My City development week

What a fantastic week in February! Check out the video of the process.



My City from Jabuti Theatre on Vimeo.

Also you can visit my Facebook page www.facebook.com/jabutitheatre for regular updates.

Next stop - Mexico!

Count down with Manipulate

Only 5 days to go until the development week for My City...

I can confirm that, along with Director Miguel Angel Gutiérrez and Florencia García Chafuén, I will be working with musician Ewan Macintyre of Southern Tenant Folk Union and Round String Theatre.

I have been given a list of things to get from Miguel Angel and have spent the past few weeks perusing junk sites, car boot sales and second hand shops collecting curious objects from old oil cans to plastic dolls, gloves to 1950s film projectors. I'm curious to see what's going to get used and how! We've also been told to read Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities to inspire us in our creation of worlds and stories within those worlds. It's a really great book; there are some fantastical and amazing places, all under different names such as "cities & eyes" or "cities & the sky, described by Marco Polo to Kublai Khan. We're also going to bring a story that's close to us, maybe a traditional story or one from our childhood, and think of ways to share it; through music, dance, puppetry, whatever! I've got some ideas, but I haven't settled on anything yet. It's promising to be a really interesting week of sharing stories, images, ideas and, most importantly, taking My City close to being a finished piece.

This week is not only an exciting time of preparation for next; it's also Manipulate Festival at the Traverse Theatre and Summerhall. Manipulate is a festival of visual theatre and animation. Full of unusual performances; funny, sad, moving and wacky; it is a week of inspirational theatre. I have already seen To The End of Love by the TIP Connection and I thought it was really good. It was a show without any words, but it's use of popular music (in English or in other languages) was incredibly powerful. Fever was played in a language unrecognisable to me upon listening to it, but I knew the words as it played and understood so much more meaning in the scene because of it. There were also some great images; the cover of the programme is an image taken from the show. Silken nighties were used to represent the ex wives of her new husband. Hooped around the bottom, they were wafted around eerily. This looked great, but there was a little too much wafting for my liking. Despite slow moments, overall I did enjoy it. I'm very excited about seeing The Odyssey by The Paper Cinema tomorrow, Paper Cut by Yael Rasooly on Thursday and Final Space, Ocean Flight, Myth & Infrastructure by Cloud Eye Control. Then I'll be seeing Snapshots: Creation & Play - Platform Performance on Saturday which will be very interesting indeed - all before Miguel Angel arrives on Sunday! In between this I am looking after my dear darling, nearly 3 month old, daughter who, fortunately, is too young to get covered in glue and string while I make my puppets this week!

Keep your eyes on here for news of how the development week went.

The Next Step

Jabuti Theatre has been working hard on the next stage of development; making connections in Central and South America to inject that Latin influence into the show!

My City focuses on Soledad and Eibhleann; it tells their stories, together and apart; the clash between them before they build their relationship into a friendship and learn to embrace each others difference as well as the beauty and the brokenness of the world around them. Their two languages, Gaelic and Spanish, are not just the barrier between them, but they also represent their characters with the cultural connotations of their language. I felt it was important to explore the countries and cultures behind the languages to dig deeper into the characters, the way the story is told and also how the themes of communication and environment are approached. For this reason I wanted to start the relationship with Latin American culture by bringing over a Director from Central or South America who could share with me their experiences and influences and add extra depth to the performance.

It was very important for me and for My City to find someone who had puppetry experience, but who had also played with different forms of puppetry and blended it with other artforms; particularly physical theatre. The show will have acrobatics and movement in it, so the understanding of the body is essential, even more so in combination with puppetry which can be quite challenging. After speaking to a range of very interesting performers and directors, both in the puppetry and circus worlds, I met the perfect person to bring over from Guadalajara, Mexico. Here's a little bit about Miguel Angel Guiterrez, Director of Luna Morena, in his own words:

Miguel Angel Gutierrez is a scenic creator who studied at the Art Center College of Architecture and Design at the University of Guadalajara. His background is in design and visual communication.

