Transitions

Photo: Transitions

June and July have been a period of great change and transition for us all. Members of DIY’s core company have been transitioning from the digital world to meeting up face to face as part of our new Inside: Outside project in Peel Park. DIY has also been working with children from Springwood Primary School. The pupils are getting ready to transition to Chatsworth Secondary School following the Summer break.

Inside: Outside

During June and July DIY’s core company has been busy developing our new ‘Inside: Outside’ project.

This is our first face-to-face project for over a year and everybody has been very excited to be able to meet in person. Inside: Outside represents a period of coming together after a long period of separation, as well as an artistic exploration around the themes of institutions / lockdown and release / freedom recalling our work developing ‘Following Patient 36’.

DIY artists have had the amazing opportunity to work with some fantastic practitioners in Outdoor Arts to develop new skills and ways of working.

Working with specialists in creating art for outdoors

We worked with outdoor arts specialist Sonya Moorhead in our 4th Inside: Outside session. (See photo above)

Sonya is a performance artist who regularly works freelance as singer, director, writer and project developer. Sonya shared her experiences and skills of performing outdoors. She introduced us to a number of exercises and activities that encouraged us to focus on and build theatre and character from details. We also explored different way of working together as a “chorus” where a number of actors work together to create a single character.

Our next session, which took place on 6th July, was another really interesting workshop. This time Sue and Edward from Whalley Range Allstars came to work with DIY Artists.

Whalley Range All Stars is one of the UK’s leading street theatre companies. Their theatre shows combine visual art with performance to create vivid, entertaining productions for outdoor festivals and events.

Sue and Edward shared their approaches to creating outdoor shows as visual artists and performers. In the morning we worked in two groups to experience the activities as both actors and audience members. We explored how we can use distance and scale when creating outdoor arts. In the afternoon we explored ideas of inside and outside using ribbon triangles which we played with to create different effects. Sue and Edward even introduced us to a giant inflatable baby!

Still to come

We are looking forward to workshops with Beka Haigh and Global Grooves later in July.

Beka is a puppet maker, performer, and co-founder of Frolicked puppet theatre company – an outdoor, puppet-based company touring across Europe. Frolicked create unique and intimate experiences for all kinds of unusual spaces and places, with memorable, beautifully illustrated, self-made puppets and performances.

Our last session will be a dance and music session with outdoor arts specialists Global Grooves who will share their skills and experience in creating carnival and processional work.

Inside: Outside so far has been an amazing experience. It’s been wonderful to meet together in the beautiful environment of Peel Park and to work with such inspirational practitioners and companies. We will be building on all our new skills and experiences when we start meeting together in September following our Summer break.

I’ve enjoyed working at Peel Park – I like working at Peel Park because you can work outdoors – meeting up with our friends again and not being on Zoom”.
Angela Chadwick

 

photo of Sophie as the Spaceman

DIY Emerging Artist Sophie Coward leads Year 6 on a journey through the stars.

Healthy Schools Transitions Project

During June and July DIY Theatre has also been working at Springwood Primary School with four amazing groups of Year 6 learners as part of a Healthy Schools Transition Project. This is an exciting but also a challenging time for year 6s and the Healthy Transitions project is designed to support them to improve their team-working, learn new skills, improve their confidence and self-esteem as well as preparing for transition.

A series of six full-day sessions have taken place, based on the theme of a journey through space. It has been wonderful to be working with learners at Springwood School and exploring creative ways to support them in their journey from primary to high school. Year 6 learners have been journeying through the stars, thinking about all the things they love about Springwood Planet, but also exploring their excitement about landing on Chatsworth planet in September

We’ve loved working with Year 6 learners and look forward to meeting them as Year 7s at Chatsworth School for the second half of the project this Autumn.

This project has been developed in partnership with Chatsworth and Springwood schools and supported by the Healthy Schools Transition Fund. The fund has been established to improve the health and well-being of children as they transition from Primary School to Secondary School. The fund is supported by Salford City Council and NHS Salford Clinical Commissioning Group and managed and administered by Salford CVS.

 

DIY Theatre Company is grateful to the following for their support for this work:

Logos of the funders who have supported this work