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Urashima Tarō in the Deep Sea Palace.

Castle Of Costa Mesa 2024 Summer Workshop.

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Workshop Information

WEEK 3. DEEP SEA PALACE

7/15/24 – 7/19/24. FELTING, CRAFTING, PUPPET SHOW

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WEEK 3 – WORKSHOP INFORMATION

  • Instructors: Jzin Teng and Elena Roussanova of Castle of Costa Mesa
  • Dates: Monday – Friday, July 15 – 19, 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:

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WEEK 3 – WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION

Students will be creating characters and scenes for this dreamy Folk Tale Puppet Show. We will needle-felt characters such as Tarō, the fisherboy, Princess Otohime, mermaids and their seashell encrusted merbeds, sea creatures and more. Bring all the creative cells in your being – you will design, craft, act, sing, play musical instruments, design sound effects, and perform puppet show to entertain an audience on our open house on Friday July 21, 2024. Note: We will be using sharp, barbed needles for needle-felting and hot glue guns for set construction.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER:

CREATE AN ACCOUNT AND REGISTER 

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Urashima Tarō in the Deep Sea Palace. Summer 2024

 

Flyer: Castle of Costa Mesa Summer 2024 Felting, Crafting Puppet Show Workshops

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Friday: Showtime!

Friday, July 19, 2024. 12:30pm This is the moment! It’s showtime! Narrator Lila started telling us the story as Zoey opens the paper-mache fish to reveal a little Japanese village among the hills. “Let me tell you this unbelievable story that happened long ago, in a little fishing village, in the land of the rising sun.”

Click here to read our script in full.

“Look! A village in the belly of a fish”


As Taro was walking along the beach, he came across a group of rowdy children huddled around something he could not see. As he moved closer, he realized that they were bullying a small turtle. The children had trapped it in a hole in the sand and were poking it with sticks. 

“Urashima Taro … Urashima Taro…”

“I must be so hungry, I am hearing things!” he thought to himself. “There is no one here besides me.”

Taro knew that this was a special turtle — for he spoke Japanese without even a hint of turtle accent.

“Who are you, and what is your purpose here? Surely you know that not just anyone can enter the Sea Dragon Palace!”

At this, the small sea turtle (Vega) spoke,

“Do you not recognize your own princess? I am Otohime, and this is Urashima Taro, the kind man who rescued me this morning. Do not fear him, for he has a good heart.”

Upon hearing that the stranger riding the Giant Sea Turtle was a friend and not an enemy, the fish guardians transformed back into their true selves, and now, a pair of lovely sea maidens stood before Taro…

Princess Otohime playing hide and seek with Urashima Taro in the Chambers of The Four Seasons.

Princess Otohime offering a deep bow to her new husband, Urashima Taro.

Octopus’ Garden Song by the children, with Lila’s dad Vincenzo on the guitar and Zoey’s dad on the drum.

Lila’s dad on guitar (Vincenzo) and Zoey’s dad on drums.

(Sea Dragon King /Skye says) I present to you … NASA – our army of the National Air and Sea Exploration.”

Procession of the Manta Rays.

Harajuku Girls to Finale.

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Video by Vega’s Dad

Thank you Vega’s dad Andy Pellegrino for this video recording! He is an award-winning film-maker! You can follow his work here: Moonhouse.me

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LVoDmBLCFrz_gAjhDFCAGeM05aYAbXYa/view?usp=drivesdk

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THE SCRIPT

Read the script on this page here.

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CREDITS

  • Instructors – Jzin Teng (Castle of Costa Mesa) and Elena Roussanova
  • Script by Elena Roussanova and Jzin Teng. Adapted from Japanese Folk Tale: Urashima Taro