Miguel Angel has studied with teachers such as: Claudio Hochmann, Hugo Aristimuño (of Argentina), Matasek Petr (Czech Republic), Suzanne Lebeau and Gervais Gaudreault (Canada), Luis Martin Solis, Alberto Villareal (Mexico) and many more.

In 2001 he founded the company Luna Morena, experimental puppet workshop, which focuses on projects of artistic development through puppetry. Luna Morena has participated in festivals in Mexico, Canada, USA, Spain, China, Taiwan, Czech Republic and Colombia. Some of his most recent projects with Luna Morena include "The Silence Between the Waves", "Martina and the Birdmen" from the book by Monica Hoth, "Zaikabaret Apokaliptko" and "Animalario".

In 2004 Miguel Angel founded the International Puppet Festival of Guadalajara (Feast of Dolls) and runs it as Aristic Director.

Check out some of his work on Luna Morena's YouTube channel.

Along with Miguel Angel I will also be working with the fantastic performer, Florencia García Chafuén.

She's also written a little bit about herself:

Florencia García Chafuén is a visual and performance artist originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina where she trained in theatre and drama at the Norman Briski theatre school and movement with Laura Preguerman.

She also studied film making at the Fundacion Universidad del cine in Buenos Aires (FUC) and Physical Theatre in Scotland under the direction of Al Seed and Simon Abbott.

Since moving to Scotland in 1998 she has worked extensively in a wide range of art forms including dance, film, photography, theatre and music. She has performed with a number of different companies and directors both in the UK and internationally.

Her latest film work includes; "Different kind of water - Different kind of Fish", "Couch", "William Blake" and "Halls of Fame".

For one week in February 2013, thanks to Creative Scotland, we will be working on the development of My City in order to get it ready for a rehearsal and tour in autumn 2013. We will also, thanks to Imaginate, be working with a musician for that week with influences from Spanish and Gaelic music.

The whole process will be filmed so you'll get to see the results of week which I can guarantee will be very interesting!! Until then watch this space for more updates...who will be the musician for the week? Do I have any more surprises up my sleeve...?!

Rachael Macintyre

Artistic Director

My City

Jabuti Theatre has just finished an exciting 2 weeks working on their new project, My City.

My City tells the story of two characters, Soledad and Eibhleann, who speak different languages. One Gaelic, one Spanish. Eibhleann lives quietly in a crumbling dystopia; her surroundings are plastic rubbish which she collects, sorts and places neatly around her. When the chaotic and wild Soledad interrupts her order with her babbling Spanish tales of exciting adventure their two worlds collide. But, in each other they see hope for their desire to change, this world and themselves. Using visual images to share each others stories they overcome the obstacle of words and embrace the beauty and brokenness of their environment; building a friendship and a home.

This visual storytelling for children aged 7-10 looks at our environment and explores alternative ways of communication using puppetry, objects and acrobatics alongside an original score inspired by Gaelic and Latin music and culture.

We spent 2 weeks, from the 4th - 15th June 2012, developing the initial idea of the project with support from Imaginate and North Edinburgh Arts.
Through Imaginate we built on our ideas, creating story and character, with Ailie Cohen and we experimented with different performance techniques, taking a short workshop in clowning with Maria Oller.
Through NEA we ran workshops with children aged 10 and 11 from Forthview and Craigroyston primary, creating dystopian worlds and then trying to solve the problems in them and then we finished off the workshop building amazing marionette style puppets out of plastic bottles!

Jabuti Theatre are planning to tour My City in autumn 2013. Keep your eyes on here for further developments in the project - links with Latin America and continuing work with amazing Scottish based theatre makers!

Special thanks to Fiona Ferguson from Imaginate and Kate Wimpress from North Edinburgh Arts! We created some really great stuff and are eager to start on the next stage. Also, thank you to Daniel Lacasta Fitzsimmons for photographing, filming and assisting with the workshops.

View the photos HERE

Welcome!

Welcome to Jabuti Theatre's current home, a website is in the making so keep your eyes peeled for details.

There will also be information on our exciting new project coming soon!