It was such a pleasure to be involved with this beautiful local community led festival. I was so pleased and proud to be there and to work with some of the children attending.
North Edinburgh Community Fair
Author: trappertrunk
Growing a New Class
Over 50s Drama Drop In at the Prentice Centre
Weekly drop in drama sessions for those feeling a bit isolated, or are looking to gain confidence in going back out again or are looking to find new friendships.
What is it?
A weekly session where we play fun games, tell stories and enact small scenes from different inspirations. We also organise trips to the theatre to see different kinds of interesting shows, so far we have visited the Festival Theatre, The Storytelling Centre and we have plans to visit the Lyceum soon.
Questions you might ask:
Ok, so what if I haven’t done drama before or I did and didn’t like it?
The classes are respectful, inclusive and fun. They are built around us sharing stories, playing games which build our skills and confidence – great to transfer to everyday life – and anything we don’t like we don’t do it again.
What if I am not very confident about going out now after the Pandemic?
This is just the place to come to help you get used to getting back out again. The Centre is a safe place to find your feet and the group is friendly and supportive.
What if I have done drama before?
Then please come! The group is learning all the time so this is a place where you can refresh skills whilst having fun.
Why Over 50s?
Because we thought that there are people in the older age bracket that are struggling with loneliness and self confidence after the lockdowns. It is a huge step to take to come along to a new group when feeling like this, we know. So do come and try it out – you will probably find it a friendly relaxing experience and have a lot of laughs along the way… and laughter is the best medicine!
Why have others come along? They came because they were curious, some had done drama before and they say “Honestly it is fun” and “you can express yourself”.
The Stage is Set…
Here we have the empty space, an invitation to Tragic Carpet from Edinburgh Palette for the entire month of March. The invitation is to reconnect with the work of the company and with each other and to find out what our next steps will be.
So what will be happening?
We will be getting things out and dusting them down. We will be looking at different ways we might approach the exploration of the Grimm’s fairytale, The Seven Ravens, revisiting work already done, seeing which ideas stay and which have to go.
This process – which is an open one (and we are learning what this might look like) – will help us to talk to people who are interested in this piece, in Tragic Carpet and its work or just curious about puppets! We hope to rekindle relationships, meet new people and work out our next steps. We have a list of questions we want to ask ourselves and also our visitors.
So on Tuesday 1st March that empty space will have some things put into it, props, puppets, some techy stuff, the makings of tea and coffee, a comfy chair or two and we will see where it all goes.
We will be making coffee for visitors every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday at 11am. We have also invited lots of people to visit at other times – artists who might be interested in the work, venues, festivals – and are really excited and looking forward to meeting them.
The Seven Ravens R&D Residency 1/3 to 31/3
Tragic Carpet is delighted to announce its residency at St Margarets House, Edinburgh. The residency is supported by the lovely people at Edinburgh Palette and runs from 1st to the 31st March 2022. Each week we will be exploring different aspects of the show such as The Narrative, The Music and Sound, The Shadow Puppetry, The Table Top Puppetry, The Coding of The Keeper (our mini robo-puppet) and The Flexible, tour friendly Setting and Tech setup. We will host open coffee drop-ins at 11am on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. There will also be some sharing events and details of these will emerge as work progresses. We also hope to invite artists and colleagues who are interested in the work to drop by when they can – if you would like an invite ping us a message via the ‘Contact‘ button. Tragic Carpet team for this residency: Freda O’Byrne, Sheena Miller, Kim Edgar, Sylvia Dow, Peter Searle, Euan Jackson and Lissa McIntyre.
15 Minutes of Pure Magic!
This Sunday saw us at The Pyramid Anderston Glasgow as part of the Wee Theatres Glasgow: All you need is Love event. Freda O’Byrne directed ‘Out of Order’ by Alan Gillespie with Kirsty May Hamilton and Mathew Gallagher as performers. Below is some information about the Glasgow Wee Theatres initiative.
About the Wee Theatre Movement
Wee Theatres is a monthly event, hosted in different venues in Glasgow. Staged in an informal layout, this format includes 4 performances in 4 different rooms, 4 times each throughout the night under the same theme. Lasting 15 minutes each showcase, Wee Theatres presents a very casual and intimate experience for audiences in a unique environment going to each show as they like. Wee is an affordable and different experience for different audiences; no matter their backgrounds!
