Tony Gee Online | Page 2 | 1001 tales from a lifelong jester

6th July 20201st September 2020

Twenty One – Consilience

The tale of a headteacher and an artist in five parts

Jumping Together – The word consilience was originally coined as the phrase “consilience of inductions” by William Whewell (consilience refers to a “jumping together” of knowledge). The word comes from Latincom- “together” and -siliens “jumping” (as in resilience).

“Creativity seems to be something which links things together…within a new whole, which did not exist before.” Rupert Sheldrake

“Creativity is the defeat of habit by originality” Arthur Koestler

When the angel flew around the world, the angel had a very simple job. The angel had two sacks. One full of wise souls and the other full of fools. All the angel had to do was to ensure an even distribution everywhere in the world – half wise, half fools. But this angel was absent-minded, enjoyed flying a little too much and had a tendency to get lost in angelic daydreams. So, the angel didn’t notice when one of the sacks got snagged on a tree on top of a steep hill. All the souls in that sack dropped out around the hill. That sack was full of fools. A city of fools was built around the hill and the biggest fools of all were the city council.

Firstly, workshops are a relational form and all relationships involved in and around the workshop count. The sum of those relationships creates the power and quality of what is produced. Those relationships begin to manifest when a workshop is requested so the relationship between the requester, in this case that headteacher, and the director who will be responsible for meeting that request, in that case me, is pivotal.

At the turn of the century I wrote and toured a show based on Jewish Tales about that city, Chelm. I played Leonardo De MishMash the greatest painter in the Voyld, a range of other fools such as Dopey Lekitsch and Schmendrick Numbskull. I worked a trio of puppets and opened a story chest that revealed various tales of Chelm whilst Leonardo De MishMash went on his search for wisdom.

15th June 202015th June 2020

Twenty- The Ape and The Optimist

The astounding Cosmo, last Great Calpenkian White Ape

There are three masks: the one we think we are, the one we really are, and the one we have in common.” – Jacques Lecoq

I was awoken by a bright light. It was a milkman driving past my car. I was up on Dartmoor. It was October and I had fallen asleep in the front seat of my car with a large, white ape on top of me. It was 1993 and I was learning the true meaning of optimism. I wonder what that milkman thought. This is the story of what led up to me only having a large ape puppet to keep warm in my old estate car up on Dartmoor.

8th June 20208th June 2020

Nineteen – All Together Now

The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are. Samuel Johnson

The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. Carl Gustav Jung

The dynamic of a workshop depends on relationship. Not just the relationship in the space but those that go into making that space possible and they may not be physically present. At the turn of the century, I got a grant to interview workshop practitioners. The first person I interviewed was Wendy Greenhill. She had been in charge of educational outreach work at The Royal Shakespeare Company. It was a great conversation- a benchmark for the rest of series of interviews but, and there’s always an if or a but, we had bought a guinea pig for our son’s birthday.

26th May 202026th May 2020

Eighteen – The Hare and The Wire

After the rest of the class had left to go out to play, one nine-year old boy stood around looking a bit lost. My friend, who I was working with, asked the boy if he wanted to ask us something. The boy did, “What qualifications do I need to do this a job?” My friend explained that, although both of us had been to university, neither of us had any specific qualifications at all to do what we were doing. The boy flung his arms up in the air as if he had just scored the winning goal in the cup final and ran out of the room shouting, “Yes!”

20th May 202020th May 2020

Seventeen – Knowing Me , Knowing You

Friedlander, the great Max Friedlander, is very good on this. ‘Correct attributions’, he says, ‘generally appear spontaneously and “prima vista”. We recognise a friend without ever having determined wherein his particular qualities lie and that with a certainty that not even the most detailed description can give.’ [Frayn – Headlong]

I went to an all-boys school in the centre of London. I can’t say that I liked it. It had its moments but I missed my last year of my much-loved Primary School and got a scholarship to a grand establishment – The City of London School just near Blackfriars Bridge. I threw up on the front steps on the first morning. I remember a new Maths teacher. Our Maths book was written by a man called C.G.Nobbs. The new teacher strode in with great aplomb, complete with robe, because that’s what the teachers donned in these hallowed halls with cloisters and all, and commanded the class, “right boys get your Nobbs out!” This was not a good start. Mayhem, Lord of the Flies, Mutiny on The Bounty in a classroom of 14-year-old pubescent boys. What a cruel mess ensued and continued! More than 50 years on, it makes me squirm to think of that poor teacher.

13th May 202013th May 2020

Sixteen – Making the Invisible, Visible

Making the Invisible Visible

Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying: Make me feel important. Never forget this message when working with people. Mary Kay Ash.

On the morning I ran the workshop course to start the Moveable Feast Workshop Company I got into the space early. I had bought small coloured LED lights. I darkened the space, put out mats and cushions and placed the small lights so that there was a dim, atmospheric flickering of colour but near blackout. I had a story in mind. It was readied but I was nervous.

18th April 202021st April 2020

Thirteen – I can’t to I can

Traveller, your footprints
are the only road, nothing else.
Traveller, there is no road;
you make your own path as you walk.
As you walk, you make your own road,
and when you look back
you see the path
you will never travel again.
Traveller, there is no road;
only a ship’s wake on the sea.

Antonio Machado Caminante

Maybe 20, maybe 30 years ago I ran a weekend workshop with a group of young people called “Make a Show in a Day”. The idea was simple. All the participants would make puppets and, whilst the puppets were being made, we would find out about their characters and from those new characters we would create a story that would become our show. The realisation of the idea was not so simple. As the parent left, it began to dawn on me that the youngsters, I had been left with were a particularly complex group. For one thing, they didn’t really know each other. For another, there were some ‘special’ characters in there and I had not been forewarned. Still, I had a factor on my side – the puppet making.

14th April 202021st April 2020

Twelve – Bang! Bang! Bang!

I have been told that among the many old Wild West potboiler stories one began: “Bang! Bang! Bang! Three bullets ripped through my chest and I knew that I was off on the greatest adventure of my life.” Somewhere in the adventures of my working life I remember a lecture in which a man said that participatory arts were about experience, encounter and event. Well, indeed. But then again that’s what life seems to be mostly about for us humans. Its all about relationship – even isolation. There are certain encounters, experiences and events that alter the course of where one’s heading. Let me wind my way towards one such encounter and begin the story of two wandering, nay wondering, travellers of similar persuasions. But first a question.