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Unforgettable Summer on the Island of the Gogottes.

Castle of Costa Mesa Summer 2024

Felting, Crafting and Puppet Show Workshop.

 

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Workshop Information

WEEK 2. ISLAND OF THE GOGOTTES

7/8/24 – 7/12/24. FELTING, CRAFTING, PUPPET SHOW

   

WEEK 2 – WORKSHOP INFORMATION

  • Instructors: Jzin Teng and Elena Roussanova of Castle of Costa Mesa
  • Dates: Monday – Friday, July 8 – 12, 2024 (5 days)
  • Time: 9am to 1pm
  • Classroom: 7th Grade Classroom – with Air Condition and Piano
  • Address: The Waldorf School of Orange County, 2350 Canyon Drive. Costa Mesa, CA 92627
  • Ages: Rising 5 – 12 Graders. No experience necessary. Age 9+ students with steady and focused temperament, who are able to work safely with felting needles, can make special requests to instructor Jzin (949) 400-7082 to register for the class

Interested? Text Instructor Jzin Teng (949) 400-7082

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER: CREATE AN ACCOUNT AND REGISTER 

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WEEK 2 – WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION

Students will be creating characters and scenes for this exciting Puppet Show. You will needle-felt characters such as Pascal, General Huc, Princess Isabelle, Grandma Mermaid, Polomoche and of course, The Gogottes. If time permits, we may also craft baby dragons. Bring your creative brain, you will design, craft, act, sing, play musical instruments, design sound effects, tell jokes and perform puppet show to entertain an audience on our open house on Friday, July 14, 2024. This, will be your Unforgettable Summer on the Island of the Gogottes! Note: We will be using sharp, barbed needles for needle-felting.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER: CREATE AN ACCOUNT AND REGISTER 

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Flyers

 

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FRIDAY: SHOWTIME!

  “Welcome, welcome to our puppet show! This story is called “The Unforgettable Summer on the Island of the Gogottes”. Do you let problems upset you? Now listen to this story and you may enjoy problems more! This is the story of a boy named Pascal who uses his smart head, loving heart and talented hands, to turn enemies into friends, to turn problems into a song – or several songs! Pascal lives with his family in the South of France in the 1930s. He has travelled to Spain and Ireland. But this summer vacation, he would find himself on the Island of the Gogottes to help a friend! A little bird came to bear news of an exciting gift for Pascal at the post office. This little. bird was made in a hurry in time for the puppet show!  



The Golden Helmet of Mambrino.

No, Nay, Never (Wild Rover)

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Video of Puppet Show

Please share with me if you took a long video of the puppet show. Thanks! – Jzin

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THE SCRIPT

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CREDITS

  • Instructors – Jzin Teng (Castle of Costa Mesa) and Elena Roussanova
  • Script by Elena Roussanova and Jzin Teng. Adapted from “Zephyr and Babar” by Jean de Brunhoff
Actors listed in the order of appearance in the show
  • Narrator – Jzin
  • Director, casting, rehearsals, song writing – Elena Roussanova
  • Pascal – Autumn Than
  • Post Office Bird – Alex Dziedzic
  • Pascal’s Father – Zoey Nelson
  • General Huc – Juniper Williams
  • Princess Isabelle – Juniper Williams
  • Mermaid Eléonore – Sage Carlson
  • Newspaper boy –  Juniper Williams
  • Madame Huc – Alex Dziedzic
  • Gossiping Neighbors – Glamorous woman in yellow – Alex Dziedzic
  • Gossiping Neighbors – Lonely Old Man from Apple Cake Puppet Show – Alex Dziedzic
  • Colonel Aristobald – Alex Dziedzic
  • Aunt Crustadele – Zoey Nelson
  • Polomoche – Zoey Nelson
  • Coach Thomas – Independent actor
  • Naughty Gogotte – Alex Dziedzic
  • Baby Gogotte – Sage Carlson

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Crafters: Who Made Which Characters?

