whooo! where I am pooped by the evil queen

Ok folks - it's the night before the big show! The kids are doing amazing things, the story has come together, we even have COSTUMES, and I am tired. I'm feeling really good, much better than I was at this time last week - there is hope, being are being real nice, things are in good shape (including myself). I am just pooped, that's all.

Here is an update on the Puppet Project - in the form of the script for the play and some photos from after rehearsal today. The script will be narrated in Inutittut and English, and maybe even French if I can pull it together tomorrow - but the beauty of this piece is that it's visual theatre, and therefore visual, and you can pretty much get the story even if you don't hear the words.

But anyway - here are the words, in English -

The Happy Ever After that Almost Never Was

One day, the Queen and everyone were out picking flowers and berries.
Two thieves found the princesses crowns and STOLE THEM.
A huge wind blew everyone away, except the Queen, and a witch appeared.
The witch cast a spell on the Queen.
The next day the maids tried to help the Queen.
The princesses discover that their crowns are missing.
The evil Queen sends the princess to the dungeon.
The bunny tries to help the princess escape.
The bunny meets the princess's dog.
They make a plan.
With LOVE we can break the spell!
The spell is broken.
Everyone lived happily ever after...maybe.

Thus, you have the bare bones of our story. Unfortunately for you all - you don't get to see the hilarious Samantha being the witch, or Savaana who can't stop laughing try to clean the windows, or just how funny the cat and the dog are as they chase each other around through the audience. It is a really strong piece of work made up by girls in a remote northern community ages 7 to 15, and I am so so so proud of them and of how it's come together. WOW!

No wonder we're all so tired!

And here are some photos - I'm going to try to take more tomorrow during the rehearsal, so we have a record of the action - but this'll whet your whistle.


So clearly, this is the evil Queen, complete with sparkly crown...



After I cleaned up the workshop, I had to take a photo of most of our set and the evil Queen just hanging out...ahhh, so restful!



This is a shot of the witch's spell from backstage - secrets revealed!!

Ok - I'm going to crawl home now and make something to eat. Tune in soon for more on the play, and wish us all merde and broken legs and wonderful times tomorrow!

nerdy outy!

arctic springtime - and more snow

Just wanted to let you all know that yes, springtime is on it's way here in Inukjuak, and I have photo evidence to prove it.

Here are some tundra plants that I took pictures of on an amazing and uplifting walk on the weekend, on a balmy springtime day...



...and now, just a few days later - more snow.

HA!

What a sense of humour the nature has up here!

Heh...

nerd OUT!

whoooosh - and a week goes by in a flash

I can't believe that it's been a week since I posted - I'll blame sporadic internet access and a very busy time - and it's only week TWO!
We continued working on our masks - and some pretty amazing creations have been coming alive under our fingers.

Here we're using papier-mache to build our masks and in the next photo we're cutting out the eyes. I feel really good about encouraging these kids to use tools, and do things for themselves - a few of the younger ones start out by saying "I can't do it!", but after some encouragement to do it on their own I often get to say "Hey! You said you couldn't do it but you did!" I LOVE saying that.



Masks are really incredible things - you get to make whatever kind of face you choose! Even before they're painted, they are fun to put on and feel different.

We painted the masks with a base coat of white paint - to cover up the print of the Scholastic catalogues we used in the papier-mache. That base then frees us up to be able to use all kinds of light or dark colour to finish off our masks.





We've been playing some pretty awesome games too. The girls from Kangirsuk taught us a game called Mrs. Mumbles, where you make a face like someone without their dentures and try to ask the person sitting next to you "Have you seen Mrs. Mumbles?" without peeing your pants from laughing. It took us almost a half an hour to make it all the way around the circle when we played this, and some of the girls were laughing so hard they were crying...

We also started making some hand puppets - sculpting heads out of more Scholastic catalogues and masking tape, covering them in papier-mache and painting them.



This is what the hand puppets will look like - head and body together - and some may even have clothes!



And these are some of the heads in process - some painted and some on the way...



It is still very amazing being up here. The snow last weekend was a bit of a twist, as my home rhythm is full of daffodils and tulips and springtime. Add to that a dramatic northern event - last Thursday a man was lost out on the tundra. AND THEN IT SNOWED FOR FOUR DAYS. Early Monday morning however, he was FOUND. He'd spent the blizzard out in the elements, keeping close to his snowmobile (it had run low on gas, which is why he got lost in the first place) and had burned parts of his t-shirt to stay warm. He's apparently fine, and was on the radio telling his story that very morning.

Ummmmm. Wow.

This is something that happens to people up here. Makes me not want to leave the school.

Ok - one last thing. Since the puppet project is only open to the kids in Grade 3 and older, over the past few days I've been working with the Grade 1s and 2s in their classes making paper-bag puppets to include them, and to also get a bit of a little kid fix. Working with older kids and youth has been pretty great - but I've been missing the younger ones - being in school has really gotten me into a groove.
The sessions were only a half an hour long, so there wasn't much time to take many photos, but I'll leave you with this monster that I used as an example, and inspired several creatures with pointy tongues and multiple eyes.



Nerd OUT!