Summary Update 7
Our piece on Alcohol Statistics is finally on display – currently it is in the main foyer of the Artschool (Duckinfield St. Liverpool L3 5RD)and will hopefully spend some time on display at Gateacre school itself in the new term – if you get the chance please pop in to see it!
Summary Update 6
Here we have the video footage of Garston’s ARCH group performing their ‘Garston – Past, Present and Future’ Piece at Garston Health Centre. Thanks Arthur for the video!
Summary Update 5
We visited Belle Vale Primary with some of the fruit faces they created and got them to road test them for us – thanks again to all the pupils and staff for their hard work!
The remaining 12 fruit faces will now go on display at Dobbies Garden Centre in Speke as part of their Big Garden Party over the weekend of the 16th & 17th June. Check here for details – Thanks again to Angela and her team at Dobbies for all the contributions made to our project.
Summary Update 4
The Garston/Cressington planters have been doing well under the care of Long Lane Church and are now fully accompanied by the wooden engraved plaques designed by the pupils of Garston CoE Primary – check them out as you drive or walk by.
Summary Update 3
One of the longer running projects has been the work by Gate Acre Comp.
We have now selected 15 artworks by the pupils which have been engraved onto alcohol bottles – these 15 represent the 15 minute interval between each alcohol related death in the UK. The pieces depict a range of collages showing varied notions about drink, being drunk and the harsh results that alcohol misuse can lead to. The bottles are to be filled with coloured liquids much like the old pharmacy window displays (we think this was an indicator that the Pharmacist was able to mix medicines from scratch) – they will also be accompanied by 15 coloured LED lights which will highlight the 15 minute timescale.
The piece hopes to go on display at TBC.
Summary Update 2
Going through the artworks we found a handful of images that didn’t make it onto the buses for one reason or another and thought we’d share these with you via the website. These are mainly from the people of Cycle Speke – see if you can recognise where they were taken.
Summary Update 1
Well it’s been a quieter month after the flurry of main activity on the Shared Place project – we have been finishing off the last few project pieces and will report back in a series of Summary Updates.
ARCH performers Update.
The group at ARCH have performed their monologue at two events…
The first being the PCT celebration evening at the Vauxhall Community Training and Enterprise Centre on 29th March. The event allowed 5 major community art projects to share their progress with the wider community and allowed South Liverpool to Perform in the North. The piece was well received by a busy venue and the group really enjoyed finally delivering their work.
The second performance took place on the 9th of May and was part of South Liverpools NHS Treatment Centre’s 1 Year Anniversary Celebrations. Below is the PCT press release about the event.
GARSTON PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE HELPS CELEBRATE THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF SOUTH LIVERPOOL NHS TREATMENT CENTRE
A special performance of Garston, Past, Present kicked off the celebrations for first anniversary of the South Liverpool NHS Treatment Centre in Garston.
Since the £13 million facility opened last year more than 160,000 patients have been through the doors to seek treatment and advice.
Gideon Ben-Tovim, Chair of Liverpool PCT said: “When we outlined our plans for a New Health Service for Liverpool we had a clear vision for delivering a wider range of services closer to people’s homes, making it easier and more convenient for patients to access them.
“We are delighted that this vision has been fully realised, and the South Liverpool NHS Treatment Centre has had such an impact on the local community and patients.”
The Treatment Centre is double the size of its predecessor, and provides a wide range of health services, including an NHS Walk-in Centre, drop-in sexual health services and a community café.
The special performance involved local residents, who recreated characters from the past and present of their community. It used a variety of creative writing and drama improvisations to bring to life the characters.
The piece was created as part of Culture Liverpool’s community arts engagement programme – ‘Four Corners’, which has been managed by JMU (John Moores University-Design Academy) and the Rotunda.
If you haven’t seen the performance then you can download and read the scripts here. Thanks Again to all of the participants at ARCH and everyone at Rotunda who did such a fine job in putting this all together!
Laura’s Report
Saturday 7th April was an exciting day to be at Belle Vale Shopping Centre as young people from Valley Theatre, together with a group of older dancers, entertained the shoppers! This performance was the product of 6 weeks of hard work and rehearsal by the groups.
It all started at 10.00 when we met at Valley Theatre for last-minute brush-ups and to get into costume. The group loved to see each other in full costume, complete, in some cases, with wigs and fake moustaches! The four Doctors were in full white coats and had stethoscopes and thermometers round their necks and carried clipboards on which to make their notes. The Happiness police were all in black and had police helmets on – but each of them had a daft prop including a squeaky truncheon, a feather duster and a judge’s gavel! Walking from Valley Theatre to the shopping centre raised some eyebrows as pedestrians and motorists all wondered what on earth such a strange looking bunch of people could be up to!
