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!

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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

What is Hidden Door? A festival? Well yes, but a lot more. Visiting Leith Theatre today, I saw imagination, creativity, skills, insight, tradeskills, technical skills, digital skills, administration skills, people skills, so many different talents brought to bear to bring a sleeping theatre to life. Continue reading →

I was surprised recently to find that one of the toughest things about the material I am making for Rendition is the letting go of it. The getting it out of my head once it has installed itself. Sometimes it just has to go – in the bin or the ‘later’ folder – it just doesn’t work, it is clunky, it says something already said, it is from a completely different palette… – ‘yes but lets just keep it for now’ my heart says. ‘Bin’ my head states, and there it goes, falling down, down until it hits the bottom with a tinny clink. Well that’s confirmed – insubstantial.

Today I was working on teasing out a way of capturing the story of Fatima Bouchar who was arrested by the CIA with her husband Abdul Hakim Belhaj and rendered to Libya. She was four months pregnant at the time.I couldn’t get the idea out of my head that that tiny foetus, held within its terrified mother, had spent several months within such a brutal system. So I wrote a poem to try and capture that idea… Continue reading →

This week we were hosted by NEA for the research and development week. Monday saw me packing the van with all the stuff I thought might be needed and setting off to Pilton.

Work began with untangling the events in America that resulted in the SERE torture resistance training programme becoming reverse engineered and tried out on Abu Zubaydah – the first person to undergo CIA rendition. Continue reading →