By The River (August 2015)
A one-off pageant on the Shuswap River about the Mighty Shuswap itself, using the local bridge as a drum, community dancers and singers and stiltwalkers on both opposite shores and on an island, and two giant puppets: one on shore and one on the river.
“I loved diving for the water-bound giant puppet’s head with Murray and Stephan while doing its unfortunate test-run. I loved getting dragged away in the current while I was choreographing the island chorus. I loved experimenting with abandoning narrative to the visceral world of sonics and visuals out in nature.” - James Fagan Tait
A community spectacle performed on the Shuswap River, on both sides of the River, on islands, and on the bridge that joins Enderby and Splatsin Reserve.
Conceived by Cathy Stubington, James Fagan Tait and Murray MacDonald
Directed by: James Fagan Tait
Musical Director: Murray MacDonald
Design and production facilitators: Cathy Stubington and Marie Thomas
Guest Artist : Jenny Jones, dancer
Stage Manager: Lawrence Lee
Technical design: Stephan Bircher
See programme attached for detailed list of participants
ARTISTIC PROCESS
“By the River” began with a notion of using the bridge railings as a marimba.
Musician Murray Macdonald gathered a few people to try it out one day, as surreptitiously as possible. It didn’t sound like a marimba, but it made a pretty good percussion instrument for many players at once. We were also curious about how well singing could be heard from across the water which (after more surreptitious experiments) proved to be quite stunning.
Ideas for other elements of the spectacle emerged from either side of the river and on the river itself. It was Elder Ethel Thomas of Splatsin that suggested the River Grandmother.
2005: The First Annual Institute of Spectacle, a creative collective exploration of the elements we’d be using for the community project.
“Following Cathy’s and my recognition of theatre’s ability and necessity of moving from spectacle to spectacle we created an opportunity to explore spectacle with a group of theatre professionals and a few other interested folk who signed up.
It was a weeklong investigation in a variety of mediums: stiltwalking, ribbon dancing, group movement, choral speaking and projection, music, large puppetry and earth-orchestra.
It had a truly exploratory and collective feel to it and the culminating activities were mostly illuminating. It was a great prelude to By the River”. James Fagan Tait, Director
Community Process
Special thanks to our Stage Manager Lawrence Lee whose experience organizing crews in the forest came in very useful, and to his extended family who stayed up papier mache’ing the Grandmother’s Head and Hands after the first version fell in the water!
One of the immemorable moments in Runaway Moon’s community arts.
For this project, we had a few categories that people could enlist in being part of: the Bridge percussion, the movement piece on a sandy island, the salmon song chorus across the water, stilt-walking flock of blue herons, ribbon dancers (taught by visiting artist Jenny Jones), being part of the giant puppet on an island in the distance, and being In one of the canoes transporting the giant River Grandmother. Again, many people helped make stuff, led by Cathy Stubington and Marie Thomas.
AUDIENCE RESPONSE
Every project is different and impossible to describe beforehand (when asked), as we don’t know until it happens! This performance was an expansive visual / sound poem. Visual and sound cues let the audience where to look next. Some said afterwards that they were very confused by this, expecting there would be a story to follow - and said afterwards that we should have given out a piece of paper to explain what was happening! (With several hundred people present, this would have resulted in a lot of pieces of paper in and around the river!)
But most people who spoke to us were deeply moved, some saying it was the most beautiful thing they had ever experienced.