Listed in the order of appearance in the show

  • Narrator – Lila Barba
  • Urashima Taro – Aiden West
  • Urashima Taro’s Old Mother – Alex Dziedzic
  • Giant Sea Turtle – Zoey Nelson
  • Naughty Child 1 – Norah Davey
  • Naughty Child 2 – Autumn Than
  • Naughty Child 3 – Alex Dziedzic
  • Baby Sea Turtle/ Princess Otohime – Vega Pellegrino
  • Fish Fairy Maiden 1 – Autumn Than
  • Fish Fairy Maiden 2 – Kexin Luo
  • Sea Dragon King – Skye Jones
  • Announcer of Music of the Octopus Garden – Kevin Luo
  • Guitarist – Special guest – Vincenzo Barba
  • Drummer – Special guest – Zoey’s dad Nelson
  • Manta Ray – all except Aiden West, pianist
  • Skateboarder – Norah Davey
  • Japanese Businessman – Alex Dziedzic
  • Harajuku Girl 1 – Autumn Than
  • Harajuku Girl 2 – Lila Barba
  • Harajuku Girl 3 – Skye Jones
  • Crane/Soul of Urashima Taro – Aiden West

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Crafters: Who Made Which Characters?

  • Urashima Tarō – Miss Jzin
  • Tarō‘s mother – Kexin
  • Naughty Child 1 – Norah Davey
  • Naughty Child 2 – Lila Barba
  • Naughty Child 3 – Alex Dziedzic
  • Baby Sea Turtle – Zoey Nelson
  • Giant Sea Turtle – Zoey Nelson
  • Fish Fairy Maiden 1 – Jzin
  • Fish Fairy Maiden 2 – Jzin
  • Princess Otohime/Fish – Autumn Than
  • Sea Dragon King – Skye Jones
  • Sushi Feast – Entire Class
  • Octopus’ Garden – Entire Class
  • Skateboarder – Alex Dziedzic
  • Japanese Businessman – Alex Dziedzic
  • Harajuku Girls – Lila Barba, Vega Pellergino, Autumn Tran

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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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SPECIAL THANKS

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FRIDAY: AFTER THE SHOW

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

Miss Jzin, Alex and Miss Elena

Zoe with her Manta Ray puppet.

Miss Jzin with Kexin who visited us from China for the summer.

The audience came up to look at the works of the students.

The City Apartment Tower made the all the students.

Miss Elena and Miss Jzin

Autumn showing her Princess Otohime/ Fish Fairy puppet.

Gaby said, “The puppet show is so FABULOUS!”

What do you think? Do you like it?

Thank you Miss Rebecca for letting us use your 7th Grade classroom!

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FRIDAY: PREPARING FOR SHOWTIME

Rehearsing Octopus’ Garden with Vincenzo


Friday, July 19, 2024. What a wonderful surprise! Lila brought her dad to accompany our singing of “The Octopus’s Garden” on guitar!

Friday Morning rehearsal with Vincenzo 1 of 3

Friday Morning rehearsal with Vincenzo 2 of 3

Friday Morning rehearsal with Vincenzo 3 of 3

Vega has a lovely voice!

 

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Friday – Rehearsing the Manta Ray Procession

 

 

Sky’s speech of the Sea Dragon King

Thank you Aiden for the beautiful, shimmering piano accompaniment.

Friday Rehearsal: Procession of the Manta Ray 1 of 3.

Friday Rehearsal: Procession of the Manta Ray 2 of 3.

Friday Rehearsal: Procession of the Manta Ray 3 of 3.

Urashima Taro and Princess Otohime riding the Manta Rays.

City apartment tower.

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Thursday

 

We Needle-Felted A Sushi Feast


Thursday, July 18, 2024. We started with a lesson in wrapping felt to make needle-felted sushi for the scene where Princess Otohome treated Urashima Tarō to a feast in the Sea Dragon Palace. This was a popular craft! The students enjoyed crafting sushi and desserts and the results were amazing!

I prepared some pretty examples to get the students inspired…

By the end of this busy day, the students rang the little bell to announce the sushi’s they have made today. What beautiful work they have done!

 

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Thursday Rehearsal

First rehearsal for puppet show, directed by Miss Elena.

Lila is an excellent narrator. She is patiently waits for each actor to rehearse their parts, the reads her lines so clearly. She ties the whole show together so well with her steady voice.


Scene of the three naughty children taunting the poor baby sea turtle at the beach.

The two fish fairy maidens guarding the gates of the majestic sea dragon palace.


First rehearsal of the manta ray procession.


