Making Room was recently asked to speak at a Toronto Park Summit organized by the amazing people at Park People. They made this video about last year’s raft project for this event.

Workshops are held Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons. If you are able to help out, please e-mail and let us know that you are coming! diggerburtt@gmail.com.

I have wanted to connect sound choir activities in the basement with the writing and construction activities happening on the second floor, and I thought that it might be fun to create voices for the puppets.  I thought to experiment with gestural speech, as in gibberish or glossolalia (the act of speaking in tongues), because puppets are limited in their physical movements and I think that their voices should match.  I also like the idea of the ‘wise fool,’ who is simultaneously innocent and deeply intelligent.  I think that gibberish is an ideal tool for expressing such contradictory nature, because the non-verbal voice communicates through instinctual, sonic gestures.  I think that such direct means of communication can pierce the habitual emotional armours that we create through words, leaving us with direct, deeply emotional and spiritual meanings.

In our final sound choir workshop before the holidays, I asked the group to come up with three adjectives that could be used to describe their ‘wise person’, which I had asked them to visualize.  I then worked with each person to develop a gibberish voice for their puppet.  I first asked John to isolate his adjectives so that he could practice a vocabulary of different voices.  It was interesting for me to see how subtly each adjective affected his choices: The terms ‘rugged’ and ‘straight-up’, for instance, both produced a fairly gruff demeanour, but the ‘rugged’ voice was emotionally closed and continually grumbling while the ‘straight-up’ voice spoke in clearly articulated, impassioned gestures.  I then chose another person from the group, Alice, and I asked her to perform the same exercise.

I noticed that both Alice and John instinctually used exaggerated physical gestures, as well as sound, to communicate.  I decided to experiment with turning the voice exercise into a physical theatre exercise, and I had them rise from their chairs to their feet and face each other.  I asked them to imagine that they were the characters associated with their adjective-voices, and that they had something to say to each other as they passed in the halls of PARC.  This produced peals of laughter, as Alice’s ‘silent’ person (who communicated via low and extended creaking growls) encountered John’s ‘rugged’ person (who was generally angry).  I asked them to add in other adjectives, creating voices that were simultaneously ‘rugged, straight-up and wise’ or ‘silent and slow’.

This exercise was highly effective, as each person was able to develop a voice and physical stance that expressed a certain combination of adjectives.  Everybody in the group was laughing, and eventually even Michelle (who had been extremely reticent) volunteered herself.  We culminated by creating a ‘drop-in’ scene followed by a ‘bus-scene’.  We worked together to imagine scenarios that might happen on a bus, such as a ‘bodacious’ person trying to steal the seat of a ‘gentle and silent’ person.  I think that the adjectives were somewhat lost as people began to act out their characters – in general, the characters seemed to become louder and more ridiculous as the exercise went on, and I think that original intentions were sometimes lost.  I think also, though, that the group developed a kind of rhythmic cohesion that I haven’t witnessed as prominently in the music-based workshops.  I was also pleased with the level of full-bodied attention that each participant (including myself) was able to maintain throughout the workshop, and also with the frequent occurrences of laughter, followed by more serious devotion.

Within the Making Room group, it seems that loud and ridiculous activities can serve as an effective contrast to our more contemplative rituals.  I am curious to explore possibilities for creating a more definitive and ritualized workshop structure, and it is useful to have discovered an apparent desire for energetic expression.  Perhaps instead of starting with a ten-minute sit, as I have been facilitating, we should start with a loud warm-up or theatre activity, followed by increasingly thoughtful activities, and closing finally with a sit.

