Schools | Young People | Community | Past Projects | Work Experience
A Golden Thread:
A Celebration of William Blake
with music
and performance by St Jude's Primary School and Borough Music School; and
an exhibition by Art Adventures at Cathedral Primary School (November 2007)
A celebration of
the 250th anniversary of William Blake’s birth, this performance combined
music, poetry and visual art created by over 80 local children from Southwark
and Lambeth, where Blake himself had his home.
A Golden Thread
is the result of an ambitious collaboration between Borough Music School,
Southwark Playhouse, St Jude’s Primary School, and Art Adventures at
Cathedral School. The performance, a result of two term's work, was held at
St John's Church Waterloo.
Over a six-week
period Year 5 students from St. Jude’s Primary School devised and rehearsed
their own dramatic scenes using Blake’s poetry as inspiration.
The full forces
of Borough Music School performed a specially composed setting of the poem
The Tyger and used the poetry as inspiration for improvisation.
I give you the
end of a golden string
Only wind it into a ball:
It will lead you in at Heavens gate,
Built in Jerusalem’s wall
A Bloodless Field:
Medical Dramas
April 2007 (with The Old Operating Theatre and Herb Garret)
Year 10 students from
Geoffrey Chaucer Technology College explore the history of medicine through
theatre. The group attends a double-bill of site-specific plays at the Old
Operating Theatre Museum: an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's thriller,
The Bodysnatcher and a new play about organ transplants, The Gift. A demonstration
of Victorian surgery at the OOT and a trip to St. Mary's Hospital to see the
medical robots of the future introduce participants to surgery through the
ages. Visits are supported by two workshops in school, processing information
and igniting debate through drama and play.
This is genuinely one of the best History related projects I have been
part of. It made History relevant and created a genuine link with both the
present and student's future ambitions.
- Mari Williams, Year 10 teacher from Geoffrey Chaucer Technology College
Visit the Old Operating
Theatre website
Everything Must Go
August 2006 (at Southwark Playhouse)
The final show at our previous home on Southwark Bridge Road was a newly commissioned
musical play designed to celebrate the best of the theatre's work - both in
its community and on the Artistic Programme. A cast of professional actors
worked alongside members of our older people's group from Blackfriar's Settlement
and four local young people aged between 9 and 15. The community cast played
a pivotal role in the production.
Talent Unearthed at Mint Street Park
August 2006 (with Bankside Open Spaces Trust)
A real demonstration of our multi-talented community, Talent Unearthed was
a free family festival including music and performance, competitions, horticulture,
cookery and sports.
Activities included circus skills and carnival workshops, BOST's window-box
planting and giveaway, vegetable sculpting and cake decorating, bike surgery,
graffiti, face-painting, bouncy castle and a carnival parade around the park.
Performers on the main stage included partners from Harris Academy Bermondsey,
5 - 7 year-olds on the annual summer school at Southwark Playhouse, and older
people from Blackfriar's Settlement.
The festival attracted around 450 people from the local community.
Visit the Bankside Open
Spaces Trust website
Home Front Recall
September 2005 - July 2006 (with the HMS Belfast)
40 students from St Joseph's RC Primary School (George Row) and Harris Academy
Bermondsey work with Southwark Playhouse, the HMS Belfast and Veterans of
the Korean War to explore notions of homecoming.
The project spans two full school terms. Participants spend the night on the
ship, produce a booklet of original poems and plays, and perform an original
play by Stephen Sharkey, The Happy Ship, on the decks of the Belfast in July
2006.
Click here
to download the booklet (PDF 6.62mb)
Visit the HMS Belfast
website
Over the Bridge and Through the Streets
March 2006 (with Borough Music School)
This new musical play involved 30 children from Cathedral School and 15 young
musicians from Borough Music School in rehearsal and performance.
In the production, staged at Waterloo's Network Theatre, the children told
the story of Elizabeth I's visit to Southwark where she is welcomed and given
a present: a fine hat made by the hatters of Hatfields. The play was inspired
by a portrait of Elizabeth I with Bermondsey Abbey in the background.
It was attended by a large audience of parents, friends and supporters.
Visit
the Borough Music School website