Post written by: Erin Walcon
We’re beginning.
Devising a new piece.
We’ve been in incubation and inspiration stage and we’re about to kindle the fire.
On 24 April, we began to plot, officially, in the studio.
We’re going out of the woods.
Or rather, we’re progressing into the middle of the Devising Diamond. (Stay with me.)
This is a work-in-progress attempt to articulate how the devising process works for Doorstep at the moment.
Did I mention it’s in progress?
Evidence:
So, this scrappy hand-drawn messy mish-mash of metaphors is the product of nearly 20 years of devising with young people and trying to explain (evoke?) (capture?) a process of co-creation and collaboration without being prescriptive.
There’s still some work to do, in the ‘how to articulate’ department.
But meanwhile, we’re nearing the waterline on our new project: The Woods. See above… the waterline marks the point where a project is alive and quilting, where the secret plotting and kindling and inspiration and rooting begins to bear fruit. (How many metaphors can I mash together in one image, you ask? A lot.)
Through funding from Garfield Weston and the Agatha Christie Festival in Torbay, we are able to add this very special extra project to this year…alongside our DAS scripted production of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, we will be creating an entirely original musical, Out of the Woods. We will showcase the two pieces together on the mainstage of the Palace Theatre in October.
It’s early stages, and we’re still putting the technical design team together. There will be Foot in the Door interns involved in the design & technical elements of the production. Early design/visual inspiration ideas are up on the Doorstep Arts concept board.
We’ve done one early scratch sharing as part of our Stepping Stones showcase in March, and now we’re entering the composing/writing stage.
I’ll be sharing some of the writing and early song ideas up here on the blog because part of our job with this project is to capture the artistic process… and we’re going to create a curated installation, which archives and storytells that process at Torre Abbey in September. It’s going to force us (in the best possible way) to capture what we do.
For now, it’s a hand-drawn diamond.
By the end, hopefully a rich articulation of how devised work with young people is a pedagogically and artistically rich process of co-creation.
Let’s begin.