Tikhtak

Over by Christmas - New Play for 2014

Scene Change Arts have started booking "Over by Christmas" our KS2  play for 2014 commemorating the out break of WW1. James Manning and Myself had an afternoon last week at The Royal Festival Hall putting together how we want the workshops to look and how they will fit into the day. We were both very pleased with the end result.The play will cover some of the major events of WW1 such as  conscription, the battlefield and trenches and of course the memoriable day when war stopped for Christmas. The events are carried by a simple story line of a soldier who is killed on the battlefield. Finding himself dead he cannot accept it "How did it come to this?"  A voice calms him and helps him retrace his journey until he is able to finally accept his end. We are also excited to be using actual, poetry, letters and images from the front line which we hope will bring the whole experience home for the children. Our first booking is at Worceseter Cathedral on 30th and 31st January. If you know a primary school who might be interested then they can contact me on [email protected]

World to Rights & Manila DVD Books

Thanks to the hard work of my colleague Mike North, we have two books available to view on line and even buy from our 2009 World To Rights tour. The World to Rights Book shows pictures and comments from all the venues we visited throughout the year and the Manila Dvd Book shows the process we went through in making a DVD about Street Children in Manila, with no small help from Jigsaw. Either click on the links in this post to view them or click on the badges in the side bar. Once you are on the site you click on the front cover to turn the page and you can click a button to make the picture full screen.  Although Mike and I will be leaving CMS as employed staff at the end of this month we are continuing with a CMS project next year 2010 on the environment in partnership with Arocha UK. More will be revealed.

Liverpool Cathedral - A safe place to take risks

In the shadow of Tracey Emim’s Neon art installation “For You” in Liverpool Cathedral we ran our World to Rightsday with 150 school children from local schools. To see how we got on check out our blog. But I wanted to comment on the impact the Cathedral has had on me. Last week I blogged about how impressed I had been by Aston Villa FC’s work within the local community, well Liverpool Cathedral has restored my hope in the mission of a cathedral!

As you enter a big sign tells you that the cathedral is “The Great Space.” One thing the cathedral is aware of is that space is a valuable commodity and it is happy to share it with anyone who comes in and to be flexible in the way it does it.  The next thing you see is their mission Statement which ends with "The Cathedral is a centre for hospitality, welcoming all its visitors and affirming their common humanity" - The Neon light’s of Tracey Emim’s installation is then proof of this. Talk about taking a risk allowing her to put a pink strobe of writing under a stain glass window!  But what this also says is that the Cathedral is happy to allow its city to express itself in its so called sacred space on their own terms. Although her message may look tacky to some, it carries  a very personal  feel, “I felt you and I know you loved me.”  and it makes any onlooker aware the distinct lack of contemporary Christian symbols.

We certainly felt the love from Liverpool cathedral throughout the day. One of our team in conversation with the Deans wife Caroline asked about the use of space in the cathedral and she shared that a new strap line is being considered - A safe place to take risks! This is obviously happening already allowing 160 children to run free and perform a World to Rights play. May be all the risk taking stuff happens at that end of the cathedral! All I can suggest for the success or failure of Liverpool Cathedral in its mission is... to watch this space!