College students success in Spain
The London Jungle Book: return trip to El Parque de las Ciencias
Unlike exhibitions here in the UK which usually end without comment when the last visitor leaves the building, the custom in Spain is to mark an exhibition's closure with a celebratory event. Thus El Parque de las Ciencias marked the end of its three month long Autómatas: Teatro Mecánico exhibition with a weekend of events, culminating in a presentation involving Rose Bruford College, Enrique Lanz of Etcétera theatre company, three local Granada schools and the Escuela de Arte de Granada.
Rose Bruford College first visited El Parque in November 2009 at the start of the Teatro Mecánico exhibition, to perform its mechanical theatre version of the London Jungle Book, to run automata workshops, and to transfer its knowledge of using automata in a theatre setting (see News article 11/01/2009 below, for full details).
After students and staff returned home, the machines used in the performance remained on exhibition at El Parque, and were a focus for local schools to work on automata-based projects in partnership with El Parque. This legacy was energetically taken forward by El Parque and three Granada schools.
The three schools - IES Clara Campoamor, IES Nazari, IES Alhambra - variously created poetry, language, science, art and theatre projects around the medium of automata. Alhambra school even created its own version of the London Jungle Books using Rose Bruford's machines. The schools' work was presented and performed to a public audience at the closing event.
For El Parque this was a new and original educational package, fitting perfectly its own sense of identity as an organisation straddling art and science, education and entertainment. They were completely delighted by the outcome, and it looks likely that the College will be invited to partner in a similar capacity at the next automata exhibition, to be held in November 2010. Furthermore, the success of the programme has led to talk of developing it further in collaboration with other European institutions.
The Escuela de Arte de Granada introduced photography and video as further elements to the use of automata in education. Students from the media college created a stylish video that beautifully captured the movement of the machines - by using stills. Clever.
Originally it was envisaged that Rose Bruford's London Jungle Book machines would end their days in a Granada landfill site, in the fashion of spent and ephemeral stage sets. But in view of the quality of the machines and the success of the project as a performance and educational package, it was decided to keep them. They returned to London and are currently being stored by Cabaret Mechanical Theatre. There they await their next burst of life under the spotlight. There are no fixed plans yet, but San Francisco has been mentioned.
To view a short video of the event click on the following link:
www.youtube.com/profile?user=drstephenguy#p/u/0/iaz9Bbs0Fx0
16/03/2010