Go Dance Studios
The White Faces Project
Project Length: 1 term (12 weeks)
Theme: Vaudeville variety theatre
Age group: 13-14
For this project I worked in partnership with Go Dance Studios and Kesteven and Sleaford High School to create artwork for a production by The White Faces Project, a vaudeville dance project created by Harriet Leigh Spence inspired by the old time music halls of the late 19th and early 20th century.
Young people paint patterns on pre-prepared plaster skulls.
A selection of finished masks.
The White Faces Project performance was held at the Lincoln Assembly Rooms, and was a multi-disciplinary event featuring dance, live music, performance and art installations. Students at Kesteven and Sleaford High School were involved in creating sets for the show and an installation exploring the context of the performance and the history of variety theatre, which was put on display in the foyer.
For this strand of the project, students from year 9 created a stop motion animation which told the story of Vaudeville Theatre. They began the project by looking at old time Vaudeville artists and performers, and the work of Lotte Reineger whose style I chose to emulate for the finished animation. Students worked in pairs to design their own Vaudeville characters, and create a short stop motion animation.
The characters for the animation were made using black card and split pins. The models were put onto lightboxes and stills were taken with a camera mounted on a tripod. You can see the full animation below...