Sunday, April 25, 2010

Wiley and the Hairy Man




We started rehearsals this week for Wiley and the Hairy Man at UVU and it is different than any other production I've ever been involved in. I am the assistant director and am there to help design the sound for the show. George Grant, the creator of Drum Talk (http://www.drumtalk.com/) is coming tomorrow and will work with the cast all week. Drum Talk is a unique way to improv music. He teaches a basic skill set and then shows you how to use those elements to layer rhythms and sounds with a group. Some of the rhythms will be notated and set and others will always be improved live throughout the show.


I thought our director, John Graham, was brave to let George and I use such an unheard of, free-style method with the show, but then I saw how John worked this week with the movement for the show. John uses a very similar technique with movement based on the Viewpoints. The two fit together like a hand in a glove. I can't wait for George to meet John tomorrow and watch them work all week.


There are also elements of Bunraku puppetry in the show. This form of puppetry comes from Japan and uses people dressed in black to manipulate life-size puppets. There's been some work with puppeteers manipulating live people as well. We will be using elements of both in the show. To get a little taste, you can watch the You Tube video above. On Saturday, we had races down the hall with two people running in mid-air. Now you don't see that everyday!


I'm going to try to take pictures and video and document the progress of the show on the blog... so stay tuned!

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