Sun Foundation: Performing Arts Workshop / The Contemporary Approach to Raku

Two short documentaries filmed at the Sun Foundation Art in the Woods workshops in summer 1978.

00:30Copy video clip URL High schoolers outside, performing movement exercises in a theater performance workshop with instructor Brian Delate. 

03:15Copy video clip URL Delate speaks to the camera about the play that the students are performing. 

04:30Copy video clip URL The students rehearse the play, with feedback and direction from Delate. 

07:19Copy video clip URL Delate discusses the students, who include both kids with acting experience and kids who have never acted before.

08:12Copy video clip URL More rehearsals of scenes in which the play’s villain, Old Man Thorntree, confronts the rest of the town.

11:39Copy video clip URL Delate discusses the importance of nicknames in life and in the play. 

12:38Copy video clip URL Rehearsal of the play’s final scenes, with commentary by Delate about fitting the play’s scenes to the setting.

14:01Copy video clip URL End credits. 

14:52 The Contemporary Approach to Raku. Children working with clay sculpture, including finishing their sculpture on open flames. In voiceover, a man explains the process and steps of Raku, a method of ceramics that originated in 16th century Japan. 

19:05Copy video clip URL An adult man and woman explain and demonstrate the preparation of clay for the raku method in a studio. He talks while she works the clay with her hands and a rolling pin, using a knife to cut the flat sheet of clay into a more complex structure. 

22:25Copy video clip URL The woman sculptor places clay onto the clay wheel. The differences between raku and normal clay methods are discussed and demonstrated. 

23:49Copy video clip URL A demonstration of the sculptures being dried and fired, and then adding glazes and fired in a hot kiln. 

26:37Copy video clip URL The pottery is placed into burning sawdust in a small trash can. Other fire-based methods of finishing the pottery are demonstrated. 

30:31Copy video clip URL Examples of contemporary raku pottery. 

31:40Copy video clip URL End credits.