A Taste for Clay (Un goût pour l’argile)

Part of the Café-causerie : Budding Creations! event
Cultural mediation activity, 10 years +

 

Part of the Café-causerie: Budding creations! event in person and live online.

Four theatre companies present their works-in-progress and answer questions from the public eager to learn more about the various stages involved in the development of a puppet show.

 

A Taste for Clay (Un goût pour l’argile)

A Taste for Clay is loosely based on Emma Donoghue’s short story What Remains and the work of sculptors Florence Wyle and Frances Loring. The show is dedicated to the exploration of puppetry’s spectral essence, of its ability to conjure up people long passed who, while still alive, were robbed of whole aspects of their dissident lives. The work maintains a fine balance between sculpture and puppetry, the figurative and the evocative. Fluctuating incarnations evoke a workshop space on stage, the creative process, and the uncertainties inherent in the making of things, much more than the authoritative grandeur of official monuments. It speaks to what lives in the interstices of stone, in the time of erosion.

Running time: 20 minutes
Techniques: mixed
Target audience: adults and teenagers

Photos

Photo: Dinaïg Stall

Company

Dinaïg Stall is a stage director and puppeteer (performer and designer). She teaches puppetry at the École supérieure de théâtre (UQAM) where she is director of the graduate program in contemporary puppet theatre (Diplôme d’études spécialisées – DESS).

Her research-creative process explores the specific aesthetic and dramaturgical nature of contemporary puppetry as a singular language, while working toward its encounters with other art forms. Since January 2019, she has been working on a PhD in Arts Studies and Practices (Études et Pratiques des Arts, UQAM). This allows her to explore the potential of puppet figures and processes to develop feminist and queer representations.

 

Credits

Story: based on the work of Emma Donoghue 
Stage direction, scenography, performance and puppets: Dinaïg Stall 
Music: Undetermined 
Lighting: Undetermined

Dinaïg Stall would like to thank OBORO for an upcoming creative residency in May and June, 2023, as well as Festival des Casteliers.