News
Soul Food: A community drama project.
04 Mar 2011
Bounce Theatre is delighted to be collaborating with Orleans Park School on a unique community project!
Pupils at Orleans Park are taking an innovative approach to finding out more about their local community, with a play about the joys of food!
Through a collaboration with Bounce Theatre, the drama department have founded a youth company -Theatrelab. Theatrelab is an extended schools project that allows students the opportunity to collaborate with theatre professionals and explore different ways of making performance. The company began working in September 2010, presenting a short piece at Christmas inspired by the lyrics of Christmas songs. Their performance included a mince pie feast with their audience, which led them to explore the idea of how food can create a community.
Pupils have gone on to interview their friends, family and local businesses to find out more about peoples associations with food- collecting an array of memories from rings accidently dropping into Christmas puddings to the wonderful smells of cheese. This material has been workshopped by the students and the results are being scripted by Bounce Theatre, for the pupils to perform in July 2011.
During this process, the pupils are remaining actively involved in the creation of the work, running their own sessions to develop the script aswell as working as Creative Producers of the project to develop their business skills.
Helen Smith, Head of Drama says of the project ""We are very excited to have an opportunity to raise the profile of the school in the surrounding area. Working with the local community and local businesses could provide us with some fantastic opportunities. The core group of students who are producing Theatrelab have already enjoyed meeting local business people and hearing their stories about food. We hope to be able to promote the school allotments through the project we create and also build upon the school's reputation within the local community. As Head of Drama at Orleans Park I am looking forward to seeing this project evolve with the great help and guidance from Bounce Theatre."
For more information about the project or to contribute your own food memory, please email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or call 02084081124
My son has developed in confidence since starting drama, he's no longer afraid to come to school.