Come the Dawn

A path through the forest.  A path with twists and turns.  There are people waiting to take you on a journey through the night and into the dawn.

You will travel alone.

Photo by Tom Simone

As part of the first Burning Ginger Man festival in Conwy Falls, Jacqui Banks directed a Sensory Labyrinth performance in the local wood.  The hope is for it to become an annual affair.  Thanks to all the artists and audience who participated.

On this website there's a radio interview between Iwan Brioc and Christiana Brinton, who has an American Blog Talk radio programme about Labyrinths.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/christianabtr

Thanks to Valerie Whitworth for putting us in touch with Christiana and thanks to Christiana for her curiosity and patience.  If you don't manage to make it to the end of the interview, there is mention of the idea of Theatr Cynefin being invited to next year's Labyrinth Society festival in America.  That would be nice.

 

 

 

 

 

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Here's the second video from the Drums for Peace youth exchange Rites of Passage 2 made by Sam Stewart Video.  Thanks, Sam and Tim, for your work.

What we've been up to lately is a bit of a first.  Usually, Theatr Cynefin works with artists, performers and volunteers from the community to co-devise site specific performances.  Since this is done  in a very short time and each person develops their own little piece in a part of the Labyrinth, a script isn't necessary or even possible.  But recently Theatr Cynefin were commissioned by the Arts Council of Wales to write a Sensory Labyrinth Script.  The result, which is nearing it's first draft stage, is called 'Yn Nrych y Tywyllwhc', or 'In the Mirror of Darkness.'

Being new to this mularky, we decided to collaborate with thesp and writer Eilian Wyn.  Thrity seven years ago Eilian was one of the actors in a seminal plays in Welsh Language Theatre, Gwenlyn Parry's 'Y Ffin.'  We decided to use this superb play about two men who start to destroy a mountain cottage they have restored in order to create a barrier between them as the jumping off point for our research.  We visited the other original actors and set designer and got a sense of what it felt like to be working in theatre at that exciting time.

The other motif that we decided to use as a frame of reference was the Miners Institute, of which there are countless in the South Wales valleys and a few in North Wales too  There were practical reasons for this.  To make a site specific performance that tours means finding a space that to some extent has some generic characteristics.  From the onset we were fascinated by the idea of making site specific theatre in an actual theatre, but what theatre would allow us to take over the whole caboodle - the box office, back stage, offices etc. and have audience crawling even under the stage.

Touring these Miners Institutes during our research period I was overwhelmed by the love and feeling of belonging that the communities had for these buildings and how in some way the walls and fittings seemed to emanate this, unlike any public buildings I had encountered before.  It was natural, therefore to pay homage to the miners who over the years took a penny from their pay packet to build these spaces, and to compare their industry with the creative process of making theatre.

We hope the Arts Council will support us to pilot the script later in the year and the to tour Miners Institutes in 2011.  While the script is in Welsh in future we will also be adapting it for other audiences, perhaps to tour the Miners Institutes in Northern England.