AP 2.3 Cycle 3
After the open rehearsal in August 2021 we then completed the script and score for the whole piece. Jingya had had a strong influence on the direction of the script, suggesting that we might involve a forest fire in the forest garden scene. I later changed this to a man-made deforestation, with the forest garden being dug up by machinery. Having applied for funding from Help Musicians UK we were successful and therefore able to plan a research and development period with Wanshu and Jingya where we hoped to finalise the various visual aspects of the work still left to explore. We worked together for a total of 2 weeks in person, with 4 days of rehearsal. We had two extra singers (Dalma Sinka and Clint Lesch), myself and Oliver (the composer) as performers. In this time we put together a full production which was showcased to a small audience in December 2022. We also invited Leon Trimble to participate at this stage, providing sound design and music for the scene changes. He did this with the use of his modular synthesiser which he hooked up to a plant to trigger different voltages and aid in the live creation of the music. This element remained as a key part of the work and came with us in the final cycle to Nozstock and Edinburgh. From the showcase, audience feedback and participant feedback we gained a lot of understanding of the parts of the work that needed attention dramaturgically, musically and on design.
Please see the film of the showcase below, along with the limited audience feedback (bottom right).
We then held a meeting with all the cast and collaborators to gain feedback from everyone. The feedback gathered here was put into use as we moved forwards into the fourth cycle. Mostly we focused on making some edits to tighten up the dramaturgical structure, redesigning scene 1, and making use of projections during the performance. The transcription from this feedback can be found bottom left.
