nature band

"Nature Band" was a community project that was run as part of the Seventh "One Van" International
Puppetry Festival that held in January 2005 in the village of Blackheath, situated in the beautiful Blue
Mountains area of NSW. It was instigated and very ably supported by the Blackheath Area
Neighbourhood Centre (BANC).

The idea was to facilitate the building of several large parade style puppets with the Blackheath
community and surrounds. The puppets were initially designed by Jenny Kee; realised by Paula Martin,
a local designer and sculptor; the workshops were facilitated by Sean Manners, puppeteer and
community artist; and the performance and project as a whole was directed and choreographed by Sue
Wallace of Sydney Puppet Theatre.

"Nature Band" was to originally conceived as a roving band of puppet creatures, relating to the flora and
fauna of the region, that could appear at different outdoor venues and events, staring with the "One Van"
Puppet Festival.

A public meeting was held in Blackheath during July 2004 which was well attended. The outline of the
project was given by the artists, and the designs shown to the meeting. It was decided that workshops
would be held every weekend throughout November, December and January, excepting public holidays,
for the building and rehearsal of the "Nature Band" puppets.

The original designs were refined and three different puppets were chosen, five yellow tailed black
cockatoos, four trees and three waratahs. Prototypes of the three different puppets were constructed by
Sean Manners and Paula Martin to make sure that they could be built with the minimum of problems by a
alot of different people with varying skill levels.

The venue for the workshops was chosen and the workshops advertised. The first Saturday saw a
wonderful roll up of workshop participants. This energy continued throughout the whole process with
regular faces seen every weekend as well as other people just popping in to lend a hand for an hour or
two. There was lots to be done. Sewing, drawing, sculpting, woodwork, painting sticking and lots more.
Slowly through November and December 2004 the puppets took shape and finally by mid January they
were completed and tested. Now for the performance.

When rehearsals started there was a need for younger people to become involved in Nature Band .
Members of Katoomba Dance Company expressed an interest, and operated the Yellow Tailed Black
Cockatoos which were on the end of 3.6 meter long poles, at rehearsal and for the performance.
Original participants in the workshops operated the trees and Waratahs.

The short piece was performed in the beautiful park adjacent to the Blackheath Neighbourhood centre
for the opening of the Seventh "One Van" International Festival of Puppetry. It was very well received with
record numbers of people attending the opening. The weather was perfect, unfortunately it changed the
next day and Nature Band was unable to present any further performances at the Festival.

A record of attendance and hours was kept and participants asked to fill it in every time they attended a
workshop. Unfortunately this was not always done. However using the data to hand some 477 recorded
volunteer hours went into the project and untold unrecorded. This does not include the paid artists who
were very generous with their time or the staff of BANC who also put a lot of effort into the project.

Since the festival participants in Nature Band have expressed an interest in continuing on with the
project and having the Waratahs, Trees and Cockatoos appear at other events in the local region.

This was an excellent example of community spirit and cooperation