1st edition trailer:
Slow motion:
The Faery Trail is a collaboration between artist Chih-Peng Lucas Kao and costume designer Mona Kastell, to re create faery tales with BAME performers, actors, and dancers. It is a series of miniature video projections, where the magical creatures from Arthur Rackham’s fantasy world are hidden on the walking path. The 1st edition is a site specific video night installation projected on trees. The 2nd edition projections were projected onto objects from the Bury Art & Sculpture Centre, and both edition costumes were displayed.
‘The Faery Trail’ creatures took shape between materiality and the capacity for devising costumes through the performers responsive body in movement, the moving body becoming a design tool. Designed separately, the costumes externalize the performers’ inner creature, visually narrating their own stories and characteristics, yet belonging to the same otherworldly world inspired by Arthur Rackham’s faery tale illustrations. Rethinking our relationship with objects, and what is acceptable as creation, the final costumes show the potential of creating art though not creating waste, from reused found pieces in Mona’s studio, to purchasing pre-loved clothing or natural fibres only fabrics. The chosen pieces and fabrics reflect light through texture, manipulation and colours, in anticipation of the projections.
1st edition: Spectra Festival of Light, February 2018
2nd edition: Bury Art & Sculpture Centre, 6th Oct 2018 – 23rd Feb 2019
Featured on Curated Place website
Director: Chih-Peng Lucas Kao
Cinematography: Steve Cardno (1st edition) & Rob O’Donnell (2nd edition)
Performers: Edition 1: Aya Kobayashi, Mele Broomes, Bejoy Sanjeev; Edition 2: Yandass Ndlovu, Shaban Dar, Chih-Peng Lucas Kao, David Hon Ma Chu aka Eva Serration, Ekua Bayunu and Al Conteh
Costume Designer: Mona Kastell
Make up: Madeleine Drewell (1st edition Aya & Bejoy) & Alison Peters (1st edition Mele); & Abigail Lewis (2nd edition Yandass & Shaban)
Lighting: Rob O’Donnell
Costume Assistants: Yan Smiley & Rosamund McCormack
Production managers: Sebah Chaudhry & Stephen Nuttall
Photography: Mona Kastell unless otherwise specified
