Gargantua

I've just returned from seeing the amazing production of 'Gargantua' at Tallis. It's part of the National Theatre Connections Festival and is being performed both in school and at The Soho Theatre next week. Fingers crossed we get selected to perform at the national Theatre itself! The show demonstrates the amazing talents not only of our young students (nearly everyone in the play is from KS3) but also the collaborative creativity of our staff. The play is fantastically entertaining and has everything from a live band to huge animations in addition to the wonderful performances.

Well done to everyone involved for another groundbreaking event at Tallis.

Phobias

It's always great to see staff and students collaborating on rich, inter-disciplinary projects that have real audiences. But when the quality of the work is as high as it was during the two nights of 'Phobias', you realise that this kind of learning creates fantastic outcomes for all involved. The students of different ages get to behave like real arts practitioners, producing original and exciting work to a very high standard. The staff work as a team and learn skills from one another and the students, extending notions of what is possible. The audience leave with a sense of what can be achieved by young people and their teachers when they are prepared to take a few risks and trust in each other's skills.

Last year's 'Restaurant' project was the first time we had attempted an inter-disciplinary arts event quite so ambitious. I am delighted to say that 'Phobias' has raised the bar again. The audience was stimulated by a massive variety of multi-sensory experiences in a wide variety of art forms that wouldn't have been out of place in a contemporary art gallery or cutting edge theatrical space.

The company of costumed performers was enhanced by an army of backstage technical wizards with banks of laptops, speakers, cameras and other props. Visitors could begin their exploration of various irrational fears in the bar in two complimentary installations by feeling what it might be like to be be buried alive. Then it was time to be whisked into an operating theatre where they witnessed a patient close to death, live brain surgery via a video projection and the overpowering smell of chemicals and animal flesh. They then journeyed down a dark tunnel, where disfigured toys brushed against their faces, strangers screamed and hands reached out to grab their legs. Making their way through a hot, burning room and a door of flames, the audience then entered a large space which was quickly transformed into a mixture of therapy room, living nightmare and punishment chamber. Wall to wall video projections and a synchronised team of performers assaulted them with horrifying tales of death by fire, water and earth, before they were finally and unceremoniously ordered to leave.

The entire event was a real tribute to the energy, creativity and faith displayed by a dedicated team of staff at Tallis and the immense trust they have in the talents of our students. Thanks to everyone involved!

50 Years of Motown tribute site

I was so inspired by the wonderful performances at the Motown Tribute concert last night that I decided to make a website containing some of the sounds I recorded on my phone using the excellent Wix. I've also now added a few photographs I took today in the performance for Year 8. Check them out!

Tangled Feet

Kat Joyce emailed today to suggest that we create a long list of ideas for the Tangled Feet residency. I said I'd put a post up here to get the ball rolling. So, what would you like to see happening between our volunteers and the Tangled Feet crew. Remember, the main theme is "Home", how we define it and what it means to us. The school is moving home within the next couple of years and folk at Tallis have a variety of feelings about the current home. Students will soon be moving to Tallis from their primary schools and Year 13 students have just left their Tallis home for university and world of work.

Also, it will be possible for groups of students and artists/performers to work on a range of projects simultaneously. For example, one group could devise a short site specific performance to be shown at lunchtime whilst another group could be preparing a soundscape and yet another might be designing an installation.

Please respond to this post with your suggestions for possible activities so that the folks at Tangled Feet can prepare themselves and we can all get hold of the necessary resources.

Finally, I think it's important to send a letter home to the parents of the selected 20 to inform them about the residency. Has this already happened or do we need to write something for Tuesday? Are we going to have reserves in case some people drop out before the 29th? Are you expecting to be part of the team who works with Tangled Feet? All this and more can be revealed in your comments.

Finally, finally, how do we plan to document the residency and evaluate whether or not it has been a success? Any thoughts?

Meeting with Kat Joyce

Friday's meeting with Kat proved to be very useful. She began by giving us a brief description of two projects with which she is involved. The first is as an associate director of the theatre company, Tangled Feat. The company specialises in physical theatre. They undertake long term collaborations which emphasise the values of trust and teamwork. They are currently working on their 6th Show entitled “Home”. This is their first project as a company. The piece is site responsive and was developed as an experiment which began life at the Deptford Albany. The show can happen in a variety of locations and gets richer the more people are involved. It is packed away into suitcases. One of the previous residencies was in a school in St. Albans where a performance of the play was improvised by 45 people. The company are also this year working with asylum seekers in Stockton and families in Kings Cross.

The second project is called "1 Mile Away" and is an exploration of a 1 mile radius area of South London. Unlike "Home" it is script based and the consequence of a collaborative workshop writing process with stories also being submitted to the project website and on Twitter. The emphasis is on non-linear and shared narratives and the final piece will be performed in local areas within the mile radius.

The discussion that followed explored the possibility that we could incorporate some of these ideas and working methods into our summer event(s) working collaboratively with Kat and Tangled Feet.

Discussion Notes

Stories and places.
Potential of the Tallis site – lends itself to site specific work.
Punch Drunk - a theatre company specialising in site specific work
dreamthinkspeak - another company who have utilised unusual locations for promenade pieces
Need to experiment with this kind of work to see what happens.
Could we use “Home” as a starting point? Do we start with Drama or can other activities be included – photography, sound, languages, history, geography?
Weeks 1st June, 22nd June, 29th June, 6th July then September residency possible
Changing perception of spaces
One event can cause a chain reaction.
£3650 + materials for a week residency
How can we get parents involved?
We need to write a brief – aims, budget, roles and responsibilities, scope of the project, partners in school
Could we use this project as an experiment to see if something even more ambitious could be created next year? A community opera? A huge site specific performance telling the story of Thomas Tallis School? A celebration of the 30 years on the current site and a way to say goodbye to the present building?

The group agreed that we would like to engage the services of Kat and Tangled Feet for a week long residency this summer with the possibility that this would be extended into the Autumn term. I agreed to write a draft brief which would be given to Kat before her meeting with the company this Wednesday. I'll try to put something up online for discussion today.

Thanks to Kat for agreeing to meet with us and inspiring us with some fantastic ideas. Watch this space!

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.