“Lots of companies claim to be 'participatory groups who work with communities' but they aren’t. Festive Road creates real carnival, engages and connects with their audience ...they create a magic, a weirdness, a vibrancy and mayhem which is really different.” Sian Thomas
So we have reached the end of a second year of the great tea project and there have been moments when I hoped I'd never have to slap on the blue face paint ever again...
Over the summer we gave 7 performances between 11th June and 11th September 2011 at Northampton Carnival, Oxford Carnival & CNSE Gala, Milton Keynes World Picnic and The Mayors Thames Festival.
This second year provided excellent development time for Festive Road as a company, we had already engaged the core team so less time was spent recruiting and more time was given to building skills, finding clarity of roles, exploring possibilities, developing the work together and finding time for tea.
We did recruit an Artistic Director, Sian Thomas, as an ‘outside pair of eyes’ though and I received a small bursary from, Creative Northants, to support my professional development as an artistic director. This enabled me to work closely with Sian Thomas and as a co-director. Although in practise, much of the focus was on managing our volunteer performers and musicians and there was not as much time for the mentoring or for the ongoing reflection until after the summer.
We wanted to create time to develop the Brewing Up performers, musicians and trainee makers and did this through creating regular rehearsals sessions during May to July 2011.
In these rehearsals, which were lead by Sian Thomas, Manuela Benini and Mat Fox, we did some team building work, as well as having lots of laughs and developing the new musical arrangements and movement. The music was really fantastic this year. The rehearsals were at times fairly chaotic and our expectations were high. On reflection the outcome was incredible, considering the time we actually had and the number of tea breaks which were made, after late comers had arrived or left and once peoples baggage had been unpacked!
We have had some time now to look back and along with Sian, have begun to discuss our plans for next year. In doing so I realise now what a difficult thing we were trying to do by holding the balance between ‘giving people opportunities to participate’ and ‘producing a high quality and original show’.
In many ways the Brewing Up project this year became a support network for many of the people involved, many of whom were looking for self development opportunities, professional support or friendship in difficult times. For example, we set up and provided space and support for a women’s 'voluntary sewing group' who met at our unit and worked with our artists over May and June to create the wonderful new costumes.
Some of the volunteers involved in Brewing Up were people who we’ve been nurturing for some time as trainee makers or performers, others had professional skills which they wanted to offer the company and some were young people keen to learn new skills and perform at carnivals and festivals.
I think that it was important for the performers and artists to have a focus and to have events to work towards, even though the events were all fairly low key. So the emphasis was on building up skills, enjoyment, increasing performance experience and building up the confidence of the performers in preparation for 2012. We now have a skilled, committed and enthusiastic group for next year.However the process revealed to me the need for clear role responsibility within our organisation and also, as we raise our aspirations of being a successful 'outdoor arts company,' the limitations and frustrations of working with volunteers and non professionals against the particular special energy that they bring to the work.
The whole process has been exhausting for all of Festive Roads core team, not least myself, who as usual took on too many roles but it was definitely worthwhile! There were moments when we began to question where we had left to go with this project and how we would keep building momentum and retain our own interested for another year? And in the last couple of months we have spent some time as a company in dialogue, questioning our motivations and checking that we still have a collective vision? It seems that we have, that there's more tea to be made and Brewing Up will live to dance another glorious and final year.
Brewing Up has really helped us to understand our strengths and weaknesses as a company and where our work sits it terms of outdoor arts/theatre/carnival. It has been very challenging but we have been able to continue developing an excellent extended team of musicians, technicians and performers as a result.
As the project begins to unfold again we will be identifying producers and promoters in order to present Brewing Up as a finished national touring show for 2012. Our ambition is still to develop the audience experience and to create more spectacular structures and costumes with the idea of creating a highly original performance for presentation on the Outdoor Arts circuit.
So, we begin again to develop a collaborative vision, we’ve made designs, tested ideas, materials and are beginning to create the new structures which will be part of the final show. All top secret!
We're keeping the kettle warm, the construction is ongoing and it's all dependant on final funding of course!
We're keeping the kettle warm, the construction is ongoing and it's all dependant on final funding of course!
Make time for Tea!
