Meg Eichmann's Blog

 Currently, while I have been in Denmark, I've seen posters for the theatre production, Shadow Land. The production already toured in Australia last year, where I was able to conduct an interview with one of the team creatives. Seeing that the production would be coming to Copenhagen I could think of no better time to post the interview. -  


For a few special nights last month Her majesty’s theatre showcased dance company Pilobolus’ performance Shadowland, It was a remarkable performance revealing the best of human imagination, physical prowess, and aesthetic beauty as it followed the development of a young girl as she thirst for independence. As she enters the frightful world of shadow beyond her bedroom wall, the audience follows her into a world of dreamlike logic and simplistic wonder. To better understand the performance and the work that went into it, creative and executive director Itamar Kubovy give some insights.

Q) There were a range of creative on this project - did you all have particular tasks, or how was the work divided?
K) Pilobolus always creates with diversity, in expertise and redundancy in the roles. We are all in the room working at the same time but each of us focuses on a different aspect of the work – be it story, in the case of Steve Banks, head writer for SpongeBob Squarepants, or music in the case of David Poe, our amazing composer, o shadow techniques or Pilobolus partnering. It’s important to remember, I think, that in reimagining shadow-making we are exploring a unique performance style so there is no one to call and ask for help. We have to figure it out ourselves.
So Pilobolus is a dance company that seems to utilise a range of dance and performance disciplines, does that often include shadow and silhouette forms, or was this special to Shadow Land?
K) Pilobolus is primarily a dance company that develops movement and dances for the live stage, film, and advertising. Only a couple of our pieces, Shadowland being the primary example, contain shadows at all.
We started working with shadows in 2006, when we made a television advertisement for Hyundia, in which we were asked to make a care out of body shadows, that project quickly led to being asked to perform at the Oscars where we made iconic images representing the nominated films in a similar style.  Over the next two years the word soon realised we had reimagined an ancient art form and asked us to run around the world, creating many little three-minute pieces in shadow. Shadowland is the result of trying to weave what we intended during those years into a single full-evening presentation.


Q) In the performance the hair, the costume, even the body type of Kristina (the female lead), seemed to lend itself perfectly to silhouette performance, were they all deliberate choices?
K) Shadows are not very forgiving. Everything connected to a figure or object’s outline must be considered and deliberate, while appearing spontaneous and accidental.

Q) The scene with the centaur was magical, however I was wondering, of all the animals, mythical or otherwise, what made you chose a centaur? – Why have the female lead as a dog, for that matter?
K) A centaur is associated with sexuality and we knew we wanted to have a sexual rite of passage in that scene but rather than the traditional stud centaur, we were amused by the idea of a centaur who is ashamed of his horse half and can only find his sexuality when he encounters a girl who is ashamed of her dog head.
When the fashion designer Pierre Cardin, one of Pilobolus’ first patrons in the ‘70s, saw Shadowland in Paris a couple of years ago. We went to dinner afterwards with the cast and he kept saying, “the Animals. The Animals.” From the amazing fungus after which we (Pilobolus) are named, to the centaur, the elephant, the spiders, and the dog heads of Shadowlandwe have always been inspired by the expressive power of the natural world.
Q) The other side of the centaur is having two males in the romance as opposed to one, what was the reasoning behind that, as in why not a more familiar one male one female dance?
K) Once we had a centaur made of two guys, the duet naturally turned into a trio. We tried to begin and end as a duet and elaborate as a trio. We name all of our moves and our favourite in that trio is know as “Tripplesex” – the Dog Girl and the two sides of the Centaur.
Q) The scene where she almost drowns, to me it seemed like a ceremonial rebirth, was that how it was meant, or was their another creative purpose behind it?
K) We tried in Shadowland always to achieve depth with simplicity. We wanted to find a literal low point for the Dog Girl, the moment where she hits bottom. What kind of place could be lower than the bottom of the ocean? When she lands she is truly at the bedrock of the bottom and begins her ascent towards fulfilment.
Q) It seems even with the advance of special effects the continued development of CGI and animation, people are still drawn to theatre like this, theatre where they can see the mechanics behind the illusion, why do you think that is?
K) As the world becomes a more meditated place and we spend all day behind a screen, the importance of hand-made thing, touch and people spending time in the physical presence of each other becomes more important. Something live and handmade can truly captivate in a way that things made by computers can not. Think about the return of The LP.
Q) The encore in creating New York and then the trip to Australia was brilliant, perfect way to end on a high note, whose idea was that?-       Compliments on the song choice thereHere the Audience loved it, how do audiences usually respond?
K) We try to create a local finale for every one of our performances. We have found a tremendous response around the world when we customise our finale to the audience. It connects is to the audience in a way that makes everyone feel more included. We have a whole team on the road that researches and advances ideas for each of our 
finales. 

Hi guys,

I've been working hard again and I've put together another shadow puppetry video, this one with its own website.

A Kind of Flight was a lot of work, unfortunately with a camera that could not quite to the quality I wanted, but the puppets are beautiful and I am very proud of the story.



It was originally performed as part of the Gawler fringe festival, hence the style is different to my first video, but all the information about the stage and puppets and process is on the website.

Hope you enjoy.