Nerves set in a little bit once we arrived at the shopping centre as the young people realised that the interactive performances they had worked on for so long now required them to walk up to members of the public! But without fail, they all bravely got started and the response was fantastic! Almost all members of the public approached got into the spirit of the performances and were laughing away with the groups. The Doctors were giving out jokes (because laughter is the best medicine) and the Happiness Salespeople were giving away miniature bottles of Happiness and everyone the groups performed to left with a smile on their face. At 11.30 the other group of dancers arrived, a group of older ladies who were part of the performance. The groups had a little time to speak to each other before the young people got back on with the serious business of making people laugh!
Then, at 12.00, after an hour of performing, it was time for the first flashmob. The group was a little nervous but excited too. The music for the older ladies’ dance group started and they began their piece, a beautiful contact dance piece which began to gather a crowd. As the piece came to an end the boys from Valley Theatre walked into the performance area and led the ladies from the stage. Then the music for Disco Inferno began and the young people ran into the performance area! The crowd grew and began clapping along as the group performed their ‘dance off’ routine. I don’t think the young people had had any idea of what sort of response they would get but the crowd were delighted and were clapping and cheering when the dance was over.
Everyone carried on performing their walk-about characters throughout the day and there were three more flashmobs too! The group had plenty of breaks but often didn’t want to stop for long as they were so keen to make the most of the experience!
By the time we finished it was nearly 3pm and everyone was tired but very happy, It was certainly one of those occasions when all the hard work pays off and everyone can be justly proud about what they did. A big thank you to all the young people of Valley Theatre, to the older ladies who also performed, to the staff of Valley Theatre who were so supportive and to Belle Vale Shopping Centre for helping to make this such an enjoyable and successful event.
Laura
Belle Vale Event!
Well it was a great day at Belle Vale Shopping Centre on Saturday – we had a host of shoppers to surprise and engage and hopefully make smile.
The day started with the CHATS team setting up their stalls with free fruit, water, massages, nails and advice and checks on personal health and sexual health.
The Shared Place Dancers then arrived at the central coffee stop and refreshed before being led downstairs to the loading bay for a sneaky practice run out of site.
As this was happening the youth groups from Valley Theatre arrived in full costume to raise the spirits of the Saturday shoppers and those trapped waiting in long cash machine queues. The Happiness Police patrolled the Mall, the Wellness Doctors diagnosed those in need of a daily dose of jokes whilst other performers puzzled onlookers with their sales techniques and character mood swings – hopefully some of them were appeased by the free ‘Bottled Happiness’ keyrings that were being given out during the day.
12 noon saw the first dance performance take place and even though we were slightly more conspicuous than we intended it seemed to take a portion of the audience by surprise as the Ladies of the Shared Place Dancers performed their interpretive piece before the Valley youngsters brought down the house to the tune of ‘Disco Inferno’. Look out for the surprise Easter bunny appearance about 5 mins in!
With a full four dance performances staggered across the day we hopefully impacted on as many Belle Vale Shoppers as possible as well as the odd local Councillor and Culture Liverpool representative.
A fun time was had by everyone and it just remains to give a huge thank you to all involved especially – Laura, Sarah and Jen for developing the performances and working so brilliantly with the groups – Paul, Denise and all of the Security at Belle vale for assisting in the day so well – Pauline and the CHATS team for supporting the project and making the event bigger than we could make it – Martin, Keiron and all the Staff and ESPECIALLY the kids from Valley Theatre who mad the whole event so alive – Our Shared Place Dancers, who until this blog post were un-named as a group but brought poise and elegance to the proceedings – and finally Margi Kelly and Richie for helping us out last minute with the much needed tables and chairs!
If you were there we hope you enjoyed it! We will post as much of the event as we could capture here over the next few days.
Andrew
Valley Practice
It’s been a busy week for the young people of Valley Theatre as we hurtle towards the performance on Saturday 7th April at Belle Vale shopping centre.
We met for our final rehearsal on Monday evening. There were, as is always the case, plenty of last minute problems to solve, questions over costumes and performance jitters! We worked for a while on the pop-up performances and I can say that there are some very cheeky Happiness Police and the chance for shoppers to get their hands on some Bottled Happiness!
We then concentrated on the dance and incorporated lots of moves choreographed by the young people. It’s a sort of dance off between the girls and the boys. But that’s not all…As part of the project, our choreographer has been working with a group of older women who will be featured in some of the dance performances with the young people too.
On Wednesday evening we were privileged to be allowed to rehearse in the shopping centre after hours, when all the customers had gone. It was just us and the security guards and maintenance staff! It was great for the young people to have the chance to do the closest thing we’ll get to a dress rehearsal. We practised the dance in situ and worked on the best areas for the performances. Then the costumes were brought out which caused temporary chaos as everyone rushed to get theirs on and played with props. It was useful for the whole cast to get a chance to run their scenes in full costume and with all props. And it all looks great! Everyone is looking forward to it now, in spite of some last minute nerves, and we hope that all the shoppers on Saturday will enjoy it all as much as we have enjoyed creating it!
