Kickoff Photos are IN!!!

From the kickoff meeting... I had some uploading issues, so, punctual as usual...

We have some of the sacrifice, a nice picture of Brent and Mark. I call it, "Brent and Mark. With Chair."

Then there is Douglas, goofin', and the great tooth incident. There was biting, there was the loss of tooth... and then, the finding of the tooth! Brent found it as he said, "There it is, there's the bloody tooth." (There really is a tooth by Mark's heard.) And, happy ending! Just like a good little story.

My name is Jayme Clifton Halbritter. You killed my father... so now I take pictures. I'm going to try and take some, and post them, on occasion.

Production Meeting 9/27

Meeting Notes:

We briefly went over each section, and talked about how many volunteers are needed for each section, so that when rehearsals begin we can start plugging people in.

Here's the breakdown:

Preshow: 8-10. (5 characters, 2-4 shadow screen, 1 tech.)
Trail: 10-25 ( 2-10 dogs, 0-1 for Hecetate, 5-10 for islands, and 3 shadow screen)
Boat: 11-19 (2 sails, 1 mast, 8-16 oar training.)
Rocks/Serpent: 18-29 (12-15 serpent, 6-14 rocks.)
Dragon/Ram: 10 (5 dragon, 5 ram)
Harpies: 7-15
Bulls: (uncertain)
Body Parts: 10-15
Water: 8-16
Heart: 4-8
Ushers: 6-12

So obviously this is a lot of people.... so send your feelers out into the community to find passionate volunteers!

Other production notes:

~There is some concern about good lighting/sound for the preshow. We should keep this in mind, but it will probably be fixed by the following ideas:
* Doing the preshow twice, in order to allow more people to see it clearly.
* Having at least a couple islands in the area before the preshow, so that the audience is entertained while they wait.
* Having the testing done before people are allowed to sit down, thus keeping the first group of preshower-ers from getting all the best seats.


Rides: It was decided that I will be at the Bedlam before every rehearsal at 11, in order to catch anybody who needs a ride to hidden falls. The number to call for rides is: 651-353-3774.

Thanks everybody!

Images Jason and the Argonauts

Some of the above Images have been part of our early inspiration for this years show...

Barebones Kick Off 2008

The Barebones Kickoff on Friday September 19th went off without a hitch... Lots of folks came and the meeting commenced with a go around of Welcomes and Names... many old faces have come back to work on project... and some new ones... wooo whooo now for the getting down to business and the making of the puppets!!! The night ended with the scrafice of the golden fleece.... Photos from the nights event will be added soon!! Off we go!! Come check out and help with the builds Tues, Thurs 7-9pm and Saturday from 1-5. The first rehearsal is this Sunday 1-5 at Hidden Falls Park... see ya there!!!

Soozin, Co Director 2008 Fleeced:You Reap What You Sow!

meeting notes, 17 Sept Wed

THEMES BANDIED:

1) consequences of bad decisions; returning sovereignty to the people

2) personal sovereignty
- being your own scapegoat
- what is the legitimate source of your own power?

3) impossibility of returning home

4) Hunger --> Sowing --> Starving --> Slaughter --> Atonement
- equates imagistically to Harpies --> Bulls --> Soldiers --> Body Parts --> Sacrifice
- Hunger/Desperation turning to violence

5) Seeking Redemption for harm we have done ourselves

6) Medea's Transformation from innocent to monster

We agree that all the above themes tie together, though some of us have preference for different emphases. Little talk about no.s 5 & 6.


SCENE SPECIFICS AS THEY CURRENTLY STAND:

PRE-SHOW - Deep History
Why the Golden Fleece is Important.
Why the Dragon and its teeth are important.

TRAIL
Illuminated maps of islands
Sideshows
Hecate, goddess of crossroads, with dogs and ghosts
End of Trail: tests to enter the seating area - audience identified as Argonauts

SCENE 1 - Boat Sets Sail
Boat erected around audience.
Audience taught how to row the boat.
Gods as Politicians.

SCENE 2 - Ram + Dragon
Tree/Dragon and Fleece

SCENE 3 - Fire Bulls Sow Soldiers
Chorus that is like water transitions the scene.
Harpies
Bulls
Sowing of the Seeds
Raising up of Soldiers
Fight of Soldiers

SCENE 4 - the Wake
Medea and Jason kill Absyrtus and throw bodies into the wake of their ship.
(In our wake, we create destruction -- the body parts float up in the wake of us.)
Then, a Wake, and the naming of the Dead.

