SPACE Residency

We have just spent an amazing week at the SPACE (Somerset Performing Arts Centre for Education) in Taunton, working with some brilliant and talented students.  It was a chance for cube to do some serious R&D, with SPACE students providing ideas and trying them out practically.  We are performing Macbeth in September, with a large chorus in addition to key principals, and we wanted to find out some of the exciting things that could be achieved with large numbers of animated performers. 

We made some key discoveries.  One was that we like the ‘covered in mud and slime’ look!  Thanks to Beth, Gena, Josh and Flynn for being prepared to plaster themselves in mud for the sake of art.  We filmed some scenes with students made up like Somme survivors, and the results were pretty amazing.  There were also some magical moments of ensemble physicality that we will definitely be exploring further when we start rehearsing in August.

 

The week at SPACE was a stimulating and uplifting experience.  It is an inspiring place to work in, led by highly motivated staff, and the students are up for anything.  They threw themselves into every activity, and had some great creative ideas which in turn stimulated our creativity.  It’s also good to be kept on your toes – we knew that working with dedicated and imaginative students like these we would have to be at the top of our game.  So, a mutually stimulating and enriching experience.  We made big strides in our R&D, and the students had the experience of working with a professional theatre company, helping them develop their repertoire.

We also spent some time working with the students on Aubade (working title), one of our touring projects planned for spring 2013. More on this project coming soon!

Top 5 feedback quotes from SPACE students (in no particular order)

1- "cube theatres work is immensely meaningful and amazing to be a part of"

2- "What I found most enjoyable/beneficial/fulfilling was filming Aubade...and making up our own dance/movement"

3- "I loved working with a well known script but seeing it in a differant way"

4- "I really like how you work as a company....you are innovative, interesting and awesome"

5- "3 things that I found enjoyable/beneficial/fulfilling was the filming for Aubade - the whole process, the rehearsal process for Macbeth and the discussions and feedback"
(and because we can't resist...another favourite)

6- "I would have liked it to have been more than a week"

Uganda

We've just got back from Uganda, where we have spent a couple of weeks working on a theatre outreach projects, using the puppets from our touring productions Pinocchio & Wooden Heart. 

We were volunteering for The Molly & Paul Childcare Foundation, which offers homes and education for some of Uganda’s many orphaned children.  The puppets were instrumental to our work, and were used as tools to deliver health education workshops in some of the charity’s primary schools- exploring preventive measures against malaria and the importance of drinking safe, clean water.

We also delivered several performances of our show Pinocchio, for the children and also for the wider community, alongside working with a secondary school to create a piece of theatre that was performed by the students, which used the greek myth of Prometheus as a starting point. Watch this space for a filmed extract of the piece- which was performed beautifully by a large number of students, representing every year group in the school.

The trip was enabled in part by donations from our audience members and fan base, with the remainder being subsidised by the company.  Puppets and equipment were also donated by individuals and also Mallets Home Hardware store, which were gifted to the charity when we left.

We can’t thank our generous audience members and sponsors enough. The work we did out there, enabled by those donations, has been far-reaching and more fulfilling than we could have hoped, on both sides.  The whole team has been alternately inspired, humbled, delighted and moved by our all-too-brief visit.

We hope that our relationship with the foundation will continue to grow. Our first visit has taught us so much about what theatre for development can do, and we have some projects in the pipeline that will build on our experiences and create an opportunity for future collaboration between cube theatre and the community who so warmly welcomed us. You'll hear about it here first.