Section A

Introduction to Trestle
Trestle Theatre Company collaborates with UK and international artists to create physical storytelling theatre
with diverse cultural expression and has been touring devised theatre across the UK and abroad since 1981.
With three strands of creative work, Trestle Touring, Trestle Arts Base and Trestle Taking Part, Trestle aims to
make live arts experiences matter for audiences and participants of all ages.

Trestle’s History and Mask Sets:

Trestle Theatre Company was founded in 1981 by a group of students on leaving Middlesex University. To
support its education programme, Trestle developed a series of three mask sets with teaching notes to
accompany them in 1994. The Basic, Intermediate and Advanced mask sets are currently made at Trestle Arts
Base and distributed across the world to teachers, theatre makers, youth leaders, therapists and community
workers.

Trestle’s touring work has always used a combination of narrative, movement, image, mask, text, music,
design and puppetry to tell stories. In 2002 the Company moved into Trestle Arts Base and since 2004 Emily
Gray, the first new artistic director since the Company began, has been developing a new era for Trestle.
Masks remain a vital educational and developmental tool for the Company and the Trestle Taking Part
programme. In the touring work, physical theatre forms other than mask are currently being explored.

The Basic Mask Set and Resource Pack:

These are designed to introduce students to physical, visual and mask drama. The resource pack guides
teachers and practitioners through a series of workshop exercises.

The Intermediate Mask Set and Teaching Notes:

These support in depth exploration of masked characters and open up possibilities for creating longer pieces
using detailed physical vocabularies.

The Advanced Mask Set and Teaching Notes:

These develop skills in devising and performing physical theatre, both in and out of mask. The masks are more
naturalistic than the Basic and Intermediate sets and encourage complex thought processes and physical
languages to be expressed in performance.

Drama and the National Curriculum:

Trestle’s Mask Sets are an ideal starting point for students beginning their investigations into physical theatre.
For the student familiar with facial and vocal expression, they are the perfect prompt for the discovery of a
new world of physical communication.

The process of working in mask facilitates the teaching of the national Curriculum in English (Drama) at KS3
and 4 with specific reference to:

KS3:

Use different dramatic approaches to explore ideas, texts and issues.

Use different dramatic techniques to convey action, character, atmosphere and tension.
Explore the way that actions, sound and staging combine to create dramatic moments.

KS4:

Use a range of dramatic approaches to explore complex ideas, texts and issues in scripted and
improvised work.
 Select different dramatic techniques to convey action, character, atmosphere and tension and justify
choices.
Evaluate drama performances that they have watched or taken part in.

Mask work is a specified option within the Edexcel, AQA and OCR drama and theatre studies specifications at
GCSE, BTEC, Diploma and A/AS Levels.

The rules outlined in the accompanying notes work well if you are using Trestle-style masks to a make a piece
of performance that is in the vein of Trestle’s early performances. It is not, however, the only way to perform
mask theatre.

We would encourage you to find your own ways of exploring how you could make the mask do what you
want it to do, rather than what you think you ought to do. For example, you could touch your mask, or even
take it off in front of an audience, if there is a real purpose behind that gesture; knocking it off or removing it
because it’s getting hot will not work. The one rule to be followed is that the masks should not be treated by
the performer as either a hindrance or as an accident.

Trestle Touring makes productions which are created and previewed at Trestle Arts Base and toured across
the UK and abroad. Trestle’s touring shows are influenced by International Workshop Residencies at Trestle
Arts Base, which explore particular diverse cultural physical forms and look at their use in non verbal
storytelling theatre. International touring plays a major part in the Company’s work with visits to 31 countries to
date, including collaborations with Little Jasmine, India, Sydney Theatre Company, Australia and the Kherson
Puppet Theatre, Ukraine.

Trestle Arts Base is a beautifully refurbished chapel which houses a studio theatre, rehearsal and meeting
rooms, workshop and exhibition spaces and a thriving café. It is the home of all the Company’s operations, a
performance research and development centre, a tour venue for a diverse range of professional
performances and hub of creative opportunities for local and regional communities.

Trestle Taking Part includes a range of participatory work, engaging people of all ages locally, nationally and
internationally and enhancing learning and skills. All the projects involve active creative involvement and are
underpinned by questions of identity and communication and use theatre forms such as storytelling, mask,
martial arts, and devising, crafting and manipulating objects to strengthen confidence and explore
performance. The Company’s Workshop Leaders deliver Mask Skills and Physical Theatre workshops across the
UK and abroad. Trestle also offers workshops, residencies and training in Fighting Talk (Indian Theatre and
Martial Arts), Playing with Fire (Flamenco and Physical Theatre fusion), Scaling the Heights (Polish Movement
and Rhythm) and Moon Fooling (Music and Physicality within Shakespeare).

Professional development opportunities are available for arts professionals, teachers and youth leaders
through skills workshops and for businesses through bespoke training programmes. In 2009 Trestle teamed up
with Middlesex University to deliver a unique MA course in Education (Drama) – the very first of its kind in the
UK.

Credits:

The resource pack and notes were written by Joff Chafer, Amanda Wilsher and Toby Wilsher, with illustrations
by Joff Chafer, and compiled by Martha Hawkins and Penny Mayes. The introduction has been updated by
Emily Gray and Oliver Jones. The exercises were collated from numerous sources and have developed and
changed as Trestle practitioners have used them. Below is a list of some of the teachers and directors with
whom the Company has worked with and been influenced by: John Wright, Daniel Stein, Mike Alfreds,
Philippe Gaulier, Nola Rae, Joan Font, Jill Wilsher, Leslie Hendy.

Books which support this work: The Mask Handbook by Toby Wilsher, The Mastery of Movement by Rudolf
Laban, Playing the Game by Christine Poulter, Impro by Keith Johnston.