Tony at Allenbourn 2

WCT The Great Rinsing
Blog Entry Friday 13 May 2011
Tony Horitz

Two good sessions again this Thursday (12th). The 26 Allenbourn young people are as keen as ever – some have been thinking up ‘futuristic’ names for their ensemble characters. Other suggestion was ‘Bottle Top’, based on the details they’ve been given about their costumes by the AUCB Costume Design students last week. Show what they take in!

We worked on ‘flocking’ this week – I began with an idea I got from reading the Bubble Teachers’ Notes from the script of their Dockland Blitz project, Blackbirds, which some of us went to see in Southwark Park last Tuesday – and really enjoyed.

We made a circle and thought of luxury items we would not have if we were living on the streets searching for water and food to survive in the future. One by one we had to discard these items – speaking their name and putting them into the circle. Very interesting. Several tried to ‘act’ the emotion of having to give up precious items – such as Play Stations or parents. I suggested they did it very simply and tried not to play it for laughs. Gradually they got the hang of this. A particularly moving moment was when one boy (11 or 12?) said ‘My true soul’. I asked him afterwards what he’d meant by this. He said if things got really bad in the future, and you had to fight for water, you would have to lose some of your humanity to survive. I was quite gobsmacked by this profound level of thinking.

Overall, I think the ritual form of this ‘discarding’ exercise created a strong atmosphere of concentration and commitment in the group. Afterwards they worked alone, searching the empty room for water or food. Though some of the work was little OTT, they took it seriously. I asked them to get into their same groups as last week and select the kind of movements they had felt worked best when working alone. Then they numbered themselves 1-7 and took turns to lead the group in ‘flocking’ – kind of follow my leader, where each takes turn to lead everyone in different movement – crawling, creeping, running, stretching up, etc. They did this well, once they’d worked out a way of sharing the leadership fairly – though on or two said they didn’t want to be leaders at all. I persuaded them to have a go, which I think they did!

Then I asked them to repeat the activity, but incorporating the new water related nursery rhymes they devised with Karen and me the previous week. I thought this might be too hard for them. But no, they did it almost straightaway. I suggested a time tension – that they were now doing this after many hours of work. It slowed them down and looked great. We shared it all at once – and the fact that the nursery rhymes came and went at different times and the groups used all the space in the hall – with no specific audience points was somehow more effective. It was quite scary, in fact – especially when one group approached me (as an ‘audience member’) and sniffed at me! Like being surrounded by a pack of wild dogs!

I can kind of see this happening in the Pump House – maybe when they first appear to speak to Charlie and Laura. Thoughts? Anyway, I was very pleased with the group’s work – as was Suzy, their teacher, who is completely supportive. Very refreshing to have teachers who give such commitment. Teaching Assistant also great.

Next week I hope to introduce the words from Scene 1 and work on those. Peth has suggested approaching this as if the children are in a ‘narcoleptic’ state – I googled this up and found (“Excessive Daytime Sleepiness (EDS), even after adequate night time sleep. A person with narcolepsy is likely to become drowsy or fall asleep or just be very tired throughout the day, often at inappropriate times and place”). I have to confess I felt a bit like this in the Steering Group meeting after the Allenbourn session! Sorry for the yawns, guys! But seriously, I think it will make for interesting work with the young people next week.

I’m looking forward to our next session.