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Tudor Time Travel

April 11, 2014 by Bob Christer Leave a Comment

“I was unprepared for just how enthusiastic children were in using their Time Traveller’s Notebooks. This has had a massive impact on their attitude to writing… far exceeded expectations.”
Teacher, St Barnabas Primary

St Barnabas Primary asked if I could create a series of workshops for them loosely themed around Tudor History with a focus on increasing attainment in literacy for a Y3/4 nurture group. What followed was 5 weeks of adventures, travelling back in time to key dates of Tudor history, meeting King Henry VIII, experiencing Tudor Crime and Punishment first hand as the Jury in a complex case, being immersed in the sights, sounds and smells of a Tudor market place….

Some of the content was loosely based around similar projects completed with Speakeasy Theatre Company, but I didn’t just want to repeat past work here. I created 5 new sessions for the school taking techniques and tools that I knew would work, and making them relevant to this project. I suppose I didn’t want to feel I was ripping-off old ideas that didn’t entirely belong to me, but also, I wanted to stretch myself and ensure I was creating the best possible experience for the students.

The sessions focussed on a Time Capsule, dug up in the year 3014 from beneath the students classroom. In it were 5 objects, each relating to a period of Tudor History. The class were enrolled as ‘Time Order Technicians’, tasked with discovering the story behind each object which could then be recorded in individual notebooks handed to them as part of the adventure. As the weeks progressed, so did the young people’s desire to fill their notebooks with ideas, names, stories… Recounting their adventures, and inadvertently developing their cognitive skills in forming ideas, communicating those ideas, and particularly in recording those ideas as a report of what happened.

Together with the fantastic input of Andrew McWilliam, Natalie Nightingale and Georgina Elsom, three very experienced educational theatre practitioners, a whole range of characters were created for the young people to meet. The key for any project like this is always that human story, bringing historical facts to life by making it relevant to a person they can have a conversation with.

The whole project culminated in an assembly, presented by the class to the entire school in which they demonstrated a snippet of each adventure, taking on the characters they had met and sharing their stories.

Some great results, and I even got a book full of letters from the young people as a memento… lovely!

14/48 Leicester – Round Two!

March 30, 2014 by Bob Christer 2 Comments

Boom! Leicester has now hosted not one, but two 14/48 Theatre Festivals. Bringing together over 50 artists each festival, generating real connections that are genuinely inspiring new creative works, new paid opportunities, and developing a whole new raft of theatre-goers in the area clamouring to see what all of the fuss is about.

Believe me, this is just the beginning Leicester! Plans are afoot for other UK based festivals which will put Seattle and Leicester at the heart of an international community of 14/48 Veterans. I’ll be looking for new opportunities for the festival over the coming months in my role as Executive Producer of 14/48 UK, and I can’t wait! There are so many unique ways that this festival can influence and develop a city’s cultural landscape, putting creative leadership in the hands of the artists and simply asking them to create, something so simple that is so often missing these days as finders and investors have so many requirements to fulfil.

The festival will return to Leicester on November 14th and 15th, hope to see you there!

To find out more, visit 14/48 Leicester’s blog here.

Infographic CVs…

January 1, 2014 by Bob Christer Leave a Comment

After making my own CV look a bit more interesting, and hopefully easy to digest, I started to get requests to make CVs for other people, specifically receiving a commission by Performing Arts Leicester to create CVs for the other members of 2013’s Next Gen Leadership programme.

Take a look at the resulting CVs below, I’m sure you’ll agree they’re a very talented bunch! If you fancy a CV like this yourself, then why not drop me an email at bob@bitsofbob.co.uk to see what I could do…?

Shelfield Academy TiE days

September 27, 2013 by Bob Christer Leave a Comment

I spent Thursday at the lovely Shelfield Academy in Walsall, working with a group of Y13 students who are creating a Theatre in Education piece for Y9 pupils. A great bunch of young people, with some great ideas, we spent the day looking at existing styles and methods of creative education practice, as well as considering the interests and experiences of their target audience and how we can use this information to keep their engagement. The piece is going to be looking at tackling the issue of ‘Sexting’ and may go further than the boundaries of their school itself. They will begin their devising process shortly, and I am to return in a couple of weeks to offer further advice on their piece as it takes shape. It’s the first time I’ve been asked to deliver a workshop which was largely about sharing my experience, and talking about my ideas, and what I think works best. Quite a different experience to delivering issue based workshops in secondary schools, or pretending to be a Roman in a primary school, but enjoyable all the same.
I look forward to hearing how their piece is developing, as well as the questions that arise as their process continues.

Time for change…

September 7, 2013 by Bob Christer Leave a Comment

After nearly eight years with Speakeasy Theatre Company, I recently took the decision that it was time to explore new pastures. Not an easy choice, especially given the closeness I felt to the Company members of Movers, a group of Learning Disabled performers whose growth, and self-awareness has developed rapidly in the time I have known them (something I’m sure any of their previous Directors would have felt too), but a decision I felt I had to make nonetheless, in order to explore new challenges, and to continue my own development.

My passion for theatre as an art-form, coupled with my interest and expertise in accessible or disability arts (neither terms I’m particularly fond of) are still areas I would like to explore, but I decided to take a bit of a sideways step. I have been aware of the fantastic work of Pedestrian for most of my time in Leicester, and jumped at the chance to join their team in the role of Project Coordinator. Pedestrian are a charity committed to high quality education projects in areas of social deprivation, exclusion, and non-educational settings. Their work focusses mostly in achieving tangible results, accredited qualifications etc… through multiple art-forms, primarily music. Their work, and this role, had many appealing factors for me: witnessing first hand how another highly regarded and successful arts organisation operates; exploring further work in the field of education, particularly in re-engaging disengaged young people; discovering new skills and approaches to education via multiple art-forms; as well as looking for opportunities to use my expertise to help develop and strengthen the charity’s work further.

