Experimenting with a material: the aluminium foil A theme: the circus Workshop schedule: The workshop will start with music for the presentation of two 'short forms', including a short excerpt of my show 'Aluminiatures' in which I create on the spot aluminium foil figures. With circus as a leading theme the participants will then be invited to manipulate the material, to play with shapes with the aim of presenting the fruits of their experiments at the end of the workshop.

Duration of the workshop: 2h00 Number of participants: 25 persons maximum Required material: A few tables for crafting in small groups of maximum 6 / A sound diffusion system (CD player) / 1 aluminium foil roll for each group.

Barbara Mélois makes a general approach on puppet theatre in France and talks about her own background: from ESNAM (National Higher School of Puppetry Arts) to the World Puppet Theatre Festival. She presents her work and chats with the audience.

Excerpt from "DIAPHANIE or the Memoirs of a Fairy", in which she uses the properties of cellophane. Creation on the spot of several characters and metamorphosis (the pumpkin turns into a coach). In "DIAPHANIE or the Memoirs of a Fairy" the transparency of the cellophane takes us to the marvellous world of fairy tales. The crystal palace, the glass slipper, the diaphanous dresses — they all are effortlessly illustrated and it only takes a snap of the fingers for the spotlights to throw warmth and cold, water and fire upon them. In osmosis with the water and light scenery that she created, Barbara Mélois transposes with delight the story of Cinderella. Charles Perrault had made a universal story out of it — she turns it into a "cinéma paradisiaque" playing with the contrasts of poetry and modernity.

Excerpt from her show "Aluminiatures" in which she creates on the spot figures out of aluminium foil with the audience's complicity. In "Aluminiatures", your common kitchen foil is turned into a baroque barrel organ, a theatre, a stage curtain, a fleeting actor, the dazzle of a thousand lights at a party, dancing and singing to offer a seducing mirror for the audience to look at. Let the visual fest begin!

"Is it a life", in which she uses the properties of cellotape — a small form inspired by an 18th-century pitchman and the short story 'First Sorrow' by Franz Kafka. "Is it a life?" — It's mine! Halfway between plastic arts and theatre. 15 minutes in the life of a tightrope dancer whose Ariadne thread would be a roll of cellotape. "A tightrope dancer had so arranged her life that, as long as she kept working in the same circus, she never came down from her trapeze by night or day." (Variation on First Sorrow, in *The Penal Colony and Other Stories*, Franz Kafka).

For all audiences, duration: 1 hour