on http://circushouse.co.nz/adult_classes.html) When Saturdays (12-3pm) August 5, 19, 26 and September 2, 9 Sundays (5-7pm) August 6 13 27 and September 3, 10 Cost $6 per session There will be 4 tissu rigged, plus some mats for acrobalance. These sessions are strictly at your own risk, and although an “overseer” will be there, they will not be teaching. Rules of the game are:
For safety’s sake this is restricted to people who have attended circus classes for some months so no inviting friends “to play”, and if in any doubt as to whether you are ready to practice safely, please check with your tutor. Thanks to Valerie, Andrea and Jez for offering to oversee these sessions. Kids classesWCT provides tutors and gear for circus workshops for children at Capital E. To book for term time classes or school holiday workshops see the Capital E website www.capitale.org.nz or contact them directly on (04) 913 3733. Intermediate stilt classes“Intermediate” is for those who can already walk on stilts but need to gain technique, experience and confidence with movement For this class you will need you own stilts. Recommended height is 80cm - 1 metre under the foot. You will need to provide your own lightweight sports shoes which will then be bolted to the stilts. To order your own pair please contact Emily Buttle on (04) 382 9823 or 021 155 7628 empress@stiltdance.co.nz. Cost per pair is $200 (includes all materials, workshop hours and stoppers). These stilts will last you a lifetime!!! Classes:(TBC with aerial classes for next semester) Rupert’s Feldenkrais classesTry Feldenkrais, an interesting way to improve your body organisation, relevant for all sports and activities. In context of circus skills you will learn how to move in safe ways, improve balance and coordination. At Ghuznee Health, 75 Ghuznee St, on Wednesdays 5.30 and Fridays lunchtime (12.10-1). Cost $10 (discount for Circus dudes). How ’bout Hula Hoops?Always wanted one? $18 for adult size (90cm diameter) made of strong plastic with shiny covering. Smaller, lighter children’s hoops are also available for $10 (different dimensions available on request). Great fun and good exercise. Contact Susie: SusieLCooper@gmail.com. Who to contactFor new class bookings or enquiries please contact: info@circus.org.nz. 2.Wellington Circus Trust newsThe Trust is now seven months old; in that time we have run a lot of classes! My feelings at this point are a mixture of excitement about what’s been achieved and the new opportunities opening up and trepidation as to how we will cope with the ongoing administrative workload. Achievements over the past few months included the tremendously successful “Pete Tong Circus” fundraiser which raised a whopping $1,880 (as well as a $30 donation). We are using some of the extra money to buy better mats (30cm deep rather than 25cm). The rest will be put towards other equipment. Thanks to Tom Beauchamp, Fiona Shaw and all the other people who helped organise the event or donated performances on the night. Also, a big thank you to the Wellington City Council and Creative Communities for their grant of $1,200 towards WCT equipment. Other recent equipment purchases include replacement tissu’s, improvements to the rigging, a new web rope and a trapeze that we have been using, on loan to us from Storm Davenport until we could afford to buy it. We are still some way off owning the equipment we are using but we’re getting there. Again thank you to all those people who continue to support us by lending their equipment. And there’s more… Another exciting success is that Valerie has been awarded two grants by Creative Communities and Wellington City Council. One grant to teach aerial dance to youth at risk and the other to teach students of mixed ability. Valerie tells me she has previously run classes for someone with only one arm so I guess she’s up for these challenges! Valerie also heads up our “opportunities front” with a proposal to teach exciting new skills such as bungy performance and rope and harness skills. Oh, and if any teachers are reading this, apparently she can teach a trapeze and physics class! Another class that we may be able to offer soon is mime taught by Fergus Aitken (AKA Mr Fungus). This might be in a 6 week block or maybe weekend workshops. If you know you’d be into this let us know. Help!! All this activity requires a lot of volunteer effort and our volunteer resources are thin on the ground, what with a combination of babies, overseas trips and house building taking priority. Going forward from here is fairly daunting so we would love to hear from anyone who can help with the WCT administration. Currently we pay tutor fees but all volunteer hours are donated. Our hope is that we can find some way, perhaps through the PACE scheme, to fund a part-time administrator. If anyone has experience getting funding for this sort of thing please let us know! In the meantime you can help reduce the workload by letting us know (and paying!) as quickly as possible whether you want to continue with classes. It