I’m already experiencing a fantastic wealth of challenge and development from just a few weeks in my new role, and am lucky enough to have freelance time to explore other passions and projects, as well as maintaining relationships with companies such as Speakeasy.

Alongside these changes, I’ve been lucky enough to be selected to be a part of Performing Arts Leicester’s NextGen Leadership Development scheme, a fantastic series of workshops, training sessions, coaching, and action learning sets. A great opportunity, and something I intend to make the most of as I look to expand my skills, and share my constantly developing expertise.

Change is definitely the keyword of the moment…

Unity Festival 2013

June 19, 2013 by Bob Christer Leave a Comment

I’m just back from shadowing a fantastic weekend of theatre at the Unity Festival in Cardiff. Managed by Hijinx Theatre the festival brings the best of inclusive and disability arts to one fortnight in Cardiff. It’s NOT about celebrating disabled artists because they are overcoming adversity, it IS about celebrating fantastic art, which just happens to feature artists with (as well as without) disabilities.

The festival gave me a great opportunity to connect with companies, and to gain invaluable experience of outdoor performance, as I spent a great deal of time shadowing Kazzum’s ‘Addressed to a friend’ and Graeae’s ‘The Iron Man’.

One of the first performances I saw was the incredible Cia Jose Galan. A company of four flamenco dancers which included two learning disabled performers.

I’m no expert on flamenco, but what I can say is the hour long piece felt like twenty minutes, I was captivated by the skill, precision, passion and humour of the performers. But also I was challenged. I’ve always held a bit of a belief that regimented training is the wrong approach for Learning Disabled artists, and that more can be gained from developing a movement vocabulary of your own. A view that Learning Disabled performers should not be forced to try to emulate the performance styles of non-disabled performers, just as a non-disabled performer should not try to perform as a learning disabled person. But seeing the dancers of Cia Jose Galan, their precision, the clear joy, confidence, but also adaptation and fluidity evident in their movement totally shifted my opinions.

Air raid siren overlooking Mind The Gap's Irresistible

The weekend also gave me opportunities to see work by Kazzum, Graeae, Taking Flight, Mind the Gap, Odyssey, Bicycle Ballet and Natural Diversions, and tonnes of ideas and inspiration with regards to integrated signing and audio description. A highlight was the opportunity to become one of Mind the Gap’s ‘Wind up merchants’ operating an air raid siren as part of the fantastic ‘Irresistible’, a piece which I had wanted to see since I first heard of it’s Unlimited commission, many moons ago.

Here’s hoping I can return to the festival in 2014!

14/48 – The World’s Quickest Theatre Festival

January 21, 2013 by Bob Christer Leave a Comment

I’ve just had an exhilarating and exhausting week in Seattle, attending 14/48 – ‘The world’s quickest Theatre festival’. I’ve known about the festival for about 8 years, and have wanted to make the journey ever since. The festival is a whirlwind of professional artists coming together to create. On Thursday night, the writers, directors, designers, actors, musicians (and others) meet, a theme is drawn from a hat, and seven writers are given the task of writing a 10 minute script for a set number of male and/or female actors overnight. The next day, the scripts are handed in, seven directors choose their scripts at random, and after meeting with the writer pick their cast out of male and female hats. The plays are then rehearsed, designed, scored and performed on Friday night… twice! To sell-out 450 strong audiences. The audience members submit new themes, one of which is drawn at random, given to the writers, and… the whole thing repeats itself ready for Saturday night. 14 plays in 48 hours… it should fail… but it doesn’t.

I had the privilege of acting in 14/48, first as a caveman in a subtle piece about gun control entitled ‘Gift from Moon’, and secondly as a seven-year old imagining adventures as he tries to reach a father imprisoned for some hideous crime in ‘The Adventures of Henry’. I can’t recommend the festival enough. This time-limited way of working forces you to work in a certain way; to make choices quickly, to throw yourself into your role, but above all, to support your colleagues and forge partnerships. The arts scene is very different in America, a country with little, or no, public arts funding. Professionals must work ‘regular’ jobs to live, and things like Arts in education are virtually non-existent. Without festivals like 14/48, I’ve no doubt the Seattle theatre scene would be very different; without opportunities for Artists to come together, make connections, and create in such a limited time commitment, where would those partnerships be forged? Now, I’m not saying that this is always going to be the best way of making theatre, we’re not going to create the next War Horse by giving a writer a 12 hour deadline. The Olympics opening ceremony couldn’t have been put together in a day, but as a way of forging creative communities through creative practise, the festival is phenomenal.

My head is filled with inspiration and thoughts, perhaps too much for one blog post at present, but the main thought is this… if Seattle can make amazing theatre happen despite limited funding with the help of a festival like 14/48, just think what can be done here with the potential for well-thought out projects to grow, supported by public funding.

14/48 is coming to Leicester, in May this year, and myself and Andy from Speakeasy hope to be involved in some way. I’ll share more thoughts over the next few weeks, and information regarding the Leicester 14/48 festival will be shared as it becomes available.

For more on the Seattle 14/48, visit www.1448fest.com