Theatre / bristol old vic young company
BOV Young Company and Melksham youth devise inspiring community show
Bristol Old Vic Young Company have joined forces with Wiltshire’s Melksham Oak Community School to produce a timely performance about the positive influence change and new people can bring to a community.
The project, The Tracks, forms part of the public art strategy produced by Bristol’s Ginkgo Projects to develop a unique sense of place and identity on a new development on land east of Melksham.
For the final stage of the project, Ginkgo has instigated a collaboration between Melksham Oak Community School and Bristol Old Vic Young Company to produce a performance inspired by the history, stories and landscape of Melksham. Directed by Katie Storer, the piece is a creative collective effort by young people aged 11-14.
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The project has entailed three and a half months of casting workshops, rehearsals and visits to Bristol Old Vic and Wiltshire’s Pound Arts centre, where the Melksham group were given a tour of the arts facility and participated in a workshop on ‘improvisation and non-verbal communication’ and ‘the use of space’ in dramatic theatre to develop skills for their final piece.
Storer also ran a careers workshop with the group, equipping the young people with skills for a career in the arts and beyond, and instilling in them the importance of community and support networks.
The project comes to a head this weekend with the performance of the theatrical piece devised by the group on Saturday, April 1 at Melksham Oak Community School. In front of friends, family and guests of Ginkgo Projects, the young people of Melksham Oak will reveal the result of their creative collaboration with the BOV Young Company. After the performance, a film of the piece, edited by Bristol Old Vic, will be distributed to the local community.
Titled The Tracks, the piece is framed as a festival of celebration; the story performed is the lasting legacy of a fictional town, with all its quirks and oddities. The immersive performance will guide the audience through the town’s journey that changed its community from one of fear and monochrome colours (inspired by the atmospheric, dilapidated old barn on Melksham Oak School premises) to a town of community, colour and positive change (inspired by the community, history and identity of Melksham).
Sophie Scott, Associate Director of Ginkgo Projects, said: “Ginkgo Projects are delighted to continue our creative partnership with Bristol Old Vic during this project in Melksham. It comes towards the end of several years’ work in Melksham that has seen the town develop and reconfigure.
“This collaboration has bridged gaps in geography and between the old and the new. It has been fascinating to be part of its development and see the story grow.”
For more info, visit www.ginkgoprojects.co.uk/projects/the-tracks
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