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The Birdcatcher -
Tour
Choreographer and Story - Claire Pencak
Set Designer - Keiko Mukaide
Costume Designer/Maker - Crawford McKenzie
Lighting Designer - Grahame Gardner
Composer - Mike Zolke
Puppet Designer/Maker - Shane Connolly
Company - Tabula Rasa Dance
Company - Cast see end of review
Venues & Dates - see end of review
Seen to review at Brunton Theatre Musselburgh
Run Time - 50 mins without an interval
Reviewer - Thelma Good
Largely imaginative and magical takeoff.
Getting children to sit and really watch a peice is a good test of theatre.
Tabula Rasa's The Birdcatcher is so overflowing with images, movements
and sounds, even when the pace flags or the story confuses the children
trust it will soon have imaginative wings again. As a first production
Tabula Rasa Dance Company has done for this age group it certainly is
a largely inventive and magical takeoff.
The Birdcatcher catches birds in the forest and sells them in the town's
busy marketplace. The mysterious forest with it's exotic bird life and
verdant growing leaves are populated by Shamita Ray transforming herself
with fans to beings with feathered wings or frondy greenery. The Birdcatcher,
a near life sized rod puppet, is given a stealthy, quirky personality
by Shane Connolly, He has varied customers, each clearly conjured up by
Ray a fat man and slender, elegant lady but he's definitely astonished
when one doesn't want to eat a bird or use its plumage.
Throughout the Birdcatcher is a wonderful, wild mix of sounds many of
them percussive from marimbas, drums, wood of different lengths hit so
they give out their natural sounds, and Dominic Fonde's glass bowls are
also used creating the ethereal atmosphere for they are a *glass
harmonica. Mike Zolker's unusual sounds as we work out how they're
made, as well as adding to the story keeps interest going while other
elements pause or occasionally falter. Richly multi-sensory with set,
costumes and light all also echoing the production's top quality approaches,
The Birdcatcher capture children's attention and does much to hold them
throughout. It also gives them lots of sounds to try to make at home!
© Thelma Good 28 September 2002. - Published on EdinburghGuide.com
The Glass Harmonica was discovered/invented by Benjamin
Franklin, - Bowls or drinking glasses with water at different levels create
sound of different pitches when a wet finger is moved round their rims,
Franklin made the first mechanical one and Mozart was one of the C18 composers
who wrote for it.
Performers
Shane Connolly
Shamita Ray
Mike Zolker
Tabula Rasa Dance Company's production of The Birdcatcher
Tour begins
28 Sept at 2pm & 7pm Musselburgh Brunton Theatre 0131 665 2240
1 Oct - 2pm Falkirk Town Hall 01324 506 850
5 Oct - 2.30 pm St Andrews Byre Theatre 01334 475 000
10 Oct - 11am & 1pm Paisley Arts Centre 0141 887 1010
12 Oct - 2pm Muirhouse North Edinburgh Arts 0131 315 2151
14 Oct - 7pm Beauly Phipps Hall 01463 724 261 or on door
15 Oct - 7pm Inverness Culduthel Hall 01463 724 261 or on door
16 Oct - 7:30pm Oban Corran Halls Studio Theatre 01631 567 333
19 Oct - llam & 2pm Edinburgh Traverse Theatre 0131 228 1404
23 Oct - 6pm Huntly Stewarts Hall 01466 792 184
24 Oct - 6 pm Findhorn Universal Hall 01309 690 110
25 Oct - 4pm Fraserburgh Dalrymple Hall 01346 511 015 / 01346 515 145
26 Oct - 6pm Banchory Woodend Barn Arts Centre 01330 825 431
27 Oct - 3pm & 5pm Aberdeen The Lemon Tree 01224 642 230
29 Oct - 7.30 pm Lochinver Village Hall 01408 635 200
30 Oct - 7.30 pm Betty hill Farr High School Hall 01408 635 200
31 Oct - 7.30pm Golspie High School Assembly Hall 01408 635 200
3 Nov - 2.30 pm Ardrishaig Public Hall Tckts Available on the door
4 Nov - 11am and 1pm Glasgow at Gilmorehill G12 part of Inspiration Festival
0141 33055 22
8 Nov - 1.30pm Ollerton (Nottinghamshire) The Dukeries Theatre 0115 941
94 19
9 Nov - 2.00pm Arnold (Nottinghamshire) Bonnington Theatre 0115 941 9419
12 Nov - 7pm London North Westminster Community School, N2 - Borderlines
Festival 0207 641 8424
Tour Ends
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