Miro

The Miro Show

~ Kate Wilson ~ 2 Comments

This weeks work on Miro culminated with a show of paintings, costumes, dance, songs and theatre.

It was beautiful!
We had looked at Miros paintings and picked out some of the themes – his use of earthy colours and strong reds, blacks, and yellows. The basic recurring images  of suns, birds, stars, the moon, and abstract lines and points which remind you of dreams and night time imaginings.
The day of the show was exciting. Somehow it all came together.

One of the boys wanted to paint a spider – he made it a huge one with big furry legs and we cut it out of cardboard and painted it black and red. He wore a black cape and had his face painted with a web design. His part in the show is to enter Miro’s dream and crawl around the floor, scaring the audience, tickling the feet of the sleeping artist and then finally enter the picture that is created at the end when they all stood together making a picture of their own.
Another girl, often a little shy, chose to paint eyes. The One who Looks. She came on stage so proud and confident that I almost cried. She danced with her cardboard eyes attached to her head and hands, looking at all the other images.
The smallest one – aged 5 – had chosen to paint the sun so she wore orange and red, face painted with hot colours and carrying a beautiful sun. In rehearsal she was a little overwhelmed but at the show she stumbled on entering the stage and almost fell. This made her laugh and she carried on with her dance in such a funny smiling giggly way that everyone relaxed and she really was the Sun giving warmth.
I love seeing the faces light up with excitement, watching how those who were nervous find confidence, seeing them do things they at first said ‘No Puc!’ (I can’t)

Me too – I did things I thought ‘No Puc’ and hopefully my face too brightened when it went alright.

summer school

~ Kate Wilson ~ 6 Comments

Today I took Duna for a walk down by the river. We met a new dog, one of the tiny variety that is so common here and for once Duna let it sniff her without raising her lip and snapping. You can never tell with these small ones – she really doesn’t like some of them but others pass some secret test and she will chase them around for a while. Here they are at the back of this picture getting to know each other

And here is Duna with the horrible flats in the background but….look at those glorious flowers!

I talked to the owner  – in Castellano this time. When I asked ‘Com es diu?’ (what is he called?) he answered   ‘Se llama Nury’.
It’s complicated like that here. You can’t be sure who speaks what until the conversation begins. And sometimes people who actually are Catalan change to Castellano because they think I will prefer it. Oh it makes life interesting!
In the summer school we did automatic drawings and also drawing with the non-dominant hand. To help us get more into the Miro world of imagination and dreams. I led this exercise which is the first time I’ve done that and managed to do it in Catalan.  The language wasn’t the problem, it was more getting 6 children to stop chatting and asking questions. They loved doing the drawings of moon and suns and stars and birds with their eyes shut and were amazed to see what they had done without all that intense ‘trying to get it right’ energy.
Then it was the rehearsal and it was wonderful to see them getting nervous behind the scenes then coming out and playing their parts, acting out a little story about Miro.  Songs, dressing up, props that we made, dancing, drama, the final bows.   All in one week – to my surprise it comes together and creates magic.
Tomorrow is the show. The audience are the parents and we are there to whisper prompts. No-one minds if things go awry. But it absolutely is the real thing – the nerves, the adrenalin, the buzz., the applause.

I will let you know how it goes.