Week of Trickster wows Central School

By Susan Hofforth

It was a great week last week at Central School thanks to a visit from Trickster, a physical theatre group who spent the week at the school as artists in residence thanks to a generous grant from the Alberta Arts Foundation.

“The five artists arrived on Monday morning,” said Vice-Principal Tim Bowman. “They unloaded, did an assembly, and got the kids all fired up with enthusiasm.”

Through daily workshops with each class, the group blended curriculum with theatre as each class built a play around a chosen theme – Forestry. At the end of the week, each short play became part of a school production that was performed for everyone — school and community. “We received nothing but positive reviews for the whole week,” said Bowman.

The performances included every student and teacher, and celebrated the importance of the forest to the community. The students learned a lot about theatre and staging a play. They studied theatre techniques such as advanced black light, and the importance of shadow, and learned the array of uses that a single prop can give. A toilet plunger, for example, can become a horse, an ice pick, a paddle for the canoe, and even a CPR machine.
“It was a great experience,” said Bowman. “The students picked up a lot of drama, and they were able to use their curriculum knowledge in another way.”