Two Words: Photography Playground

Olympus (the camera company) is smart. The created a Photography Playground in Berlin full of art installments designed to give you cool things to take pictures of, presumably with the Olympus camera they lent you when you arrived. I brought my own (I'm a Canon man), so I just went to town :-P

There were lots of toys like mirrors

And masks

Crazy costumes

Fun backdrops

And lots of shiny things

Rooms with crazy lights

And complicated strings

Optical illusions

Oh and lasers

LOTS of lasers

And if you looked closely, you could find words of inspiration on walls and windows

But in the end, it's all about your photographic eye.

And We Have Faces!

Wait wait wait!!! I forgot a post! Weren't you curious about how we came up with the unmasked material for our show in Berlin?? Well quit wondering! I'll tell you!

As I mentioned, we each chose an ancestor and collected as much information as we could about them.

We worked with Michael Vogel, a performer and director with Floez, to start delving into the minds of our ancestors and building characters based on them.

Nicole's ancestor, her father, has a unique way to drink his cocktails.

Using each other as stand-in family members, we created family portraits that helped reveal relationships and themes from which we built improvs and scenes. (hey that almost rhymes!)

In Valentina Bordenave's dance/movement classes, we created sequences inspired by our characters and found ways they could interact...

work with...

and support each other.

Kenneth Spiteri helped us with the vocal aspect of things.

He challenged us with group improvs that combined movement and sound,

text work,

and music, helping us generate a ton of material.

And POOF! We've got a show! Ok, not really that easily, but that's what I've got photos of :-P Now go back and read my post about the show and pretend I wrote them in order!

Oh, and We Actually USED the Masks

So you followed (i'm sure) the epic process of making our masks, and here is proof that we did something with them:

We did a show! With costumes and wigs and everything! (well, there was some wig difficulty during this dress rehearsal...)

Each of us chose one of our ancestors to research, then developed a character based on them.

Then we (and our ancestors) did stuff! Like dancing,

And making music

and, of course, telling stories. This, here, is Paw Paw, who liked to sleep like he was dead!

Jared in a mask by Mickey

Here's Glenn, and his not-so-happily-married wife. Be careful of water-related appliances with faulty wiring...

Jared and Mel, masks by Jared and Sophie

Also be careful where you sit in Christine's living room. And how you treat the radio.

Chloe wearing her own mask, and G. Ben (yes, G. Ben) wearing Francesca's

And if you go on a long journey, pack snacks.

Sophie in G. Ben's mask, Francesca in mine

There were plenty of intimate moments,

Sentimental songs,

Tears,

Renia, Mickey in Scotty's mask

And tension.

Nicole wearing Mel's, Mel wearing mine

Finding the right words,

Finding the right balance,

Mickey and I, each wearing our own masks. Later, a blond bombshell wig was involved.

And (not) finding the right light.

And finally, a family portrait...

Polaroid style, obvi.

Park Acro! With Moving Pictures!!

We like parks. And acrobatics. And acrobatics in parks. 

Things generally start pretty tame, with some simple handstands...

(Moving pictures! wow! don't get worried, not all of the shots in the post are gifs. Only a few of them should be moving)

And, of course, escalate to crazier things. Some successful...

 

Some...not so successful.

Nonetheless, we caught the eye of a little german kid who wanted to learn! He tried cartwheels...

But was much more interested in a two-high.

It should be noted that we sat him on Mickey's shoulders, and he clearly was not impressed. He immediately started to stand up on his own, without support. Bold kid.

So bold he tried to steal my shoes...

(also, those pants are a pretty bold choice...)

Ok, break time. Soups and roasted corn from the Mauer Park market. yummmm

ok, sorry. you know i like gratuitous photos of food...

...and cool people

...like Francesca. Who also gets credit for taking most of the photos in this post. 

Also in the cool-shades club is Mel: 

is she moving?

And Sophie. duh.

who, by the way, was next to join the acrobatic party! 

This creature can move! So it wandered over to Mel...

Who became part of the next adventure.

This one i'd seen in a photo that morning, and was determined to figure it out.

(did you notice my determined face?)

We finally got it!

You knew it was coming... FLIPPING TIME! 

And, of course, Mickey and I making things up...

How do we come up with this stuff? 

yeah, we're weird. Deal with it.