Project 6 - Performance

The prompt for this project was to create a performance related to the theme of gratitude/gift giving, including a prop we made ourselves. I was stumped for a while as to what I could perform that would be gift-related, but then I thought of stories. To me, books and stories have been gifts in so many ways - the gift of a new world, a new concept, being able to fall into someone else's life and a new place for a time. 

            

One of my favorite books is an old copy of Tales of Grimm and Anderson from my grandma. One of the stories that stuck out for me was "The Goose Girl," partially because it was the basis for a novel of the same name by Shannon Hale which was one of my favorite books growing up. I find the story interesting for its power dynamics, gender dynamics, themes of deception and loyalty, and the bits of strange magic (like a talking horse head, and controlling the wind).

For this project, I decided to make a small booklet of "The Goose Girl." Originally I wanted to embroider the whole cover, but the paper ended up not being a good surface and started tearing in a few places. I changed strategies by embroidering just the words on the cover, and then using water colors to illustrate geese and locks of hair on the cover. 

My first attempt, which I ended up discarding

                  

        Embroidering the words on the cover       Marking the lines for writing the text

   

The finished cover

 The inside of the booklet, where I copied the text of the fairy tale.

The process of making this small book was frustrating at the beginning, as the embroidery floss method didn't work as well as I had expected. However, the watercolor ended up much better than I'd thought, and due to the type of paper I used, I was able to achieve some really cool effects. Surprisingly, the part that took me the longest was writing out the fairy tale. I'm pleased with how it turned out in the end, even if it didn't happen how I anticipated.

For the performance, I read the story to our class. On the grass in the formal gardens, I set up a picnic blanket, towel, and yoga mat to create a space for everyone to sit in a circle. I also drew small geese for everyone to take with them as a small memento. I enjoyed reading the story; it reminded me of when I would go to story time at the library as a child. I hope that the performance was enjoyable for the rest of my audience and left them in the vague, magical sense of mind one experiences after seeing a movie or getting lost in a good book.