Tree Dressing 2009

This year's tree dressing celebrations on the Ferrier Estate had a musical theme. The Tallis Year 8 steel band played to an appreciative crowd in Telemann Square, following a lantern parade around the estate led by a jazz band. The fireworks orchestrated by Emergency Exit Arts were spectacular, as was Rosa's soup served up free for everyone from the Community Hall. Listen to the festive sounds of the band as people gathered together out of the cold.



We hope to create a website this year celebrating the sights and sounds of this special occasion. Thanks to everyone who took part, to the artists, technicians, cooks, police officers and organisers, and especially our very own Creative Communities Development Officer, Lisa Sproat, who sadly missed the event that she had worked so hard to help organise because of a dodgy tooth! Get well soon Lisa.

Meeting with our national School of Creativity advisor

We are fortunate to be meeting our new School of Creativity advisor on Monday. His name is Julian Sefton-Green and he is a leading authority in the following fields:

• youth, media and technology
• regeneration, community and education policy
• creativity, learning and arts research.

This is a great opportunity for us to gain a national perspective from Julian about creative learning in the context of our own regeneration project, our community cohesion agenda and our interest in new technologies, emerging literacies and digital media. Julian's experience of working with young people in a variety of contexts (most recently at WAC) and his research about learning and creative production beyond the classroom, will help us to frame our own thinking about curriculum reform and the transition to the new school.

Here is the agenda for the day:

9.50 – 10.50 Meet with Rob Thomas, Headteacher

Break

11.10 – 12.10 Meeting with Jon Nicholls, Arts College Manager

12.10 – 1.10 Lunch with staff and students in the Creativity ARG Group (Room 208)

1.10 – 2.10 TallisLAB Staff INSET session with Soren Hawes, Creative Learning Co-Ordinator, Andrew Davids, Lead Teacher of Creative Learning, Jon Nicholls, John Riches, Creative Agent
and staff delivering the TallisLAB course

2.10 – 2.40 Feedback to Rob Thomas and Jon Nicholls

2.40 – 3.10 Further discussion with Rob Thomas (if required)

I hope many of you can make the lunch meeting in 208. Your collective contribution to our achievements as a School of Creativity have been very impressive and I am sure Julian would be interested in how we work together and your ideas for the future.

Home is where the art is

This afternoon I spoke to a former Tallis student, Kat Joyce, about two exciting projects. I taught Kat when she was in Year 8 (I think that was 1991) and she was later in my sixth form tutor group. She has since gone on to bigger and better things, working in the performing arts as a writer/director. The first project is called Home. This is how it's described on the website:

Whether home is a mansion, a shack, or a tent, we all strive to protect the place of safety that we’ve created. Is home a place, a language, a network of people, or a four-walled structure? How fragile is the membrane between home and the rest of the world? We wanted to challenge ourselves to create a show which did not rely on a traditional theatre building – which has its suitcase packed and is ready to be performed anywhere. A homeless piece of theatre that can happen in tents, car parks and in woods, in fact anywhere. The concept for the show sprung from a desire to challenge and stretch the ensemble’s ability to react honestly and freshly to each new performance, making each show real and live. Home is a nomadic performance which we are continuing to devise and test in many different spaces – inside and outside, in the woods, in underground tunnels, in nightclubs and at festivals, for audiences of many and audiences of one. We are still finding out what Home might become, but we are excited by the idea that, rather than making a show which has a finished, fixed form, we could create a show which is like a resourceful camper, with the outfit and gadgets to adapt to each new circumstance, which is formed afresh each time from an expanding repertoire of work, responding live to each new temporary home.

The film above is a document of a previous residency carried out by Tangled Feet at a school in St. Albans. I like the way the performance uses different spaces around the school, takes people by surprise and asks some challenging questions about the idea of home. It occurred to me that the project echoed many of our thoughts about the nature of creativity (risk, challenge, imagination, collaboration, exploration etc.) and the ideas we have shared about a site specific event at Tallis. One of the key issues we face, of course, is our own change of home as we move to a new school. This mirrors the creation of new residential homes to replace the existing Ferrier Estate just on our doorstep.

Kat is also working on a project called 1 Mile Away in collaboration with Nathan Curry. It is a new play about a one-mile-radius area of London. From Parliament to Elephant, Vauxhall Farm to Lower Marsh, Kat and Nathan are collaborating with many local people to build a literary picture of the many narratives in this complex area. Kat will be weaving all the ideas into a new play, which will be performed by a professional cast in the summer. I really liked the idea of a community generated story, the strands of which are collected using social networking tools.

Again, I thought it would be great to chat to Kat about the possibility that we could collaborate with her on our event, perhaps incorporating elements of both Home and 1 Mile Away. As a result, I have asked Kat to come in to talk to us next Friday after school. I think this will help to put some meat on the bones of our emerging ideas. Come prepared to explain to her what we've been doing and ask her questions about both of these exciting projects. I look forward to seeing you all then.

Living Cinema

It would be great if every member of the Creative Tallis Action Research Group could attend this event. In a sense, it's a dress rehearsal for the "Food for Thought" installation in the summer. We also need some volunteers on the night to help with food and I'm hoping that the VJs will be able to give us an insight into the way they work. I will attempt to get a letter out to you all on Monday explaining everything. In the meantime, please show your parents the flyer and ask them if they want to come along and if they are happy with you being involved.