Stephen Noonan
Stephen is a performance maker with a diverse practice working in the Theatre for Early Years field. He makes high quality and meticulously crafted original work.
Project: Risky
Session: 1
Session Title: Tight rope
Delivery date: 31 July 2024
Present: Stephen Noonan, Dave Brown, staff and students from McArthur Park Kindergarten.Location: McArthur Park Kindergarten, Mcrostie Street, Millicent, S.A. 5280
Time: Noon
Videos:
Video Password: rope
Aim: With red rope, explore caution, to be hesitant because of the unknown.My animating idea - with red rope, explore caution, to be hesitant because of the unknown.
Outcomes / Reflection: This was the first showing of creative material. Prior to this, in my home studio, I had spent 50 hours playing with different materials including paper bags of various sizes and clear glass jars, filled with food colouring liquid of varying sizes. During this time I stumbled across some red rope in my shed. The rope caught my attention with its colour, various lengths and uses.
It resonated as I considered Greg Cousins’ principles of object use in design and performance:
Purpose - What an object is designed for and how it’s normally used
Affordance - Physical invitation, angle of approach. The way an object proposes itself for use
Association - A feeling, memory or thought that is connected to an object
Expectation - An understanding and experience of how an object is supposed to behave
Symbolism - The significance ascribed to an object
It further resonated as I thought about my theme of ‘risky’ involving danger, boundaries and the ‘dance between holding on and letting go’ in childhood between child and parent. The white hazard suit caught my attention because of the inferred danger. It is alarming, cautionary, and offers protection. Together, the red rope on the white hazard suit is bold and looks good. The colours and shapes draw your attention in. These two design elements, which are very different to the Boy & the Ball, I find appealing and important. For the time I will limit my design palette to just red rope, white hazard suit and white corflute.
As Dave Brown writes, “Limitation is liberation in the context of performance-making. It brings focus and attention to the possibilities that exist in the simplest of things and leads us to elegant and distinctive outcomes.”
I am also aware that many shows have used white hazard suits as costumes eg Fluffy by Artbomb https://www.artbombau.com/ and Creation Creation by Windmill Theatre https://www.windmill.org.au/show/creation-creation/
During this time, I came across this podcast about ‘the imagination’ and how we need to exercise it to maintain our creativity
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/this-working-life/imagination-muscle/103656064
Albert Read is managing director of Conde Nast and author of The Imagination Muscle.
I am most creative when my body is in motion. My body physical moving in space unleashes creativity in me. When I am up on the floor in the creating stage I have to listen to my body and give less importance to the rational brain.
Choreographer Twyla Tharp says of “Ok brain catch up with the body” when creating new work.
A podcast recommendation from Dave Brown. It explores editing is a peculiar skill. It’s hard to test for, or teach, or even describe. But it’s the crucial step in the creative process that takes work. https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show/id1548604447?i=1000653308543And lastly, when nothing seems to be happening creatively…just keep going.
“Talent is insignificant; what really matters is love, discipline, luck and most of all endurance” James Baldwin