really makes a huge difference to our ability to keep the trust going! We are still assessing whether course costs will need to increase to incorporate GST. However we may put them up by $5/block for aerial classes and $2 for circus fit, but offer this back as an early payment discount for all payments made more than one week before the class starts. Written by Eileen McNaughton 3. “Pete Tong Circus” WCT fundraiser at the Paramount, June 16“Behind the scenes” On Friday June 16, about 200 of Wellington’s finest audience descended on the Paramount for a night of circus performance from Circumbendibus, Mr Fungus, Tom Beauchamp, Dawn Strindberg, a film and the Silverbeatz DJ’s. It was in order to raise some money towards crash mats. The trust had received half the money needed to purchase the mats from Wellington City Council’s “Creative Communities” so thanks to Kate Larkendale, the manager at the Paramount, a date was set for a late night screening of “It�s All Gone Pete Tong” preceded by some live circus. The night was a success; we raised $1,900 towards the mats. Our thanks goes to those who helped and those who came! For my part I can only really write about some of my experience of the night from the inside as it were! I helped organise the event, designed the fliers and posters, sorted out the technical side of things (thanks to Capital E for the loan of the lights) and did a short static trapeze piece. Some of my thoughts / experiences at the time are in italic. I have spent the day setting up the technical side of things. We do not have any time to rehearse with the technical operators so I have to make notes of the Q’s, tell the operators and hope they can wing it on the night. One act has cancelled so I ask Fergus if he can cover more time, being the pro that he is of course he can. The DJ’s arrive to do sound check. Deb Pope arrives and tells me to go warm up, get changed and she’ll look after things. (I breathe a sigh of relief). As people arrived into the foyer of The Paramount they were greeted by Circumbendibus; all women stilt walkers’ extraordinaire, weaving and mingling through the crowd as bird creatures. The previous film was a bit late going up; the crowd starts packing round the door like a rugby scrum. We hold them off with polite smiles and assurances that it will just be 10 minutes while we set up. Down comes the trapezes, up goes the lights, sound check, prop check, get the dregs of the previous audience out who are surprised to find circus equipment springing from the ceiling. “Standby, the house is now open,” shouts Deb as performers scurry for the wings. People pile in with a continued chatter and excitement of; “Friday night thank God it’s the weekend.” Backstage Fergus goes out the back door to get a drink closing it behind him � shit! It can’t open from the inside and I need a pee, shit, ok, I cover my costume and make a dash down the side of the audience, through the foyer, down the corridor to open the exit door again (good warm � up!) Mr Fungus warms the audience up with his combination of physical comedy and gags. They are responsive and he is in good form. Dawn is calm as she warms up, however the takeaway I had for dinner is doing it’s own act in my stomach as I stretch and think through my routine. I am trying a combination of clowning and trapeze (not recommended by OHS) excitement and nerves chase themselves round my body as I breathe deep “Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome Mr Tom Beauchamp!” Well, here goes nothing… yippee! Written by Tom Beauchamp
4. What’s happening in the circus community?Maui - One man against the gods“Maui - One man against the gods” is a full length stage production of the legend of Maui, a Maori demigod, told through the disciplines of kapa haka, te reo Maori, aerial theatre, contemporary dance, circus skills and original music. This year’s season of Maui started with a four day wananga at Kaukaurarata Marae over in Port Levy on Banks Peninsula. This was a perfect time for running over the shows script changes, new kapa haka movements and as a general hangout time with new and past cast and crew members. Once back in the city we trained for 3 and a half weeks at the Ngaio Marsh Theatre at Canterbury University, working significantly on new scenes and changes made on last years production of Maui at the St James Wellington. This seasons cast roles were very demanding as we were not only to learn and perform our individual tricks but we were also to learn someone else’s and in some cases such as for Pipi-Ayesha Evans, we had to cover 3 peoples roles!! This was a big challenge for some of the harness aerialists, especially those who had less experience, for just when you master a move swinging from one side of the stage you then find yourself having to learn the ’same’ move but reversed from the other side of the stage. I have so much respect for the people in my aerial team who had so little time to practice their flying but did far more than the best they could. Nga whakaaro miharo ki oku hoa rerenga!
