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Big Youth Theatre Festival 1997
Impossible to guess what it would be like... speculation is futile as they say. I was met at Loughborough Station by Nick Ripley, overlord, and driven, hooded, to a site near a forest.
When Nick removed his hood and I could relax enough to look around, I saw I was corralled by tents, marquees, food wagons and assorted milling masses in a field the size of Mars.
What did the people turning up for my workshop imagine they were getting into?
Were they open to experiment, did they expect to be guided through a virtual rulebook? (do this, don't do that). But that's not what they got.
Writing for Dance? Ooh .... A Hybrid Monstrosity, a cultural mooncalf, the hurling of a grappling hook between extremely divergent art forms. How dare I presume!
It was to be a walk (contact and release from the dark). Here was a worried looking group clinging to their plastic picnic chairs waiting for me to reveal my intentions which were:
I asked them to list all the names they'd ever been called, including the names of characters they'd acted in plays, nicknames, knocknames, birth names, bold names. All monikers.
Then they chose two small objects from their pockets, and working in pairs (not apples) A's objects were scattered to the four winds by B, A having to locate them while looking upwards (i.e. the polarisation of classical ballet's ethereal focus and contemporaries co-habitation with gravity).
Partner B called out names from A's list the ones they considered favourite, if A was getting warm, and the bad handles when they were moving away from the object. The name calling gave the movement rhythm, consequence, context while the underlying theme began to emerge: Praise elicited for achieving goals set by an authority and an attack of the old verbals for failure.
This was the seeds of their first dance writing piece.
A lot more happened, of course, but that's for me to know and you to find out.
And the Festival has been pure freestyle fun, next time don't miss out.
Lavinia Murray
An Outsider's View
I was invited to come along and create the festival webpage and to manipulate the pictures taken with the roving digital camera so there could be 'live' updates to the Web site over the weekend. Cue the strange picture of people posing for the shot, but not actually doing anything! I'm the mug sat in the middle in the large chair .. specially brought from home to make for a comfortable weekend!
Having been to a few major events before I was roughly expecting what would be happening ... roughly! I hadn't been to any youth theatre events before .....
So here I am, sitting thinking what's happened over the last 24 hours. The first thing I see is some rather dubious characters strolling around in dresses (see the Sweaty Frollicks), so you can imagine what my first thoughts were.
Anyway, that aside there seem to be a great many people (both young and old) enjoying themselves in the various workshops taking place in various locations around the site. There's details of some of these in the Festival pages.
The evening drew in and apparently there was to be a cabaret in the performance tent. So being nosey, as I am, I wandered in to see just what all the screaming and shouting was about. I'd missed the "Spice Girls" so I was told, but a more obscure sight met my eyes.
A certain St. John's Ambulance person, called Kevin by the way, complete with yellow jacket firmly in place, was on the stage doing what was by all accounts a very decent Break Dance. Now there's something you don't see every day! He must have been practicing, although he swore he hadn't. Someone did ask what would happen if he'd injured himself, (and it looked like he came close a couple of times!). The thought of Kevin being treated by others brought a smile to my face.
There were various performances, and from my point of view, it was excellent to see the amount of talent and dedication from the performers. You may be used to it, but I was pleased to have seen it for myself ... still pictures don't do justice! And I've not seen so many young people who are skilled and proud of what they do in one place for a very long time. Heartwarming!
Some time after midnight I crawled into my tent with the earth moving bass of the disco gently rocking the ground. Now I'm not about to pass on some of the comments you can hear from inside a tent, but I know that there are some extremely hilarious comedy sketches that could be made from them! And the colourful language when one youngster tripped was an educational moment or two, I never realised just how many expletives could be strung into only one sentence! Amazing...
Enough rambling I hear you say (well that's what they're saying here) ... if you could have come to the Festival and didn't, or have thought about it but decided not to, then I'd recommend you come next year and see just what it is you're missing. It's BIG!
