Bodwin’s Invisible Car

Bodwin’s invisible car was a sci-fi story I started many years ago. I was wondering what sort of society we will have when the population is so big and our technology allows massive numbers of vehicle to ‘fly’ around. There will be no environment to look at. What a dismal world. Then I got to thinking that, if we made cameras and screens over the body of vehicles that could show the image of the ‘other’ side of vehicles, the vehicle would’disappear. If every vehicle was like that then you would only see the images of things that were not camouflaged and it would appear as if there were no vehicles at all. This story is about a man who developed the prototype of such a vehicle.

Interestingly not long ago, I saw in a magazine that this technology was already being developed.

I became interested in the idea of deconstruction some years ago and, as I had already written a short story for children (not published but one day…), I realised that deconstruction of story also offered a tool for construction. So I looked at how that might apply to writing story and theatre for children based on themes from Baha’i teachings. It also got me looking at creativity from a Baha’i point of view and that allowed me to give a presentation at an Autumn School.  Creativity presentation. Since then I have found the process very helpful in guiding youth programs in theatre and script writing.

THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH

An exciting offshoot of this process is in the design of choreographical perfomances. This area of performing arts readily lends itself to collaborative works involving youth and older mentors. In one collaboration I presented to a group of teenagers, a ‘movement’ piece that I took from the timing, genuflections and interpretation of “The Long Obligatory Prayer” of the Baha’i Faith. After explaining to them what the piece meant, the group ( a couple of whom had been attending modern dance classes) translated those movements into a more elaborate choreography in keeping with their training and their tastes. They also reviewed contemporary song that they thought might fit the theme, and, when a choice was made, further adapted the choreography to those rhythms. The final piece became something quite new, a creative work with youth performer ownership, something they were enthusiastic to perform in public. How long did it take to design and rehearse: 6 – 8 hours over four days, perfomance evening was on the night of the fourth day. Here’s how it went.