Claytime – Scamp Theatre and Steve Tiplady
March 6th, 2008 by rui
Claytime will perform at The Big Chill festival 2008 A-Z line up | Ticket info
Claytime – Biography
Claytime is a play with clay in all senses of the word. The audience is invited to participate and to enter a world of fabulous forms. The earth’s natural material – fabulous tactile clay – meets with children’s imaginations: amazing animals and morphing monsters!
Mix clay with children’s ideas, and the possibilities are endless.
Each Claytime is totally unique, creating its own world, its own characters and its own stories drawn directly from its young audience. Giles Leaman’s musical instruments are also made from clay and grow with the show.
How it works: After exploring the medium of clay through clowning, two artists ask the young audience for ideas for characters, settings and stories which are then developed immediately. Based on this input, the company then improvises a play. Each play is unique to that specific audience. The piece culminates with a short on-stage workshop where the children have their own opportunity for some hands-on clay time. The whole experience is underscored by a live musician who will respond to the action.
Claytime has developed from a philosophy of making ‘open’ or interactive theatre shows where the audience is actively involved in the creation of the story. Indefinite Articles believe that interactive live theatre trumps its more technological interactive entertainment rivals (such as X-boxes and Playstations!)
This kind of interactive improvisational work with young children has also developed out of Sally Brown’s extensive experience of working with early years children, including long-term artist residencies in nurseries. She has also studied the work of Reggio Emilia. Her work in this context is child-centered, process led and focused on developing children’s ideas and imaginations.
Indefinite Articles was founded by Steve Tiplady (Performer) and Sally Brown (Sculptor) in 1995 to create and tour visual theatre using objects and materials. Working from the premise that every thing has a story to tell, they create shows using objects, shadow, and materials. Since ‘95 they have given 500 performances in 10 different countries.
Dust – a performance that uses three actors, three overhead projectors and three buckets of sand – won the Time Out Live award in 2002 for most inventive show.
‘Brilliant’ Time Out
Claytime will perform at The Big Chill festival 2008 A-Z line up | Ticket info