  • Pascal – Sage Carlson
  • Post Office Bird – Jzin
  • Pascal’s Father – Jzin
  • General Huc – Autumn
  • Princess Isabelle – Autumn
  • Mermaid Eléonore – Zoey
  • Newspaper boy –  Jzin
  • Madame Huc – Alex Dziedzic
  • Gossiping Neighbors – Glamorous woman in yellow – Alex Dziedzic
  • Gossiping Neighbors – Lonely Old Man from Apple Cake Puppet Show – Alex Dziedzic
  • Colonel Aristobald – Jzin
  • Aunt Crustadele – Jzin
  • Polomoche – Zoey  
  • Coach Thomas – Alex Dziedzic
  • 2D to 3D crystals – Elena Roussanova
  • Naughty Gogotte – Sage
  • Baby Gogotte – Zoey

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MUSICAL CREDITS

  • Opening Piece. Itsumo Nando Demo by Youmi Kimura. Elena Roussanova, piano
  • Taro fishing at sea. Vega Pellegrino, Recorder
  • Room of Four Seasons. Gnossienne No. 3 by Erik Satie. Aiden West, piano
  • Skye Jones, keyboard
  • Octopus’s Garden by The Beatles. Whole class, voice, Vincenzo, guitar, Zoey, tamborine, Zoey’s dad, drum
  • Manta Ray Procession. Aiden West, piano.

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Friday – Scenes After The Puppet Show

The audience came up to ask questions about the students’ works.

Miss Elena and Miss Jzin

Our awesome team! What a happy show!

Miss Jzin and Juniper, age 8.5. She created Mermaid Eleonore’s sister, a mermaid panda gogotte and a potion-making pet cat of Aunty Crustadele!

This group has accomplished so much in 5 mornings!

Excellent crafters! Zoe and Autumn!

Miss Jzin with Alex

All the dolls waiting to be hauled into storage after the show.

Huoi and Michael helped us haul and load up our set and supplies to take home.

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Friday

7/12/24. Scenes from Morning Rehearsals

In order to pry the children’s diligent fingers away from their manic love of needle-felting, we took them outdoors again to rehearse our songs.

Today at 12:30pm we shall share all our work with our audience.

Pascal, with his father’s help, rolls the boat by into the water. He is going to go fishing. The other children admire Pascal’s courage, for they themselves are afraid of the water. Princess Isabelle turns to her father, General Huc, and says: “Oh, what a daredevil that fellow Pascal is!”

Photo from Thursday rehearsal

Thursday rehearsal: Pascal, Mermaid Eléonore and her sisters

Next morning, a most shocking news travels to Pascal. The newsboy shouts in the streets: “Extra! Extra! Princess Isabelle vanishes!” “Poor little thing,” thinks Pascal. “It can’t be true! She was on the beach this morning when I started out to fish.” He listens to the passersby, and this is what he hears: Isabelle was playing in the palace gardens, when suddenly she was surrounded by a green cloud which wrapped itself around her, hiding her from her friends. Then the cloud rose, leaving behind it a strong odor of rotting apples. The princess hasn’t been seen since.

Alex with his glamorous dames: Madame Huc (in red) gossiping with her aristocratic neighbor (in yellow with black) and a lonely old man.

Juniper with the handsome General Huc, handmade by Autumn.

“Release the balloons!”

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Aunt Crustadele’s Herd of Black Wizard Cats

Mermaid Eleonore sought the help of her Aunt Crustadele. She then, turned to her cats for assistance! You can never have too many cats!

Aunt Crustadele’s cats! They churn and make antidote to The Gogotte’s magic.

Wizard cat by Alex.

Juniper’s creepy wizard cat!

Autumn’s fat cat from New York!

Zoe’s cat adds magic mushroom to her potion!

These cats were warm up “pipe-cleaner wrapping” exercises on Day 1. Kudos, students!

Click here: Monday – to see who made which cat

Rehearsing the scene on the Island of the Gogottes.

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“We Turn You To Into Crystals – Cha-Zam!”

Sage pulling a string to enclose Thomas into a crystalline prison!

Miss Elena, WSOC class of 2023, a rising college sophomore, who is home for the summer from Judy Genshaft Honors College in Florida, loves mathematics and made these 2D to 3D gemstones (by the pulling of a string) from cardboard for the scene when the Gogottes turn a hapless victim into crystal!

Coach Thomas, “Ahhhhh!!! Don’t turn me into a crystal!”

Zoey pulling a string …

Cha-zam! Coach Thomas is a crystal!

Miss Jana Bounds of WSOC stopped by to visit our workshop, and the students paused for a photo.

One more rehearsal for tomorrow’s play…

 

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Rehearsing “The Golden Helmet of Mambrino” Song

“Golden helmet of Mambrino, there can be no hat like thee!”

 

We sent the students home with modified lyrics, and this video below to learn the song.

The Golden Helmet of Mambrino.

 

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Rehearsing “No, Nay, Never” Wild Rover Song

 

Pascal teaching the naughty Gogottes to “No, Nay, Never” turn people into crystals! 1:21″ video short:

We sent the students home with lyrics and this video link to learn “No, Nay, Never”/The Wild Rover Irish folk song.

