Ditto

I have recently completed a very successful run of my show Ditto, which I have created with support from Imaginate during my residency. The show was on at North Edinburgh Arts Centre and the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh.
The show is an exploration of silence and the spaces between sounds for children in upper primary school and features a very talented quartet of musicians:
Katy Barry - soprano
Fran Pybus - clarinet / bass clarinet
Chris Barclay - trombone
Roy Mohan Shearer - percussion
During the rehearsal week I had the fortune of working closely with the show's designer, Kate Temple and movement consultant, Chris Devaney. Each brought something very special out of the performers and performance. Chris really helped me to find moments of humour and touching emotion throughout the show and Kate really vividly brought the music alive with her bold costume and design.

My aim with Ditto was to create a show that wasn't patronising to its young audience. I wanted to create a very sophisticated artistic experience that would be richly rewarding for them, whilst being very challenging both aurally and visually. There is no narrative to the piece - this was something I had decided upon after doing the research for the project in three schools. I wanted t created various rich tableaux of sounds and images and allow the individual audience members to formulate their own ideas about the narrative of the piece. Similarly there were suggestions of character throughout the piece, without anything being too blatant. In one movement the clarinet appears to want to play a different piece of music from the rest. Eventually they join in with her but then, abruptly drop out, one by one, leaving her to finish on her own. It was a moment that could be interpreted in many ways and I really enjoyed watching the faces of the young audience members at this moment as they tried to figure out why the other instruments had seemingly rejected the clarinettist.
At other moments the musicians run towards each other as if about to hug but something stops them before they touch. This happens several times before, finally, two musicians actually do hug. This funnily prompted one wee boy in a performance to shout out, "awww a wee couple o lovebirds!"

I was pleased in the performances where children felt comfortable enough to shout out and interact with the stage action. I think this is only natural for children to want to do this and, if you let them, they feel more involved with the people on the stage. This was really important to me as I knew the material was quite challenging. And I think this allowance of audience freedom helped them through some of the trickier moments in the show. For example, at one point the clarinet plays shrieking multiphonics and the other musicians all cover their ears - this often prompted the children in the audience to copy, thus turning something quite harsh and potentially frightening into a game that they were in control of. In another moment the four musicians all unexpectedly pause for a full minute, without moving. This often created very interesting reactions from the audience, my favourite being one wee boy who stood up and shouted, "move go go gooooo!"

I was so pleased with all the great feedback I received from audience members both young and adult. Here are some of my favourites:
Children:
"It sounds like magic."
"It was like being in the jungle"
"It was about what is music and what is not."
"They were wearing colourful clothes to make their skin stand out."
"I didn't like it. I LOVED it."

Adults:
"It was like post-modernist Blue Peter."
"I've never seen anything like that before. It was so...weird."
"Spectacular."

We also received a couple of reviews. This one is great from the Edinburgh Guide:
http://www.edinburghguide.com/reviews/theatre/dittotraversetheatrereview-7408

And this one is from The Scotsman. An ok review, but doesn't really give musch insight into the piece:
http://living.scotsman.com/features/Gig-review-Ditto.6695296.jp