Shadow Theatre workshop

As a preparation for my IB Theatre students to start researching Wayang Kulit and shadow puppetry, I conducted a Shadow workshop. I thought that you may want to take some ideas from it. See the student blog on Shadow Theatre for the introduction to this work.

Before you get started please see these films that inspire some ideas for use of shadow in theatre:

Pilobolus (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYftvseVzuI)

Fireflies (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq8Md6V2xWo)

Hand shadow (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFe7eLwAXoc)

Workshop

In this lesson you are going to experiment with lights. For each station record the following:

1.   Your discoveries for a) to e)
2.   3 images that reflect your key discoveries

Station 1 – White cyclorama and the human body

Experiment with the following:

a)   the distance from the screen of the body

b)   the distance from the screen of the light

c)   overlapping bodies

d)   combinations of footlights and LEDs

e)   combinations of people and objects

Station 2 – Lamps, gels and hands

Experiment with the following:

a)   hand shapes on the screen

b)   angles of the lights on the screen

c)   angles of the lights with the hands

d)   add gels

e)   combinations of gels, hands & angles

Station 3 – Candles, objects and silhouettes

Experiment with the following:

a)   the candle light on the screen

b)   several candles at different angles

c)   objects in front of the candle/s

d)   movement of the screen with the candle light

e)   cut out silhouettes with the candles