Grapevine Theatre CIC will work with P6/7 children of Ardeer Primary. The play will be devised by young people using Shaun Tan's 'The Red Tree' as a stimulus. The picture book theme is finding hope in sadness, which will be explored through the drama workshops and the final play. The project will impact the school as a whole, using craft workshops to add props for the performance. Parents, carers and classes will be invited to the final performance to engage the wider community in the themes.
Description
This project will consist of three days of workshops with fifty 9–11-year-olds from Ardeer Primary School. The project will be in connection with the 'Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival', exploring the festival's theme of 'In/Visible' using Shaun Tan's beautiful picture book, 'The Red Tree'. The process will begin by using drama activities to explore these themes, then will delve into drama skills and confidence building, which will set the young people up to create a performance that will be shared with the rest of the school and wider community of parents, carers and guardians. This project will focus on the process to get to the performance, putting the young people’s learning and development in the forefront of the work. The project will allow young people to explore mental health themes, ensuring they are relevant for their ages, for example, friendships and belonging. We aim to engage the wider school community by getting other classes to help with prop making, so they can feel connected to the performance even if they aren’t onstage themselves. This prop making will use origami to create paper boats to be used within the performance; a motif from 'The Red Tree'. The young people will then be asked to write on their boat what tools they use to 'stay above water'- what do they do to ensure they are maintaining their wellbeing? Drama is a brilliant tool to build community spirit, as each performer can present something they are proud of and share it with their audience of supporters who will come out of the event with a shared experience that can bring them together. This is why it is so important we bring this unique project to the Ardeer community.
Cost Breakdown
2 Theatre Facilitators delivery and planning: £780
Travel: £100
Workshop materials: £40
Performance materials: £80
Total: £1,000
For a breakdown of the materials needed please see the attached document.
Location: The Headteacher of Ardeer Primary School, Anne Surgenor, has been looking for a way to develop the school’s artistic output, and engaging the parents and carers of the community. The school wanted to work within the wider community and the Scottish Mental Health Festival, this project would achieve these goals all in one. This project will begin creating an ethos in the school, where more performance work can be created as the years go on. The headteacher approached us to run this project as she identified the need for the young people, but that the school did not have the funds nor the capacity to run such a project alone. Therefore. the young people are missing out on fundamental access to the arts.
Proposed on behalf of: Grapevine Theatre CIC is a community drama company that works across the UK. The three aims the company has is to; build up creative communities, enhance curriculum learning for young people, and create new pieces of theatre. Grapevine Theatre has worked in school settings, going above and beyond the curriculum to develop young people's skills in performance, drama and their confidence. Most recently the company has finished a project working with young people in Palestine using theatre to explore beauty and hope- a project which required sensitivity and adaptation throughout. Their experience working with a range of ages and communities means they have skills which would be invaluable in building a project like this in Ardeer.
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