Scene when Urashima Tarō returned to his home.

horseplaying around with unfinished theater prop…

We decided to assign the direction of the Harajuku girls scene to Autumn.

She decided to practice TikTok dances with her friends. They picked these pieces for their characters.

This was the second song she chose…

and the last one she choose…”Baby You”

Nora decided to stay in the afternoon to craft a manta ray… she practiced walking with flapping the wings of the large puppet.


A little kneeling to fit the wings through the doorway.

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Wednesday

Wednesday, July 17, 2024. Today, the students painted the scenes for the play and also continue to work on needle-felting their characters.


Aiden and Kexin helped me paint the village of Urashima Taro.


The village is hidden inside a fish which has two different façades!

The grey side…

The red side …

When opened, the title of the play is in the belly of the fish.

Wow! Look at Zoe’s artwork on the Rooms of Four Seasons! Zoe and Aiden used acrylic paint on boxes but they look like air brushing! What an artist that Zoe is!

Lila painted the “Summer” scene, Norah painted “Fall”, Kexin painted “Winter”, “Spring” was painted by Kexin and Vega.

It’s summer, the students are happy to see each other, there is also water play outside, one can imagine the high spirits in the class today!

Despite the happy, bustling, rowdy atmosphere today, amidst the enticement of outdoor water play, we managed to get much done! It’s magic!

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Tuesday

Tuesday, July 16, 2024. Yesterday, we told the story of “Urashima Tarō in the Deep Sea Palace” to the children. We asked them to consider which character they like to needle-felt today. The students picked and sketched their favorite characters to create. These are what they started to needle-felt today.

Skye started making an impressive, majestic “Sea Dragon King /海龍王.

Zoey made the giant sea turtle.

Lila made a Harajuku girl.

Vega also made a colorful modern Harajuku girl


I prepared some reference images for the students to consider…


Kexin chose to create Urashima Tarō’s old mother.

Aidan made one of the naughty children taunting the baby sea turtle in the story.

Reference images – Attire of little Japanese fisherman village children…


Alex made a modern day Japanese business man in a hurry to catch a train to work.

Alex wanted to design colorful fashions for the businessmen’s suit, but sadly, I limited him to black only. He could not help it and added a bright red bow tie.

Autumn chose the most complicated craft – Princess Otohime, but as a double doll. She completed her doll in time for the puppet show! Marvelous one – she is so sharp, capable and focused!

References for Princess Otohime


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Monday

Monday, July 15 2024. Today is the first day we gathered to work together. The first lesson in needle-felting humans and animals is to know how to make smooth arms and legs. I wanted to make sure that all the students know how to wrap pipe cleaners using roving and batting, without making bumps in the texture.

Thus, I taught the students to wrap tentacles of the octopus with correct wrapping technic without using of felting. At the end of the day, we each rang the little bell to announce the creation of our musician octopuses.


Kexin’s white octopus plays a green flute.

Zoe made a pink octopus with cool headband.


Vega’s yellow octopus plays the tambourine and maracas!

We also told the students the story of ”Urashima Tarō in the deep Sea Palace“,  a play written by Miss Jzin and Miss Elena, based on the Japanese folk tale, Urashima Taro. The students were unhappy with the sad ending.

“Miss Jzin, are you going to let the story ends just like that, and he dies?”
”but Tarō lived longer than anyone else in his village! He lived for 300 years!” I replied.

“But if felt to him like it was only 3 days. So Tarō lived only for 3 days!”

I did not reply that it was the happiest 3 days of his life and we all must know to cherish each moment of our lives because we do not know which moment is the last with our loved ones.

By the end of the week, the students were so happy in the creation and celebration of the moments in the story that no one laments about the “sad” ending anymore.

 

 

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Some of The Preparations For This Workshop

May 11, 2024. Crafting Urashima Taro, the young and kind fisherman.

Needle-felting is great for creating soft items such as human and animal characters of the play. However, we need hard items for the scenes, such as this little fishing boat, building and larger props.

I wondered if we would have enough time to teach the students to make papier-mache boats? I like how it is hard and can support the dolls.

Urashima Taro – The Youth and The Elderly man

 

 

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