Autumn has landed and an intense period of creativity has begun!
Fuelled with inspiration from my recent visit to Babaró International Arts Festival in Galway, I have hit the ground running following confirmation that Arts Council England would support the full devising and touring of Dance in the Dark, a brand new touring show, made for theatre spaces, for ages 3-6 WHOOP WHOOP!!!
It's been a year since research and development for the show, where I was able to weave co-creation with children and families into my research process, both out in the community, schools and with invitations to families to come into the studio to play with professional performers. I'm planning to use this blog to record and reflect on my process as I continue to develop Dance in the Dark placing children and families at the heart of the work.
Now that I have a clear idea of the show I want to make, how can I continue to involve children and families in the devising process, both as creative contributors and as essential critics of the work?
For this project I was really keen to continue the relationship I had started with children and families at Warwickshire Childen and Family Centres and Edgewick Primary School. I wanted to be able to offer these families the opportunity to participate in a longer project with us over 6 weeks, rather than a one off workshop and of course I wanted to them to be able to ultimately come and watch Dance in the Dark at the theatre. Many of the families I am working with have never been to the theatre before or participated in dance and music workshops. Reasons for this are both financial and cultural, they can't afford to go to theatre and they often think it is not for them. I want all children to experience the magic of the theatre, my hope is that by removing financial barriers and building a relationship with these families over a period of time, they will feel confident enough to come.
We have set up a 6 week programme of weekly workshops, starting in Camp Hill Children and Family Centre. Here we have two groups, one group are 3 year olds from the nursery attached to the childrens centre and the other group are families with pre-school children age 2+ (and siblings) with their grown-ups. Fortunately, with the support of the childrens centre we have been able to get good numbers of families to attend and I have been pleased that many of the families are returning each week.
The weekly sessions are being delivered by myself and Anthony, it has been joyful and a privilage to have live music every week. Largely on guitar the children are drawn to the instrument like the pied piper. Anthony's music sets the atmosphere and provides a wonderful calming effect, often commented on by parents after the session. We are exploring in depth the themes from Dance in the Dark, trying out ideas and seeing how we can creatively solve problems by offering movement and music provocations to the children and observing their responses.
As Dance in the Dark explores the night time we are playing with shadows, in the show the performers will dance with and create shadows, inspired by noctural creatures. I am interested in how the children interact in the shadows as there will be also a participatory opportunity for this in the show, as well as the noctural creatures and other things that come from their imaginations.
We set up explorations using a screen and light. I observed the children really loved watching the shadows being made, a little bit of magic. However, the concept of shadow making appears too abstract for very young children, who found it very difficult to make their own shadows as they did not understand where to place their bodies in the space so that they could see their own shadow making. Their instincts were to try and touch the screen and they often stood in front of the light, blocking the shadows they were making. I am now trying some different ways of making shadows, placing the light in different places, higher up so they have to reach up to make shadows and also using torches to make shadows on the floor. So far these experiments have also given me the same conclusion. What is clear though is how much both children and adults enjoy the magic of watching and making shadows.
As well as movement explorations, we've been exploring sound using our voices and percussion and a big theme that is emerging, nocturnal animals, which I'll talk about in future blogs.
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