Hey, I know I haven't posted for a while, but a quick recommendation for you -
If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch was a refreshing easy read that I highly enjoyed. She juxtaposes two different ideas of the woods. That of the innocent and adventurous Winnie the Pooh, and the reality her character experienced. The duality of the symbolism and the thrilling mystery and tension of the book keeps each line coming. For a quick but worthwhile read, I highly recommend it.

 - Hey, this is an article that I wrote a while ago for my local paper, however it's still one of my favourites.


In these past few weeks of university I have had the task of reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Upon learning of this task I was admittedly apprehensive. Some time ago I was kindly advised by a nice lady in the local bookstore of several books by Dickens which would serve as easy introductions to his literature, yet upon beginning The Old Curiosity Shop I was curious as to where this lady had got her information from. Either she had never read the book herself and had seen some entertaining film interpretation of the novel, or she had a sadistic need to see her fellow readers suffer. For though this was several years ago, the beautiful, illustrated, red leather bound copy of the book I had bought to read in appropriate style, remains in my book case, and I remember thinking, if that was one of Dickens’ easier reads, then I hope never to read any of his heavier works for as long as I live. I was further assured of my position when my mother’s book club tried to read A Tale of Two Cities. I had the pleasure of watching my mother suffer a similar torment, where merely trying to understand the sentence she was reading resulted in her forgetting what the prior sentence had been about. She grew quite worried when, two chapters through the book, she had no idea what she was reading, and resolved to give up and face the next book club, book unfinished. She was relieved, therefore, when no one in this quite experienced book club, managed to finish the book. There may have even been some referrals the book that included the phrase ‘wrist slitting.’So upon learning I would have to read, and finish Great expectations, you can imagine my concern, if half of A Tail of Two Cities stirred suicidal thoughts in a book club, what would reading all of Great Expectations do to me?If The Old Curiosity Shop was any indicator, than I would have to reread every second paragraph, and loose the will to live a fifth of the way through. However, I have good news for any student who may have to undertake the same challenge. Thus far I have only had to re-read every third or forth paragraph in the book, and am now a quarter of the way through and still floundering along. I don’t know what that lady in the bookstore was trying to achieve by pointing me to The Old Curiosity Shop, but Great Expectations has been, psychiatrically at least, far less damaging.So rest assured all fellow readers, and remember, if you fail to complete the novel, there are always the movies.

To this day this is one of my favourite videos, her art is so fleeting and emotive, like evolving poetry just slips through her fingers.

Hey, I'm working towards getting a poetry slam on in Gawler soon. Check out my flyer -

I love this book, and this movie, and for others that love it too, here is an interview with the author of The Book Thief.

My creative writing group had their first meeting on Tuesday. I walked into the cafe not knowing what to expect, hoping I would have some time to compose myself and ready myself mentally for bringing this together, but one girl had already arrived. Thrown right into the thick of it I stumbled through introductions with smiles and an awkward clunkiness to my mind. Thankfully all the people who came were wonderful.
We sat and talked about where we wanted the group to go, and I asked everyone to consider personal goals for themselves to reach by the end of the month.
I had been worried about people being unable to find the cafe, that seems to be the common drawback for nifty cafes, they tuck away too well. A few people did arrive late, but we got them up to speed, sharing what we had done so far and asking their opinions. Seven people, including myself arrived, just enough so, thus far, I have not forgotten anyone's name. The cafe was wonderful, we had a fabulous room to ourselves with vintage designs and wooden tables - a perfect writers' hub. We then went over time just talking, so all together, I think we did well. This week we'll all try to compose our own spoken poem, and I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with. Our local paper, thus far, has done a story, which again may attract new members, and soon I might put some photos on this blog.
One of the biggest keys to being creative, they say, is to surround yourself with creative people. My biggest hope is that each of us will be able to feed off of each other to enrich our work and come up with splendid pieces.
Should be interesting!

One of the things on the list of ways to stay creative is to watch new things. Movies are one option, but what I love are short beautiful films on You Tube. Already on this blog I have shared a puppetry music video, I'll Forget You in Time , and my own puppet short film, Shadow's Land but now every few weeks, I would also like to add a new short film I've loved from You Tube. None of these will be mine, but just nice things I've seen.
The video below is from the University of New South Wales, hope you enjoy.

Recently I saw Love Actually - as I'm sure many others did in the lead up to Christmas, and I loved it, but every time I watch that movie my favourite scenes are Colin Firth's, and his villa in France. As a writer, I look at it as the perfect retreat to sit and write, and he even uses a typewriter!
I wish I had a similar kind of get away, but I can say I love the idea of having different, beautiful places where I could retreat to merely to write, particularly with all the distractions and available procrastination opportunities available in everyday life.
My biggest question would be if the character had internet connection there, or even electricity, because in my mind he doesn't. Today between internet distractions like You Tube and social media, a forced detachment from the online word might be exactly what many writers need.
In a beautiful place like that I hope I would be able to sit and write for hours. However, on the flip side, I fear I would spend more time on scenic walks and daydreaming. Scientific studies, however, have also suggested that different and interesting environments are actually very beneficial to attaining focus and concentration in your work.
In any event, it is a beautiful place, and one I would love to live in and write in one day.