We felt drawn into the world of fairytales. It’s a place we’ve gone before, when seeking inspiration beyond our day-to-day banalities.
In the fading light of autumn we re-read all the tales from the brothers Grimm. Theirs was a rich, cruel world – brutal and beautiful.
Gathering bits and pieces from here and there – not unlike lost breadcrumbs, or a loose thread that you begin to pull, the remnants of a story began to appear.
As the harsh winds of winter commenced to blow we subjected a group of poor theatre students, huddled together in the middle of nowhere to this Grimm tale. They heroically played out the journey. New wisdom was gained by all.
Winter wore on, spring refusing to get out of bed and don her new dress. We held close to the fire, telling and retelling the story, writing and rewriting, designing and redesigning, we played it and sang it and danced it and slowly the story became our own.
In the end we had makeshift world unlike no other made of societal cast offs like pieces of old cardboard storage boxes or recycled plastic barely held together by fasteners of every kind, a transformative place, a window to the imagination, full of surprises waiting for someone to wander into it and stir up a wave of imagination.