Antony Lacey
The Health Inspector
Directly after the opening meeting, and as everyone left the tent the participants were accosted by a health authoritarian keen to make sure everyone was healthy enough to attend the Festival.
A fierce and tyrannical figure complete with loudspeaker and impersonal dark glasses, he reduced participants to a cowed mass.
They who dared smile could be sure of a serious and terrible reprimand.
He was apparently disappointed with the health check and there seemed to be no hope for anyone.
Thankfully he deduced that our health could be saved - if we crawled in the mud through the spread legs of the person in front.
There was hugh relief, and, our health assured, we happily groped our way between 300 legs to save ourselves and our place in the Festival.
Our thanks go out to this kind and heroic health officer from the authority.
Sophie
How to Win Friends and Influence Folks
Most of our Youth Theatre have been to the Big Festival for the past few years and felt that each year, as the size of the camp grows, people are becoming more had more intimidated and not as willing to interact and find new folks to be chums with.
So this year we decide something had to be done. As a Youth Theatre committee we got together and planned a workshop aiming to break the ice between participants from different Youth Theatres and encourage them to carry on being confident outside the workshop context.
We created a relaxed atmosphere with music and some daft games, helping everyone to feel comfortable with each other and develop a lack of shame!
The basic objective was to help everyone realise that socialising is FUN and not as much of a risk to ego as imagined.
Playing Fruitbowl unearthed some interesting confessions, but not as bizarre as the truths that came out while we were making up lies about each other!
We must congratulate all involved for their stunning performances of the Eurovision entries previewed: with the Danish entry 'Bacon Bits' and the Swedish entry "Ooh, Arse (Just a little bit)" I'm sure the UK chances have multiplied.
Lisa Bennett
An Introduction to Ibsen
The Ibsen workshop was a brief introduction to his work. We looked at only one play (The Doll's House) so that we would not get too confused and could take it all in.
We looked at some key points from the text, playing around with ideas and the characters, the subtext, our presentation of them, and how other people willl see them.
Although only a brief look, we felt we learnt a lot.
From Stage to Page
Most members of our group had worked with Fools Yard before. We all agree that this was the best workshop we attended. Using photographs, our own imaginations, memories and dreams, we produced a very different piece of Theatre.
Adding music gave it a whole different feel, and in the words of Simon, "You can make any piece of Theatre look good by putting some good music over it!!!"
Set on a train station, we had everything from old men handing out mars bars, to women with Tortoises in their handbags!
Hamlet, mad for it.
In this workshop we looked at the main themes of the play. By the end of the workshop not only had we performed the play in fifteen minutes, but we had done it:
In all we learnt a lot and had a good laugh all the workshops were of a high standard and the leaders were great.
By members of the NoName YT, County Durham
Northumberland YT... The curtain finally falls.
The doors have finally closed on one of the UK's oldest LEA funded Youth Theatres. We're attending the BIG Festival for potentially the last time as members of NYT and although we're having a brill time we feel sad that when we get back to Blyth we'll be moth-balling the building, costumes and equipment (for who knows how long). NYT has been running for 30 years and has been under threat for ten years and in January 1997 it was finally confirmed that we'd close in the summer.
This NAYT webpage is dedicated to all those people who have been associated with NYT including the famous and infamous...NYT is dead long live NYT... We'll be back!
Alan Blyth & Jeffaz
The Festival is a fantastic event and everyone enjoys themselves, learns a lot and makes new friends. But every silver lining has a cloud. If you've read the article above, you'll see the all to common downside of Youth Theatre. Northumberland Youth Theatre (formally in the area I represent on the NYC) were one of the last LEA funding YT's around and now, alas, it's closed down. Its very sad, but its also very common. Northumberland LEA reluctantly needed to make cuts to its budget and, as always, its the arts and particularly Young People who get the chop first. Which isn't good for YT. We hope to see all its members next year with new groups and new ambitions
NYC North Performances
Sweaty Frolicks
We decided on an outdoor performance and a county fayre seemed the best vehicle to incorporate much fun and frolicks.