Christchurch was also a good experiment for the cast as we were able to ‘practice’ living together in a city apartment block for 7 weeks without any major catastrophes except the occasional building evacuation from tired people burning their dinners, and the constant temptation of the night life that we could hear from our windows every night!! With such a diverse mix of talented performers all sharing a strong passion to develop Maui into the production that it has the potential to be, we should, eventually be able to share the show abroad. A show of this size takes time and a lot of hard work, but Maui has already come a long way from a big dream from one man five and a half years ago! Currently our next plan of attack is a top of the North Island tour over February to April 2007, as a practice run for being able to pack in and out of theatres within limited time frames as that is one of our challenges for overseas festivals. So with another season done on which to strengthen the show from the journey continues. Ki te ao marama e, Tihei mauri ora Written by Jenny Ritchie
Calling all performers! - Roar Community Art Gallery auctionWe are a community gallery in Wellington which promotes Outsider art. This is untrained, self-taught, visionary and all the exciting things! We are part of Pablos Art Studios which is a studio for people who have experienced mental illness, primarily funded by MSD. We have a charity auction once a year in October, and we are looking for people interested in doing some kind of performance art around which we could place collection buckets. The auction is a big event, held at Shed 11, with over 300 people attending every year, so I am thinking that it could be a good promotion thing for you guys as well as donating time and energy to a good social cause. Have a think and let me know if it is something you would be interested in, or if you know anyone who it would be good to approach for this. Please contact Sian Torrington, Gallery Manager. Phone (04) 385 7602 or email roargallery@paradise.net.nz. Youngsters in training - Capital ECapital E Circus School based at Capital E in Wellington�s Civic Square has provided introductory and extended circus skills training to dozens of children aged 8 - 12 over the last year. Tutored by members of Wellington Circus Trust, sessions ranging from a two-hour �taster� through to those running over five weekends have been inspiring young people to keep advancing their circo-arts skills. Capital E provides venue, mats and unicycles, and promotes the classes to its database of families using a regular newsletter. Courses are also promoted on the website www.capitale.org.nz, and in newspaper advertisements. “We exist to provide creative performance and technology experiences for children, and our partnership with Wellington Circus Trust is providing great opportunities for children to stretch their wings in these fields”, says Capital E Events Manager Howard Vickridge. “Capital E intends expanding the Circus School in 2007 and working with the Wellington Circus Trust to introduce some formalised training levels that children will progress through”, he says. “Circus is the only ageless delight you can buy for money. It is the only spectacle which while you watch it, gives you the quality of a truly happy dream”. Ernest Hemingway. Empress Stiltdance and “Dance Your Socks Off” festival“SKY” A Stilt Ballet performed by “EMPRESS Stiltdance”
“SKY” is a semi - classical dance performed by three highly skilled female stilt performers. It is an exploration into harmonious and graceful movement on stilts and celebrates a mastery of this unusual apparatus. “EMPRESS Stiltdance” presents a vision of stilts as a courageous new dance medium. Choreography Alice Capper-Starr Dancers Emily Buttle Andrea Knox Dawn Strindberg Te Whaea plaza Dates September 1st at 6pm, September 2nd and 3rd at 2pm Presented in association with “Heavens Breath” (NZ School of Dance) & “Going For Baroque” (Crows Feet) Tickets available on the door or by contacting the Te Whaea box office on (04) 381 9254 5. News from aerialists “out there”
Deborah PopeWe all know Deb from aerial and trapeze classes, but what we don’t know is she ran away from New Zealand to join the circus. Like the science she studied, it was all quite accidental. Deb went to London, as you do, and found herself in an acrobatics class with an old Hungarian called Eugene who had set up two rooms in his Brixton home. He figured that with a wall out it was the size of a stage and that’s all you needed. He died only recently at 93 and was teaching until last year. Deb was with him for 25 years, so he was very much her Master. Circus was going through a world resurgence at the time and London was the centre, with physical theatre appearing and other artistic offshoots. Deb made the most and travelled and studied in France and China too. Then worked her way around more countries than most people could name, including Senegal and Brazil. Ultimately she did heaps of work with the original Circus Oz and that’s been another long-standing relationship. “There’s amazing connections through circus,” she says. “All you need is the language of the body.” Now she and her partner, picture framer Philip, are doing some quiet time in Enzed, as Deb’s parents live up the coast and are getting on. Daughter Jessica needs some stability too, after several years on the road. It’s a different world here. As in many things you have to generate your work and regenerate yourself too, if need be. There are obvious positives with their choice of home at Otaihanga: the nearby river, the space and garden, after year�s cheek by jowl in London Deb teaches at Toi Whakari, the Performing Arts Centre and the NZ College of Performing Arts in Porirua. She describes herself as a professional chatterbox, she�s very easy to interview! Written by Rupert Watson | |
Leave a Comment |
-
- No events.
Pictures
The best audiences by far were the schools! With ticket prices for them ranging from $2 to $10 over 4,600 kids were able to see the show and the energy that they brought to the theatre was massive.
“Set in a natural world at a fragile moment of beauty”
