Programme

Massive Making: Devising Theatre with Massive Theatre Company

Massive Theatre Company is a 32-year-old inter-generational theatre company based in Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland who work locally, regionally and internationally.

Massive only makes new work either by devising or commissioning writers. Massive is an ensemble company who work with personal stories, experiences, and perceptions as the foundation of their work. They work with the physical, text and music. The actor and who they are is at the centre of their theatre making practice. Massive likes to be playful and rigorous when working together.

This ITAC7 workshop will be a full day so that you can experience who we are and how we like to create work with you. You will have three Massive teaching artists who are key company members so that you can get a sense of the ‘flavours’ that make Massive up.

We will introduce you as to how we place play at the centre of our work. How we develop and build ensemble, followed by you creating some small, devised pieces of theatre using some of our processes.

Prior to the workshop, we will send you examples of some of our theatre so you can see what we create when making larger theatre works. We will also ask you to prepare some small responses to provocations we will send out (nothing onerous we promise), and the work you devise will have these responses at the basis of your work.

By the end of the day we hope you have had a chance to play and create with others plus gain insight into how Massive Theatre Company approaches devising theatre.

Squiggla: A Gymnasium for Creative Visual Thinking in Classrooms and Beyond

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Squiggla Making Space: A Studio for Mark Making

We can all train to be more creative. As a programme for creative thinking, Squiggla acts like a gymnasium for the visual – the more we exercise, the better we can become. Presenter and Squiggla co-founder Sue Gardiner outlines how the Squiggla Project delivers intentional, intuitive, joyful mark making education programmes, with the goal of keeping us all creatively active throughout our lives. Exploring the research, diving into Squiggla philosophy and outlining Squiggla’s accessible activities, this presentation is packed with practical ideas and new ways for visual exploration and discovery using improvisation and chance in mark making. Outlined also is the flexible nature of Squiggla’s activities, delivered across a range of age groups and educational contexts, such as used by Squiggla co-founder, Chartwell trustee and teacher Karen Gardiner in the classroom, and successful programmes held in public art gallery settings in New Zealand and Australia. Using the four main themes of Tākarokaro/ Play, Mahi/Make, Pohewa/Imagine and Hanga/Invent, we explore why creative visual thinking matters and identify links to key concepts useful for the delivery of a visual arts curriculum.

Karen and our team of Squiggla Educators will be running a Squiggla Making Space throughout the Symposium. Put free flow, experimental mark making into action in our Making Space studio. Connect with the mind, heart, eyes and hands to the materials we love. Be inventive and let your intuition guide you. Meet the Squiggla team and collect a free Squiggla Kete Pack to get started right away.