Pennsic mini-Bardic Madness Challenges

	Pennsic 44 (2015) mini-Bardic Madness Challenges

The purpose of today's challenges is to encourage the participants' creativity and artistic growth. They are not meant to be competitions - everyone who takes part can consider themselves a winner.
Your response to the various challenges may be in many different forms. Song or story are the most obvious choices; however juggling, magic, instrumental, or dance can also express an idea or tell a tale. All of these could be used to answer a given challenge (though perhaps not all at the same time :-). Our desire here is to be inclusive rather than exclusive. If you have something to share that doesn't quite fit or that stretches the definitions a little, then fire away.
It is our wish to create a "bardic safe zone" - a friendly place where you may feel free to experiment and try new things. If you've never performed before, now's your chance. You'll be hard pressed to find a friendlier and more supportive audience. We would be delighted to see lots of first time performers.
Please remember, in order to make sure as many gentles get a chance to perform as possible, we ask that you limit your performances so that they run less than five minutes.

Gentles wishing to participate as a supportive adience are most welcome to attend.

Fyt the First:
Pass the Tale	All those who wish to participate get up together, and tell a tale from beginning to end. The challenge's patron will 'conduct' by pointing to the person whose turn it is to continue the tale, and deciding when it is time to end.
Bad Plaid	St John the Fool was almost always seen wearing some form of chequey or lozengy fabric. It is possible he was single-handedly responsible for the lozenge shortage of 1482. Spin a song or weave a story that somehow involves such eye-watering fabric. The evil among you could even sew, knit, or crochet such an atrocity to illustrate your tale.
Apocryphal of Scry	As you may have gathered, the various Saints' stories don't have a whole lot of truth to them. Surely, there's a tale or two yet to unfold. Go forth to search the "authoritative record" and see if you can find one. If not, make one up out of whole cloth - it is, in fact, period :-)

Challenge General Rules

Challenges are not contests. You win by entering and striving to do the best you can.
Challenges are designed to encourage you to try your hand at something new, to stretch yourself, to enjoy, and to celebrate the creative spirit.
Read the guidelines for the challenges carefully, like most exercises, they are designed to help you develop in specific areas. Try to follow them as closely as you can, but stretching them in unexpected directions is good too.
Individuals are welcome and encouraged to give recognition to those performers whom they especially enjoy.
In order to allow the largest number of people to participate, challenge entries shall be limited to five minutes or less. Each person may enter one piece in either the 'On the Other Claw' or 'Prior Proper Preparation' challenges. All are welcome to try their hand at 'Pass the Tale.'

This page maintained by Cerian Cantwr, cerian@minstrel.com.

Last updated: 2015-06-10

Pennsic 44 (2015) mini-Bardic Madness Challenges

Challenge General Rules