Small Worlds - Saturday 1 November - Mimika
(A LITFEST 'BETWEEN THE LINES' EVENT)
Gail Alvarez writes:
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| Waiting to be invited into the tent |
Picking apples from an
unsteady ladder,and the broken ankle that followed, did not stop Jenny, one
half of Mimika children’s theatre, from working with partner Bill in four
sell-out performances at the Heart centre in Headingley. Thanks go to her sister
Sheila for helping out and ensuring the show must – and did – go on. Fortunately, Jenny's part in the production involved mainly crawling about, out of sight, on the floor of a large, custom-made, igloo-shaped tent.
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| Not long before the beginning |
Old and young alike packed
each show, which held audiences spellbound. I half expected to see some of the adults sucking their
thumbs too, so intent were they on the small world created inside the intimate
and cosy world of the tent. Utterly absorbed by the unfolding
drama, eyes wide, mouths agape.
The children in the audience too!
Lovely to hear those
children giggle in delight and stare in concern at a form of
entertainment which was born thousands of years ago but which is still such a good medium for sparking
imaginations.
No wonder that Mimika
provide such a gentle but profound experience, taking us all to a (small) world
we can see, hear, imagine, describe and talk about in our mind’s eyes and our
internal conversations. Film
clips, hundreds of sound effects, music geared to the action, puppets and props create a microcosm
of rural life for a small living things. The creatures get larger as the show develops. There are butterflies of various hues, a pink-spotted bug, honking geese (soprano and bass), a mother fox slinking through the woods and looking after cubs in the sett, a green lizard which is squashed by a child's bicycle before it can snap up flying insects, a girl straight out of a six year-old's drawing - for forty-five minutes the audience was captivated.
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| Owls are always welcome |
What ideas have been planted
in our observers by these tiny tales?
Time will tell but storytelling always starts in the mind’s eye.
Audience comments include:
Mesmerising! The detail is wonderful. Thank you for
coming to Heart. Please come
again. Everyone should see
this. Julia.
So wonderful to see
handcrafted settings and such a different, unusual mixture of media. Captivating! Loved the foxes and bugs particularly! Music was beautiful
too. Would definitely come again!
Luisa
Beautiful, engaging, very
magical for the kids. Would love
to see more. Liz
A magical experience – I
emerged bemused, enraptured – full of questions! Thank you. Lis
It was absolutely
beautiful. Magical. I was almost crying which is unusual
for me! Thank you! Lucy
Truly enchanting and I could not help but wonder at the huge amount of time and energy involved in the making and production of the performance - the art work, model making and the combination of digital film and immersive sound was inspired. The audience - young and old were truly engaged and spellbound. Douglas
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| Bill Parkinson and Jenny Ward Photo: Richard Wilcocks |
Sekabo is the third novel by Richard, who as as well a novelist is a successful screenplay writer and film director. He was the founding Head of the Northern School of Film and Television at Leeds Metropolitan University (now Leeds Beckett University) and is a former Director of the Dutch Film Academy, founding Dean of Film and TV at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts, inaugural holder of the Greg Dyke Chair of Film and Television at the University of York and, most recently, Associate Dean of the Faculty of Performance, Media and English at Birmingham City University. 
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