Birthday Celebrations, Autumn Travels, and a Hui filled with Play and Community

What a beautiful way to step into Autumn!
A few days ago we were wrapped in wool and blankets, and now the sun is shining bright and hot, like summer is finally ready to arrive!

And with Autumn's arrival, we have some offerings, both in our new home town, and as we head north to visit friends and family.

FIRST, This Saturday (April 1st!) is Andy's birthday.

To celebrate the immortal fool in us all, we will be having a workshop of THEATRE of LIBERATION; using drama games to see oppression in society & co-creating possible solutions to it.... fun eh!

Based on the work of Augusto BOAL, Jen & Andy will facilitate this play/workshop. Please bring your friends & family of all ages.

PLACE; Music room, GOLDEN BAY HIGH SCHOOL, Takaka

(carpark on Rototai St, near the jungle gym)

TIME; Saturday 1st April, 2pm - 4.30pm (we will start at 2pm so please come ready to start!)

COST; free! (yummy organic snacks appreciated to share!)

If you want to make a day of it, local farmers and artisans gather Saturday morning near the library starting at 9, and there is a 12:30 acro-yoga jam at BAY YOGA to warm up if you want!!!

THEN, during the second half of April, we will be offering two more playshops, one on Paekakariki and one in Whanganui.  Dates and times coming soon.

And FINALLY a big SHOUT OUT to Conscious Roots, an incredible gathering of playful, curious, heart-centered community.  To the organizers, the volunteers, the dancers and musicians, cooks and clean-up crew, all of the co-creaters, especially those that joined us for Theater of Liberation, AcroYoga, and Contact Improv, you filled our heart sails.  Here's just a few pics of the weekend:

Conscious Roots Festival!

Jen here, with some exciting news.  I'm heading back to Aotearoa! This time to join Andy in Golden Bay! We're celebrating my arrival at the Conscious Roots Festival at Hongoeka Marae Plimmerton on the 18-19th March.  Check it out at https://consciousrootsfestival.com.  Andy will be teaching Theater of Liberation, and will be joined by other superstars including permaculture and community-building advocates Robina McCurdy and Gary and Emily Williams and the incredible Matiu Te Huki who lifts spirits with his righteous songs of love and revolution.  There may even be a special someone (hint, hint) teaching beginners Acro-Yoga for those looking for more embodied connection to themselves and others.  

Jen and Andy reunited in Aotearoa means there's sure to be more celebrations of community and play happening soon. 

 

LABOUR DAY CELEBRATION: Introduction to Theatre of Liberation

Andy will be hosting an Introduction to Theatre of Liberation!!  

He's been studying this form of applied social theatre & would like to share it with you! Please come along in solidarity & celebration.... to play & learn some drama games.... to stimulate & energise conversation.... to promote organisation & action to the challenges that we collectively face. 
Koha appreciated.
tHEATRE oF LiBERATION (tOL) is based on the work of AUGUSTO BOAL....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_of_the_Oppressed

The gathering will be Monday, October 24 from 2 PM - 4:30 PM at 83 Guyton St in Whanganui Central, Whanganui 4500, New Zealand.

Keep up with updates at https://www.facebook.com/events/1201976623158670
See you there!

the LEAF

Decades of dreaming come true,
Jen will be teaching at her all time favorite festival
the Lake Eden Arts Festival
a joyous 4-day celebration of the arts
with dancing, poetry slamming, drum circling, circus arts, puppetry, zip-lining, parades, contra-dancing and other joyous celebrations

In between dancing to Balkan Beat Box, Beats Antique, the Squirrel Nut Zippers, and Rising Appalachia, get your Fool on with Jen!

http://www.theleaf.org/the-festival

Stepping into Student Roles

Andy and Jen have been taking the summer months (or winter, depending which hemisphere that you're in) off from teaching to step back into student role.  

Andy just finished up a Theater of the Oppressed facilitator training with Marc Weinblatt at the Mandala Center for Change.  He's incredible, they're incredible, and they work using applied theater, anti-oppression education, grassroots community workshops, mask work, movements arts, ritual and play. 
www.mandalaforchange.com

Then he joined forces with the the maestro Giovanni Fusetti, who was teaching Bouffon and the Ecstasy of Mocking at the Celebration Barn in Maine, USA.  Both Jen and Andy have studied The Red Nose with him, which he introduces as.... "Welcome to a unique adventure, in which poetry meets healing and your personal clown will reveal some aspects of your own crazy wisdom.
A human being, alone in front of the audience, a Red Nose, the smallest mask in the world. 

www.GiovanniFusetti.com

Meanwhile, Jen headed to NYC to work with TOPLAB, taking a Theater of the Oppressed Workshop "Looking at Class Consciousness, Class Struggle and Self-Organizing Using Image Theater" facilitated by Janet Gerson and Marie-Claire Picher.

www.toplab.org

Next week she heads back to Glover, VT, to play in the open field and under the wide sky with Bread and Puppet Theater. Donation run, for over 50 years, Bread and Puppet uses cardboard and cornstarch to create political absurdity and dreamscapes.  According the the founder/orchestrator Peter Schumann, "Puppet theater is the theater of all means. Puppets and masks should be played in the street. They are louder than the traffic. They don’t teach problems, but they scream and dance and display life in its clearest terms. Puppet theater is of action rather than dialogue. The action is reduced to the simplest dance-like and specialized gestures. A puppet may be a hand only, or it may be a complicated body of many heads, hands, rods and fabric. We have two types of puppet shows: good ones and bad ones, but all of them are for good and against evil. ” -Peter Schumann

www.breadandpuppet.org

And she's planning to round out the season with the Manitoulin Clown Conservatory in Canada.

http://www.manitoulinconservatory.com

We're soaking up all the inspiration and insight to bring into our work and out to all of you!

          

a Clown Farewell in Pictures

What a gorgeous intergenerational gathering of clowns!!

Such an honor that you all came to share your joy, your vulnerability, and innocence with us!

Thank You Thank You Thank You

a Clown Farewell

As I gets ready to hop continents and say goodbye to Aotearoa, the Land of the Long White Cloud, New Zealand, I want to give you a taste of clowning before I go, and let y'all meet the innocent, curious, committed, engaged, and playful clown inside of you waiting to be born!

May Monday, June 6th, the Queen's birthday, forevermore be known as the birthday of your clown.  Noon, up in the treetop retreat I've been calling home.

Tākarokaro with you soon!