SCENE 5 - the Ram Sacrifice
Ram sacrifices himself.
Jason and Medea walk into the Heart.


VIEWPOINT OF THE STORY:
Though dissension on this, seems to be honing down to:
- told from perspective of Golden Fleece
- Jason and Medea are characters to provide narrative through-line
- Audience = Argonauts.
- chorus exists

Idea on Islands for the Trail : Economic Collapse

That the puppeteers of the island scenes are real estate agents selling real estate. The islands are in economic collapse. The path could represent economic decline somehow, or reflect on our situation of debt / indebtedness / lack of fiscal confidence. something like this

Storyboard Update

We divided the show into a set of panels representing beats/scenes:

Pre-Show
Trail
Scenes 1-5
Finale

Associations with each:

Pre-Show
- Deep History: story of the Golden Ram, story of the Dragon's Teeth,
- Electoral Spoof: Gods as Politicians

Trail
- flying ram(s) & sacrificial lambs
- illuminated maps
- islands of greek myth installations
- Hecate + dogs
- hovering Harpies
- Argonaut try-outs?

Pageant: 5 scenes bridged by Chorus of Water/Argonauts (or both):

Scene 1 -- SCENE 1 & SCENE 2 MIGHT BE SWITCHED
- The audience boards the Argo and become the Argonauts

Scene 2 -- SCENE 1 & SCENE 2 MIGHT BE SWITCHED
- Lively banter between Ram and Dragon
- setting: a great Golden Fleece in a live Tree

Scene 3-4 (order undetermined)
- Hunger & Harpies
- Yoking of Bulls that breathe fire and associated fire things
- Children, sown as seeds and grown as Soldiers

AT THIS POINT WE STOPPED AGREEING ON THINGS?

Scene 5:
- (boat?) Chase with severed or illuminated body parts used to distract pursuer(s)
- Calling of names

Finale
- Ram Sacrifices itself
- Illuminated Heart altar through which people walk


Hanging chads:

Some progression of Hunger --> Sowing --> Starving --> Slaughter
Harpies --> Bulls -------> Soldiers --> Body Parts

Do Jason & Medea exist as characters? How about her father & brother?

What is the role/meaning of sacrifice and how do we feel about it?

Do the Gods have a role beyond the preshow? Does the Kingdom of Colchis (the foreign, the "other") play a role?

What is the Story?
- Hunger/Desperation turning to violence
- Seeking Redemption for harm we have done ourselves
- Allegory of personal sovereignty (self knowledge, self control, personal responsibility?)
- Medea's Transformation


some further notes from Janaki:

That the barrenness is about personal sovereignty: the first barrenness that caused the sacrifice that caused the Golden Ram to come out of heaven was a trick played to gain sovereignty (can explain this further, but won't here).
For us, a contemporary audience, I automatically transform sovereignty of the realm into sovereignty over ourselves, mastery of ourselves as individuals.

In this light, the wresting of the bulls becomes wrestling personal demons; mastery over our bulls.
The Harpies are a fight with internal, personal desires. Escaping the cries of our insatiability.
The dismemberment could still be us dismembering the Body Politic because of homicidal mistakes.

Continue even in the noontime light of morning to be drawn to Arwen's lead that the show is an atonement for our mistakes, our lack of of vigilance, our inaction, our self-involvement.

Could see the Dragon representing perfect vigilance, action, and concern for another. And, as Soozin has suggested, the Fleece is the innocent that is forced to sacrifice itself as the result of all the mistakes made by the Argonauts.

The final mistake of the Argonauts is to put the Dragon, the only Moral Authority, to sleep. (How to represent this? A number of abstract possibilities. That the Fleece rips in half when it tries to leave the tree, indicating its equilibrium with the dragon. That one of the Deep History characters returns to chastise the the Fleece, such as Helle from the depths of the water. Re-enact a St George and the Dragon tableau to show an epic shift has occurred, etc.)

In this scenario, we need Jason and Medea onstage to represent the Argonauts, otherwise the audience is blamed for everything, which is both hard to communicate and unfair to them.