Lantern Festival Tutorials

So I was thrilled to be asked to run a couple of workshops/tutorials for the finale performers of this years' Ulverston Lantern Festival by my hoop teacher - the spectacular performer Miss Jennifer (Street) of Matrix Circus, who was putting together an Arts Council UK funded piece. 

My job was to help the community folks involved really get into their characters for this years theme: Out of the Toy Box through face painting. Whilst I was there to suggest tweaks and alternatives, my role mostly involved teaching the skills I have and inspiring the performers to adapt and create their own individual personas. This collective was known as The Community Spark Project.

My workshops involved helping each of the core groups; the rag dolls, clowns and China dolls with some ideas on how they want themselves to look and feel, how that might be expressed to an audience at a distance, whilst being lit ambiently by fire and LEDs. 

Here is an example of the small packs I put together to suggest ideas and alternatives for the clowns:

It was important not to be too prescriptive but also to have a cohesion overall to how the makeup will look for each person. My style sheets were examples of variety only so that everybody could ideally take their ideas in the direction they felt comfortable with, so that I wasn't telling them which was right or wrong.

Hopefully everybody felt happy with the ideas they came up with and I taught a few helpful tricks to ensure a bold look with a solid finish could be reached. I was really proud of what everyone created and judging by the photos - it really brought all the costuming and performance together for a polished finish the entire town turned out to witness.

Whilst I may have assisted in a few faces, the vast majority shown here did all or most of it themselves. 

The clowns:

The Rag Dolls:

The China Dolls:

I don't claim any credits for taking these pictures but as you can see the makeup turned out a treat in the darkness:

(Incidentally that's also me second from the right at the front with the red drum light)

All in all I had a wonderful time, it all went pretty smoothly and everyone seemed happy at what they had created and the performance was excellent. Things to learn for next time: find a better supply of sponges and don't forget to cover any makeup tables as despite using the oh so soluable snazaroo, there was some scrubbing involved...