PaperBag’s New Mover and Shaker.  If you have been to one of our performances this year or visited our website’s photo gallery you may have noticed a new face in the PaperBag line-up.  That face belongs to Jackie Rawlings our newest performing member who is literally moving and shaking the troupe into action.  Jackie started dancing at the age of 3 and by 15 was teaching dance and movement. Today, in addition to being a painter, musician and mother, she is Choreographer, Principal Adjudicator and Teacher Trainer for the Australian BjP School of Physical Culture.  Jackie loves Playback Theatre because it continues the ancient tradition of telling and performing stories as a means of cultural sharing.  “To play back someone’s story is to give them a gift – to hold up a mirror and show them what their life looks like from the other side”.  Jackie will be in action at our next public performance on 20th November at Lilyfield.

Revealing the Magic of Stories.  PaperBag’s philosophy of “Celebrating the Transformative Power of Sharing Stories” was richly evident at a recent performance organised by the education centre of Temple Emanuel to celebrate the Jewish festival of Shavuot.  In keeping with some of the manifold facets of the festival the theme of the performance centred around heritage, tradition, and revelation.  The evening was filled with stories offered by tellers of all ages, taking us to the four corners of the globe, across multiple generations, and on a whirlwind tour of Sydney’s major tourist attractions.  We met guardian angels (or was it lady luck?), magical grandmothers, free spirited children, and people in pain.  The essence of the evening and playback was captured by one teller’s moment about (oddly enough!) storytelling – “the story starts as mine, then I tell it and share it, and then it becomes yours…..everyone’s; that’s the magic”. And a magical evening it was indeed for both the audience and the troupe.

No If’s or But’s About Bay Performance.  Paperbag PlayBack recently spent the weekend in Huskisson performing and offering a playback workshop.  The performance was part of the official closing of an anti-littering campaign that sought to raise people’s awareness of the significance of cigarette butts as a form of litter.  The closing event allowed those who worked on the ”Butt Free Bay and Basin” campaign to come together with the wider local community to reflect on their efforts and to evaluate the campaign's success.  PaperBag’s performance created a space to celebrate the spirit of community and to explore the power a community has to evoke change.   Reflecting upon the performance Graeme Gibson, a principal and community education consultant of Real Options noted that ‘people involved in the campaign and the broader audience were thoroughly entertained and inspired by the performance’.  On the following day PaperBag offered a workshop to give the community an opportunity to perform their own stories and delve into Playback Theatre.  Workshop participants were incredibly enthusiastic and receptive, jumping into the world of spontaneity and play.  For the participants it was a fantastic introduction to playback and for the troupe a wonderful opportunity to share their skills.  Since the workshop participants have expressed a strong interest to further develop their playback skills and strengthen their relationship with PaperBag.