During Week 2 of Term 1 this year, Year 11 and 12 theatre students were offered a unique opportunity to attend the inaugural QACI Theatre Camp at Camp Moogerah, about an hour west of Brisbane on the shores of Lake Moogerah. The aims of the camp were to further develop bonds between the Year 11 and 12 Theatre ensembles and to enable students to engage in specialist workshops involving movement, stage combat and puppetry in an uninterrupted intensive.
The camp was a wonderful opportunity for students to creatively engage with each other, build skills and connect with each other. Edwina Vassallo, Year 11 provides her reflection of the experience.
In week 2, the Year 11 and 12 theatre cohort were privileged in experiencing QACI’s first ever theatre camp located at Lake Moogerah. The camp was held over 3 days, containing various workshops, performances, and amusement. The first day of camp consisted of workshops which prepared and equipped students with the appropriate skills for devising their own group pieces schedule for the following day using scenes from ‘The Odyssey’ by Homer. This experience was truly enriching and has made for a lifetime of memories.
The workshops on the first day taught us many theatrical skills as well as providing countless opportunities for a good laugh. Arriving at camp we jumped into a workshop of various theatre games even giving the students a chance to create their own games by using a title given to them. Some notable mentions include “Chicken Run” which was a chicken themed dance battle and “Around We Go” which was a game of charades in which a person was spun 30 times and then had to act out a movie.
Students were then informed that a special guest who had worked alongside the Hemsworths in Hollywood would be leading the next workshop they would be participating in - stage combat. And after being fashionably late due to the troubled landing of his helicopter, entered the “Jad Brennings”. Having 50 years’ experience in stage combat, his workshop was highly practical and entertaining. He walked us through how to fall correctly, how to safely push each other and how to stage slap. He also taught us the different types of ‘knaps’ (the sound effect of the hit) you can do when performing a stage slap or hit to find the safest and most realistic option depending on the situation. But, perhaps the most important lesson he taught us was that “If it ain’t safe, it ain’t sexy!”.
The following workshop in the evening was in puppetry, held by the fiercely talented “Hagulara”. Taking her work very seriously, Hagulara first taught us to respect the puppets, then instructing us through how to make a Bunraku inspired puppet which are traditional Japanese puppets resembling that of dolls. We then learnt the three main principles of puppetry: focus, breath, and gravity. It was through these three principles we learnt how to effectively bring our puppets to life.
On the second day of camp, students were given an opportunity to apply the teachings of the first day’s workshops into a collaborative performance piece. Students were given the opportunity to create a scene from the play the “Odyssey” by Homer. We were given an extreme amount of freedom with the way we could choose to present the scene, encouraged to use the stage combat and puppetry we learnt the day prior. However, we were told as an added challenge that we were not allowed to create a contemporary recontextualization of the scene and instead had to stay true to its original form. The groups were a mixture of grade 11s and 12s, so it was extremely beneficial to be able to learn from each other and build bonds. Students were given 2 sessions to workshop and rehearse the performances before preforming them later that night. The end result was a full telling of “The Odyssey” through several different theatrical interpretations and a whole lot of stage combat and puppetry. It was incredible to see the degree of work students were able to accomplish in such a short amount of time.
It is safe to say that QACI’s first ever theatre camp was a truly incredible experience, and the year 11 and 12 theatre cohort are so privileged in being able to experience it. We are excited to see what theatre camp holds in the years to come and are so grateful to have been apart of the inaugural event.
...article written by Edwina Vassallo, Year 11