No, Nay, Never (Wild Rover)

This is indeed a great song!

We wrote the lyrics on the board so the audience could sing along with us!

 

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Thursday

Thursday, July 11, 2024. Rehearsal for puppet show, Created scenes.

Sage started painting the watery world for the puppet show.

Zoe added bubbles and seaweed. She is such an artist! What a dreamy watery world!

Vega who was in the audience told me this was one of her favorite parts of the puppet show.

Miss Elena set up the stage for more rehearsals tomorrow.

Zoe’s Polomoche, King of the Gogottes awaiting patiently for the return of the children, on the top of the Gogotte Island.

   

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Wednesday

Designing and Crafting Chimeras – The Gogottes

Today, the students sketched out their gogottes – chimeras made of different animals. The differences must be pronounced, so they could be visible from the audience’s seats. They could not be too frightening, in case we have small children in the audience on Friday. Here are what my students made today…

Zoe made this stunning King Polomoche, a Tiger-Zebra. Later, she added a majestic crown on his head.

We rang our bell of creation at the end of class. The students were so reluctant to leave their work. This was at 1:12pm

Sage designed and felted a photosynthetic Elephant – Walrus.

Autumn made a Snail-Bunny with a beautiful spiral shell.

Juniper’s Mermaid-Panda

Alex has a penchant for fashion, and created the glamorous wife of the general, “Madame Huc”, also the mother of Princess Isabelle.

We finally finished all our Black Wizard Cats churning potions at their cauldrons.

Look at all our Black Wizard cats here.

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Tuesday

Crafting The Cast of Characters of The Play

After the students made the required black wizard cat concocting a cauldron of potions yesterday, we told them the story of “the Unforgettable Summer on the Island of  The Gogottes” . Then, we let the students pick their favorite characters to needle-felt.

I brought some circa 1920s – 1930s French fashion for the students as reference

Autumn chose to needle-felt Princess Isabelle next. Here were some of her sketches.

11:03am July 9, 2024. Autumn’s Princess Isabelle. Such darling Mary Janes!

1:03pm, July 9, 2024. Autumn rang the little bell to announce the birth of this beautiful creation she made this morning! “Happy Birthday, Princess Isabelle!” we all greeted her.

Autumn’s exquisite handwork, Princess Isabelle, second from left, below.

Zoe created Mermaid Eléonore (left).

by 1pm, our prolific felter Zoe made 2 characters! Mermaid Eléonore and a little fire-breathing gogotte!

Zoe’s amazing little spitfire gogotte was born today!

Sage finished making Pascal, the main character of the play.

Juniper made her first mermaid – a sister of Mermaid Eléonore.

Happy dreams

Alex finished his wizard cat with purple hat

Alex made Coach Thomas. Such a cool guy, we eventually asked him to bring Coach Thomas to our next puppet show, “Urashima Tarō in The Deep Sea Palace.”

We found an abandoned cardboard box out on the picnic table. Hurray! We started planning the stage for Friday Puppet Show…

Watery World of the Mermaids. We have to paint this scene tomorrow.

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Monday

Warm-up Exercise – Wrapping Pipe Cleaners/ Wizard Cats

  July 8, 2024. We gathered in the 7th Grade classroom to create, tell stories, sing and act! We shall share our talents and beautiful work with an audience on Friday! Lots of work to do! First exercise in needle-felting – wrapping pipe cleaners without using felting needles. I wanted the students to learn how to wrap pipe cleaners smoothly, using roving and batting, in various thickness. We practice wrapping a brown ladle, then long black cat’s tail using roving. Next we made armatures and wrap cat torso and tail… by the end, the students had a hang of wrapping pipe cleaners, a skill essential for making humans and animal characters later on in the week. Miss Elena reading the script to the students. Note: These students are so passionate about needle-felting, they are reluctant to stop their work even for a moment! Also: hence, they like to work till or after the time to leave and go home. What amazing crafters!    

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Some of The Preparations For This Workshop

I prepared some characters to set the tone and as reference for the students.

Pascal, his trusty violin and Mermaid Eleonore on her seashell carriage.

Princess Isabelle, daughter of General Huc and a friend of Pascal.

Pascal, Princess Isabella, Pascal’s parents in Pascal’s bedroom in his summer home.

Pascal’s parents and Princess Isabelle.

General Huc and his men.

Some of the cast with a Dog-fish gogotte and Pascal’s new boat from The King.

Mermaid Eléonore and her sea-faring seahorse seashell carriage.

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