Masked Ball poster design

Introduction

Between September 27 and October 2 1999 the Theatre Media staff of Charles Sturt University (Bathurst, Australia) and the founding principals of Welfare State International (Cumbria, UK) conducted a workshop in celebratory performance.

The purposes of this workshop were:

1. to introduce participants to celebratory street theatre and event and community performance techniques developed by Welfare State International;
2. to cross the boundaries usually encountered between the visual arts, music, performance, dance and theatre to connect to a community event (specifically the Bathurst car races);
3. to liberate imaginations through the integrated use of their dreams, imagination and hands in the construction and rehearsal of a wide variety of visual and aural images;
4. to create an evening of imaginative entertainment that included site decoration, story telling, audience participation, shadow puppetry, large-scale articulated puppetry, social dancing, celebratory food, singing, pyrotechnics, strolling bands and mumming shows.

Participants included teachers from primary and secondary schools, community artists, and students from the BA (Communication - Theatre Media) course at Charles Sturt University.

The structure of the week was organised by John Fox and Sue Gill of WSI. This structure included an introduction to the workshop and the past work of WSI. Exercises were devised using local resources to create performances, costume prototypes, site decorations, shadow puppetry, strolling bands, and parade images. The results of these exercises were turned into a street parade.

Subsequent exercises and construction work saw everyone working toward the creation of a public masked ball which was built on dramatic and visual arts principles. The performance/making of the ball was completed with a debrief and thorough cleaning/derigging of the spaces used.

This workshop is an example of the application of the principles, practices, theories and aesthetics which are attached to this site.