There is a different quality of time in wordless storytelling. It requires a particular engagement of the audience to project with their own imagination what is happening. This can even have a trancelike effect. Thus the wordless narrative allows for full simultaneous audience and participant engagement.

Director Varrick Grimes and Cathy crafted a simple story from these sources, and with practical considerations around how it would be rehearsed. The story was formulated around groups of people, rather than having a story that relied on specific characters that would need to be cast. This was for several reasons. We had a two week community rehearsal planned; in this short time, and in the summer, it is challenging to schedule people. It is very hot here, and people just want to get in the river during the day; there are also lots of comings and goings with holidays and holiday visitors. If we absolutely depend on consistent attendance, we may run into trouble! While we hoped people would come to all of their rehearsals, having the story rely on groups rather than individuals meant that it would not be crucial if some were missed. 

There were several groups - music, air, sky, monsters, and tornado. Each group required a different amount of practice, so casting depended partly on the degree of commitment they were able to give. An advantage of group casting was that if people found out about the project and wanted to join in, they could at any time, and catch up with their group. So when someone asked “can I be in it?” the answer is always “Yes!” We always need more.

Local musician Murray MacDonald gathered a group of experienced and inexperienced musicians, and they began practicing in advance.

The air people included all ages, and included stiltwalkers and groundwalkers. The stiltwalkers had already been part of a previous project so we relied on them. The air people had time to work on their own costumes.  

Each of the monsters needed individual rehearsal, but did not require a lot of rehearsal time. These parts were given to people who were up for a unique challenge. Four circular shaped monsters were similar, and Varrick invited four friends who were all good at cartwheels to be them, together. (This also simplified driving for the parents of the children.)

The sky people group was very stretchy. Everyone was doing the same choreography, so they were able to bring in friends and new people.

For the tornado, we needed 12 people for a single rehearsal in the morning of the performance. We asked cast members to enlist them for us. By then, with the commitment that existed inside the project, it was easy to find them.

There were both practical and aesthetic reasons behind the choice of wordless storytelling. Over a large space, and with potentially a large area of audience, not many can project their voice adequately. It could be frustrating for an audience if their understanding of a story depended on hearing every word. 

During two weeks leading up to the spectacle, the Enderby Curling Rink was a bustling place inside and out. Cathy S and Marie Thomas hosted an open workshop, making large papier mache Monster masks based as precisely as possible on selected drawings from the school classes. It was an interesting exercise honouring these drawings, and the monsters had a simple and lively authenticity (different from if we’d asked adults to make child-like monsters). “Air People” costumes were based on designs children during “In the Shade” and incorporated “wings’ they had made, and each “Air Person” made their own headdress. Giving the same materials for people to create what they want is a way of achieving both creativity and artistic unity. “Sky People” costumes were inspired by drawings made at the pastel dropins.  

For outdoor spectacles like this, we usually choose a “neutral” colour for the basis of each costume. For the Air People it was white. For the Sky People it was purpley-pink and pinky-purple -we chose these colours  at the time and place where the presentation would be, and holding up different colours and looking at them from a great distance to see what showed up best! We gathered clothes in these colours from local thrift shops (very inexpensive here) to fill in the gaps. The Sky People all had cloud wings, designed to make a large image even from a distance. These cloud wings, and also the collection of inky-purple clothes, have since come in handy from time to time!

Band Councillor / fashion designer Magca Marion Lee swooped in wanting a project, and we asked her to make leaf capes for the musicians. 

We invited sculptor Joanne Sale-Hook from Vernon to design the giant tornado puppet (introducing our notion of community-based arts to an artist of a different discipline - a practice we continue). She was outdoors, putting it together, and people came by and watched or helped stitch.
Murray MacDonald led music rehearsals indoors and out, using instruments made from found objects. 

Director Varrick Grimes led community members into the story. He expanded on elements we’d  incorporated in the previous year’s “By the River” : ribbon dance,  puppetry, stilt-walking chorus, choral movement, part singing over a large space....

The performance ended with a simple song about air, sung in a round, by all cast members both behind and in front of the audience. Beautiful harmonies can be learned quickly with rounds, even if people claim to not be able to sing.

The entire performance took place in a rather scruffy field, which was magnificently transformed with the stunning colours of Monsters and Sky People and the transparent white of the stiltwalking Air People, with the Enderby Cliffs at sunset as the backdrop. 

The next day, there was no sign of what had happened the night before, yet somehow the place had been transformed.

Participation 

These projects create a sense of connection between everyone involved: between professional performers and artists with “non-artists”, between people from both the First Nation community and the settler communities, between people across generations. Many were doing something entirely outside of their usual experience.

Participants were from Enderby, Splatsin Indian Reserve, Salmon Arm, Armstrong, Vernon, and Oyama and there were also visitors from California, England, Australia, and Japan.  The contribution of children and youth was significant, as our monster design came directly from them! There were about 20 at the high school and 60 at the elementary school. About 25 people were in other sessions.

People took part alone, with groups of friends, as family groupings.

More than one person asked, why not do it more than once, when we put so much work into it? There are several reasons. “Open Air” fully embraced our principle of EVERYONE IS WELCOME - a challenging,yet fulfilling way to work with our community. We build the project/performance in a form that is open, allowing our numbers to expand until the last minute. This affects what is sustainable for Runaway Moon core artists and for the community to offer. These events are live, and the excitement generates a magical quality in the final event that can’t necessarily be duplicated!