Join General Manager Hannah in the middle of a very hot, very happy week…
It’s Wednesday 8 July, we’re three schools into this year’s Playground Tour, and Crawley’s playgrounds have once again been transformed into open-air stages. For the third year running, the tour, produced and toured by The Place and presented locally by Creative Crawley, is visiting five schools in five days, and by Friday over 2,000 children will have watched live professional dance right on their doorstep.
This year’s programme features two original pieces: BUG by Lea Anderson and Prisma by Rotem Weissman. Each school gets two performances across the day, so the whole school can watch, followed by a Q&A where the children put their questions directly to the performers. And they have plenty to ask; from the thoughtful (“How long did it take you to make up the dance?”) to the hopeful (“Can you do a backflip?”). Prisma was created with the support of Explore Dance Network for Young Audiences, and its involvement in The Playground Tour is developed with and supported by the Goethe-Institut London.
A special mention has to go to the sound design in BUG, which is genuinely incredible. Every insect has its own sound, with creaky doors and snapping noises conjuring the movements of different bugs, plus a fun, jazzy honeybee who’s fast becoming our favourite. The children’s reviews so far have been suitably honest, too. One young critic admitted, “I thought this was going to be rubbish, but that man doing the moonwalk was cool” and he wasn’t alone, with the moonwalk proving such a hit that children chanted for more. Others loved “that there were so many animals,” found it “funny when they wiggled their bottoms,” and perhaps summed up the joy of watching contemporary dance best of all: “I didn’t always know what was going on, but I liked the dancing.”
Alongside the performances, children at each school are taking part in creative movement workshops inspired by the pieces. Led by Jennifer Gakst from the Goethe-Institut, the sessions invite children to use their bodies to imitate different animals and creatures, and to invent their own movement games. Watching some of them carry on playing and developing their own games at break time, long after the workshop had finished, has been a real highlight, exactly the kind of spark we hope these visits leave behind.
Did we mention it’s hot? Our huge thanks to the schools, who have been brilliantly flexible — finding shade, putting up gazebos, and making sure everyone can enjoy the performances safely and comfortably.
Two schools to go. We can’t wait.
Written by Hannah Foley, General Manager, Creative Crawley
Images:
Top: Creative Crawley presents Prisma by Rotem Weissman as part of The Playground Tour, produced and toured by The Place, credit Ian Greenland.
Middle: Students at Seymour School enjoy The Playground Tour, credit Ian Greenland.
The Playground Tour is produced and toured by The Place. Prisma was developed with and supported by the Goethe-Institut London. BUG was supported and co-commissioned as part of Stomping Ground, a commissioning partnership with Creative Crawley, City Moves, FABRIC, FESTIVAL.ORG, Pagrav Dance Company, Strike a Light, The Place and Tramway. Thanks to The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, University of Exeter for BUGS! project research support.
