Skip to main content

Launch of Splash! at Royal & Derngate, Northampton

This Tuesday I attended the launch of a brand new initiative in the arts to help disabled children get greater access to the field and improved job success. Based in the East Midlands and covering Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Northamptonshire, the Northampton event was the central stop of a day of events. With the group set off from Leicester in the morning before heading down the waterways towards Northampton, they stopped over at the brand new University of Northampton Campus on the banks of the River Nene. Following this, the Northampton launch took place in the Royal Theatre, before then finally heading to Nottingham for the evening launch.

By the time the Royal stage event was reached, things hadn't totally got to plan timewise, so a little late, the event began. Following a brief welcome from Royal & Derngate artistic director, James Dacre, The Mighty Creatives chief executive, Nick Owen, launched into an explanation of what was planned.

Over the next year, the project will be working with over 2,500 young people with learning disabilities and their families, seeing the team engaging with 128 head teachers and senior staff of special schools in the region, and a planned site-specific event presented in front of 30,000 audience members, both live and online.

It was explained that there are three stages to the project, starting with a weeklong creative residential, taking place this week, where disabled artists will collaborate, test and design a robust artistic brief for the project with disabled access at the heart of it.

Then from October 2018 to February 2019 a programme of audience development and engagement activities will take place across the East Midlands, working with SEND schools, local authorities and families.

The final phase of the project next spring and summer will be to plan and produce an outdoor touring production, led by project partners Diverse City and Extraordinary Bodies. Taking the waterways of the region as the central inspiration, this production will be performed first in Northampton (hopefully at the University of Northampton campus on the River Nene), before transferring on to other locations around the East Midlands.

While the event didn't go entirely smoothly as technical gremlins got the better of the afternoon, it was clear that this was looking set to be an interesting initiative, and much needed. While full details of the plans for the performance are very early in the process and not fully explained during the launch, the Splash! of the title is not an accident, with this very much building on personal experiences and thoughts of the public of life on or around the waterways of England, made clear by the post-show projects scattered around the bar area of the Royal.






While it is early days for this project, I look forward to seeing future developments. There is clear enthusiasm from those both running the project and those set to be involved in a more artistic way.

Event launch: Monday 10th September 2018 at Royal & Derngate, Northampton

www.themightycreatives.com


Splash! Consortium:
Attenborough Arts Centre and Curve, Leicester;
Canals and River Trust East Midlands,
Lincoln Drill Hall;
Graeae Theatre Co., London;
Deda and Hubbub Theatre, Derby; NEO Learning,
Nottingham Playhouse;
Royal & Derngate, Northampton,
The Mighty Creatives
University of Derby.

Splash Artist Ensemble:
Aminder Virdee: interdisciplinary artist
John McDonald: visual artist
Katie Walters: spoken word poet
Laura Guthrie: theatre designer and director
Lucy Hayward: writer and producer
Lucy Nicholls: producer, performer, Change Maker
Mary Strickson: photographer and facilitator
Nikki Charlesworth: Theatre Designer and Puppet maker
Onaissa Jamal: textile artist
Rachel Ross: theatre director

Lead Artists:  Diverse City / Extraordinary Bodies



Popular posts from this blog

Review of Lord Of The Dance at Royal & Derngate (Derngate), Northampton

The stage show Lord of the Dance possibly needs little introduction to most people, as it has become a legend and now, in this touring version, subtitled rather immodestly, 25 Years of Standing Ovations, it reaches a landmark anniversary. Those that do not know of the show would probably well know its spiritual fathers Michael Flatley, and even more likely Riverdance , from which Lord of the Dance sprung with a proper spring in its step. During the interval of the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest, Riverdance hit the world by storm as Michael Flatley and his troop of dancers possibly presented the most famous part of Eurovision ever, certainly of the non-singing variety at least. Here, this touring show brings that same style Flatley created from traditional Irish dancing across the country once again and it is truly something special to see. The concept of the show is simply a battle between good and evil told through dance, and some captivating and stunning songs performed by Celyn Cartw...

Review of Rambert Dance in Peaky Blinders - The Redemption of Thomas Shelby at Royal & Derngate (Derngate), Northampton

The Rambert Dance Company is the oldest such company in Britain having first performed in 1926. However, despite this, this was my first encounter with the group in my ten years of theatre-going. Coupled with this, it was also my first encounter with Peaky Blinders , having never seen the show, and only knowing a few vague things about it. My companion for the evening however was very familiar with the show, allowing some background behind the show. It turns out though,  Rambert Dance in Peaky Blinders - The Redemption of Thomas Shelby needs a little more than a good bit of knowledge of the show, as despite this production having incredible style, there struggles to be a cohesive structure to the show and the storytelling. Much more than other dance shows as well. The first act does a whistle-stop tour of the first five seasons and while it is a feast on the eye, and on the ear, it gets extremely confusing at times. The second act is freestyle and drifts away from the stories tol...

Review of My Mother's Funeral: The Show at Royal & Derngate (Royal), Northampton

The title My Mother's Funeral: The Show is perhaps not the most attractive title for a theatre show, however, this show had great success at the Edinburgh Fringe and now arriving at Royal & Derngate, one of its co-producing theatres, so, let's look beyond the unusual title and see what lies beneath. Abigail is a theatre dramatist pursuing plays that the theatres no longer want. Her "gay bugs in space" saga falls foul of being fiction for a start, something a theatre director states audiences no longer want stating they want gritty, real experiences, theatre with painful truths. So, after Abigail devastatingly loses her mother and finds no money to pay the funeral fees, she pursues the creation of a very personal theatre show. My Mother's Funeral: The Show is gritty and sad, but, also in many ways very funny, if in a dark way. Writer Kelly Jones digs deep into the world of poverty in Dagenham and countless estates across the country. A world of people born in...