This micro theatre idea started in Madrid around 2000 in response the economic crisis in Spain at that time. https://thetheatretimes.com/madrid-microtheatre/
Coding Demystified
This was just the most interesting and exciting workshop with Areti Manataki of Edinburgh University in which we explored some of the basics of coding using the MIT block editor programme Scratch. Over the course of one afternoon 22 women were introduced to coding and to the Scratch Platform and then they proceeded to create games and animations.
The event was co-produced by Audacious Women Festival, Prewired Coding Club, Tragic Carpet, Codebase Edinburgh and Areti Manataki of Edinburgh University. It was offered free to women as part of the Audacious Women Festival programme and all agencies involved in supporting it did so at no cost – thank you to all!
No Drama No Text, Just Fun!
We had the most splendid of times delivering the Visual Theatre Workshop at the Audacious Women Festival at City Arts Centre Edinburgh this weekend! The work was focussed on getting to know each other through theatre games and exercises with the emphasis on fun, mutual support and curiosity. Participants learnt about visual performance by working together supportively in groups and solo, exploring ideas through subtle movement exercises, improvising around themes and placing their work within the space in different ways.
The workshop was process based, leaving participants free to play with ideas and see where they went. We explored creative exercises in a light and playful way, shaping the day to match where our enthusiasm ran. We touched on ensemble techniques, movement preparation, neutral mask, improvisation and play.
Dressing the Clootie Tree
Cracking day long event – we arrived to set up, dress the trees, light the space and open for the audiences, experienced the magic, and cleared away leaving nothing behind by the end of the day. Thank you so much Karin Chipulina, Pete Searle, Euan Jackson and Rando.
Dyeing with Turmeric
This was such a lovely workshop led by Karen Chipulina of Carr Gomm. The fabric was used to dress trees in Forest Scotland’s Tree dressing event in Craigmillar Park Woods.
More Than the Sum of the Parts
Over the past week I have been working on the puppet protagonist of The Keeper. She is a wee tabletop specimen made of plastic tubing, foam and clay. I’ve especially enjoyed making her tiny tiny clothes. Elspeth Chapman
Castleview Primary School
There be dragons!
We have been working with staff and P1 pupils at Castleview and Karin Chipulina of Carr Gomm, on growing vegetables, planting apple trees, recycling and meeting and talking with puppets.
Tomorrow we will be bringing Burlap, our baby dragon along to meet the children. Burlap hopes that they will make more baby dragon puppets for him to play with, we will have to see!
Trumpets for Raspberries
We had a very enjoyable evening at Edinburgh Hacklab with Rikki Guy wrangling our raspberry pi, pi camera and an adafruit TFT screen into to submission. The task was to get the screen to display and the the pi camera to capture an image. Success meant that a pizza was in order so we left feeling a bit smug and a little less hungry.
The moments before…
So there we were, Emma, Ella and I, waiting to go on for Snapshots 4 at Manipulate 2018. We had spent the day together, more or less, doing tech and run throughs and cheering each other on. Pete Searle and Euan Jackson were standing by to weave their magic for Rendition, Traverse staff were being glorious and ‘holding our hands’ as we set up each show and helped each other on and off. Rendition was last to go and would never have made it on without help from Sarah Celeghin, Emma and Ella helping me to set up. Finally it was my turn.
Painting The Floor for Doors Open Day
This week I’m feeling a little more settled at St Margaret’s House. We’ve painted the studio floor in preparation for Doors Open Day, and got everything we should have PAT tested. Next up is a supply of coffee and biscuits in the hopes a pal or two will drop by. Thanks due to ScotPat (organised via St M’s) and the very generous time given by Euan Jackson.
The Door to Tragic Carpet’s New Home.
We have been looking for a home for some time and suddenly, last week, we got the keys to studio 2.34 at Edinburgh Palette, St Margaret’s House. Gradually various items and pieces of furniture are making their way up in the lift and along the corridor to our new door. Pretty exciting!
tragic carpet 