-          RB

The sound collage petered out earlier than I had envisioned it would, which frustrated me.  Without my prompting, the group took turns describing the places that they had visited and why they had chosen the sounds that they did.  One participant expressed the frustration she felt at being asked to imitate what for her was a primarily silent, internal place, while simultaneously expressing surprise at hearing her close friend calling to her there.  Inspired by the depth of information available on each of the places, I decided to introduce a writing activity into the workshop.  We moved to the table, and I asked the group to write descriptively about the places in mind, without incorporating feeling statements.  Following this exercise, I asked the group to write about how they felt, physically or emotionally and everywhere in-between, when they were in the place.  We closed this section of the workshop by sharing what we had written, followed by a second group soundscape based on the same place.

After these more contemplative soundscape exercises, I led a noisy voice warm-up that seemed to bring more cohesiveness to the group, and also allowed participants to relax into sound-making and singing with each other.  In previous weeks I had attempted to create cohesion around single long-tones, with little success.  Many of the participants feel convinced that they can’t sing or hear pitches, and there has been much conversation surrounding supposed inability.  During this voice warm-up, which I led by example as opposed to explanation, the group followed my loud, open-mouthed pitches exactly, with more enthusiasm than I have witnessed so far.  I learned that sometimes people uncover great gifts when given no opportunity to doubt themselves: I assumed that they would be able to follow me, and they did so without hesitation.  Sonja commented afterwards that my own loud and ridiculous demonstrations might have also played an important role in allowing the group to relax.

Following this loud warm-up, I introduced once again Christine Duncan’s ‘ku-lu-lu’ exercise, which is strong model for self-regulating group singing.  The idea, which formed spontaneously during an Element Choir rehearsal, is that a small group sings a single tone quietly together.  One person changes the tone and holds it, so that two tones juxtapose each other.  As the other group members notice the new tone, they attempt to match it.  A group member may change the tone at any time, with the only rule being that each participant truly listen before shifting their own pitch.  The result is a focussed, gently moving fabric of soft tones blending into each other.  If two people begin a new tone at the same time, the ‘game’ is over and the ‘piece’ comes to a close.

I have attempted to introduce this activity in earlier sessions, regarding it as an ideal to work towards.  So far, we have had very little success.  On this particular occasion, however, the energy inside and around us vibrated quietly and intensely.  We broke into small groups for demonstration, bringing in new participants one at a time.  While the participants struggled to hear each other and the exercise didn’t flow quite seamlessly, I witnessed a kind of piercing attentiveness that I have rarely seen with this group – they all participated, and they hardly spoke.  Magic.

As part of the on-going Tuesday evening work parties at the HOPE garden (Masaryk-Cowan Park, 220 Cowan Ave.), more than twenty volunteers assisted in making colourful flags that are being prepared for our pageant that is now only two weeks away! The event was led by community artist and our friend Cath Campbell.

We will be completing the flags next Tuesday, June 19 between 5-7pm.

Thanks so much Greenest City!

members of the Making Room team hard at work

Over the past several weeks, a growing number of PARC folks, community members and artists have come together to prepare for out boat launch and pageant now just four weeks away.

On June 23 we will host a pageant that will begin at PARC at 4:30 in the afternoon and will wind down Dowling Avenue, and end in Budapest Park beside the Boulevard Club at 1755 Lakeshore Ave W.

We have ongoing workshops four days a week leading up to the event. All workshops take place at the Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre (PARC) at 1499 Queen St. W. Come join us anytime!

Monday at 2:30 in the Drop-In
canoe building with Ian Devenney

Tuesdays and Wednesday at 1:00 in the Healing Room
special art-making session

Friday at 2:00 in the Drop-In
Making Room, Making Art

Sonja and Brenda stringing together fabric flags

Sisi and Michelle dance the waltz

Over the past three weeks, Sisi Chen joined us as part of her internship with Jumblies Theatre. As well as spending time with us, Sisi worked with our sister organizations the Community Arts Guild, Arts4All and visited MABELLEarts to sit by the bonfire and celebrate the recent parade. While at PARC, Sisi has helped us build our canoe, make books, helped us with some desktop design, web design and taught us ballroom dance.

We will miss her when Sisi returns to Kingston to complete her undergraduate degree in teaching.