The festive nature of the BYTF and of Contact's 15-17s Group dictated a silly comic piece, so we went for gags, rudeness, clowning, big physical images, and cross dressing, purely for a gratuitous entertainment factor.
I thought that men playing women's parts and vice versa and having a rude title would be a good crowd puller and keep within the conventions of pantomime. A bawdy song and dance for the prologue is an age old convention too for attracting attention.
The story
Beryl, the downtrodden rustic housewife, petitioning and bungee jumping about all the injustices in the world is always ignored.
She introduces us to her story. We meet her fellow quirky townsfolk of Frollick, preparing for their annual county fayre.
The new Lord John of the manor, and his maid Widdle, is introduced to them all, including Ed Coli the butcher and his javelins of spam and Dolphin kebabs, Farmer Giles having trouble with his moles, Miss Doonthere the domineering PE teacher, poetic village idiot, mystic postmaster and Landlady.
Beryl's woman's intuition makes her slightly suspicious of Lord John's motives and it transpires that he wants to ruin their annual Fayre in front of the best county fayre inspector, in order to buy the field where it is held.
Lord John wants to use the field to build a multi-storey car park on, for all the rich tourists to park their flash cars on, and pay a fortune to visit his manor house, which is stuffed full of fake relics and phoney works of art, such as the remains of John Hurt's 'Elephant Man' and the Bayeux Tapestry made out of matchsticks.
In the meantime, Beryl is given a mystic message from the Postmaster, which tells her to avoid the cake which has no flour in, and it will be her finest hour, but only if she raises her voice and loses her rag.
Farmer Giles forces everyone on his cleverly converted combine harvester and threshing machine ghost ride of spooks at gun point.
The townsfolk lose the plot as Lord John is just about to sign on the dotted line to buy the field. Beryl frantically tries to remedy the situation (she didn't eat any cake due to a strict Vegan diet) and then suddenly remembers the mystic message.
After 15 years of underconfidence and her unsuccessful "The Our Lady Of The Assumption Children With Consumption Let The Good Times Roll Charity Gala 'n' Raffle Spectacular Best Gran Dressed Up As Dracula" competition she finally raises her voice and is heard.
The townsfolk snap out of their drug induced psychosis. Beryl exposes Lord John and Maid Widdle to be fraudsters, the Frollick field is saved, Beryl is made Mayoress and the evil ones are tied up in the epilogue's Maypole song and dance.
Thank you to the cast:
Andy, Daniel, Marlon, Ebby, Shelley, Vida, Emma, Celia, Dahlia, Sarah, Eva, Ellen, Debs and Owen for being brilliant, talented, and above all, a GOOD laugh.
Heather Robson Director
The Jungle Story Unfolds
20 members of Youth Theatre Yorkshire were set making with Faceless Theatre Company during the week running up to the BYTF 1997. Since Thursday night Yorkshire YT and other festival participants have been busy putting the finishing touches to The Jungle, a procession of birds, insects, a crocodile, and thirty foot snake passing through the woods and into the courtyard where the Jungle story unfolds.
Workshops
During Friday and Saturday Paul Barrand ran an animation workshop in the Field Studies room. This involved participants making drawings directly onto transparent film which was then spliced together to make a film to be shown on Saturday night.
The idea was (light permitting, or rather dark permitting) to show it on the roof of one of the large marquees. Some of the films are shown on the right, 24 frames making one second of viewing time. As you can see, there are some very creative budding animators about.
Shown below are Paul Barrand completing the film, adding the start and end sequences, Lavinia Murray in the centre (who ran workshops but is here making her own contribution to the film), and Cathryn Ravenhall, without the digital camera for a few minutes! |
A Festival Virgin