Lowry in a carnival?

The end of term approaches but, 

LSLowry in a carnival?

At Whitefield Infant School and Nursery unit, this end of term approached with extra weight as this July sees the move from the buildings the school has been in for 110 years to a shiny new building just over the canal. So our end of term Carnival included such excitements as a procession to the new school, a new school song, a performing canal (or maybe a canal performance) and puppets inspired by the art of L S Lowry.

To mark the years of school life, the Year 2 pupils and I called out of the memory of the buildings, the voices of Mr Eckroyd: who gave the land and raised the money for the school to be built, of Miss Preston (our sort-of first teacher) and of Oliver (our sort-of first boy through the gates). We drew on Lowry’s work for inspiration as we made three tall puppets, each one decorated with children’s own favourite moments from Lowry paintings. 

The sun shone (just as well as there is nowhere indoors where we could all fit) so we filled the playground and sang, and danced, rippled a canal and paraded giant puppets and all got very emotional....

My name is Mr Eckroyd,

I’m the owner of the Mill,

I helped to build this school,

And I’m pleased it is here still.

100 years of learning,

Something new every day.

Teachers once were very strict,

But now they let you play.

100 years of teaching,

In this place on Howard St,

But now you’re moving school,

To wonderful Every Street

We say goodbye to Year 2s,

They’re moving school as well.

Lomeshaye Juniors is ready,

New teachers and a new school bell!

Midnight in the Park

a lonely beast holding his packed lunch
wandered through the trees

Midnight in Victoria Park

 

it started with a map

troll-wallow hollow

This did begin as a sensible story-mapping and thens tory-making expedition, setting out to build a sense of a story as a physical journey by looking at the local Victoria Park in Nelson…..But then we recklessly asked "what happens here at midnight..."

The Beasts crept out of our woodwork and when the troll-bath was found and Shrek's toilet, imaginations started to escape…..

We were watched by Mr and Mrs Troll

 

a troll family hid in the woods

rabbit among the leaves

a troll in the mud

we beat on the enchanted door
but it would only open at midnight

we even met a collection of excited witches, princesses
and monsters on the Broomstick Bus ready to go to a party

the sinister shadows of monsters followed us
through the day-time woods
- how much more exciting would midnight be?

and when we left, the only traces of the magical world we had met
was the ring of crocus under the trees

Aliens, Beasts and sore throats!

and when we woke, our spaceship was flooded and the view
from the windows was wide and green and frightening

A hectic spate of workshops continue, stumbling a little here in the middle as I fall at the Sore Throat And Cold hedge. Usually, I just keep going but this time my voice has turned into a very amphibian croak and I've retreated to my home-pond for 2 days of not talking to anyone!

The last couple of weeks included some lovely days at Ness Gardens, an exciting day at the Lindley Trust's Festival of Outdoor Learning at the Hollowford Centre…and then there were the aliens and the beasts…

recording our alien discoveries

We were looking at the question "what if…", extending that as "what if aliens crashed here at Wycoller Country Park. The results were dramatic, if sad, as by the end a whole heap (herd? horde? crew?) of aliens drowned in the river when they were trying to escape on a boat they built themselves. Other stranded aliens settled in to make homes for themselves whiles till others stowed away in the back of some minibuses full fo children and escaped…..

 

the ship's records were found later
by rescuers from Home Planet

the records showed the crash
and the brave departure of the crew

some of the aliens adapted cheerfully to life on Earth

And as for the Beasts…..they'll follow in the next blog

Fanfares Of Trumpets And Galloping Knights!

Our "Gawain" project moved into performance today! It was magnificent and I'll post more photos and comments over the next few days but just now I wanted to share some images of the site and words form the final performance....

Setting the scene:

After "Gawain and the Green Knight", came "Five Children"......

 Here are just a few extracts from the main poem...our heroes are Five Children, on a quest through the Perilous Forest to find their parents frozen by the Witch Victoria

Then, dripping mud,

Cold and wet and miserable

The children stood

On the edge of a stream

Where one long stone crossed the river

One long rock over

A waterfall like a mountain

Deep, dirty and dark

Dashing down into danger

out into the dark woods

Later, the adventurers arrive at the Palace of the Woodland Queen, Quire ( the willow tunnel and sculptures are by Jeff and Heather Allen)

Deep in the woods,

There is a wonderful palace.

A wild, woven willow hall

With windows looking out onto the world,

Decorated with jewels and gems,

Beside a swamp where

The tadpoles wriggle and spotted frogs jump.

There is a magical throne there

Where the King and Queen of the Forest sit.

After various adventures, they reach the Witch's home, hidden in the ruins

Carefully creeping, up precarious stairs,

Sneaking slowly past

Giant cobwebs and giant spiders,

And through

Smells of rotten eggs and old fish,

Blood and death

It is cold.

Cold as ice on an Arctic winter's day,

The children's breath steams in misty clouds

In the final showdown....

There are pots and pans and pennies,

Bottles for potions and lotions and poisons,

Skulls on shelves and bones in the biscuit tin,

A red pot for mixing blood drinks.

There is a copper kettle for carrot tea

And bowls of dead fish,

And pine cone toothbrushes,

And a stone bottle with stone water

There is a horn that blows silently and summons bats,

Ice diamonds, spelling crystals to freeze thieves,

A golden bracelet for trapping arms, squeezing tight, crushing bones.

Gathering anger,

Gathering spells,

Fingers flexing and filling with fierceness,

Victoria the Witch stands up,

Enchantments crackling and sparking

From hair and nose and fingertips.

But as to what happens in the very end - you'll have to wait and see"

(a beautiful Lady Toad who started the day for me)

Gawain, 2013: the adventure begins

and Gawain has probably been sidelined already...he has had adventures, we haven't!

An exciting and damp day at Wycoller Country Park has given our "narrative poem"project a big boost with ideas about places where adventures might happen, characters we might use and encounters that might befall our heroes. Our aim is to create a story-poem whose process has encouraged children to extend their vocabulary, to enjoy poetry with rhythm and alliteration but not worrying about rhyme, and to meet other ways of structuring stories. While our story develops a musician (Hannah Kidd) and Ruth Evans, a textile artist, will both work with the groups to take the story into othe rmedia. In a couple of weeks we'll go back to Wycoller Country Park and tell the story in public for the very first time....

Everything is still open, but we thought you might enjoy some of our first images and ideas....

We scribbled ideas onto sheets and had a washing line of pages that we could move around which was fine as long as it was sunny! Our aim is to write a collective adventure poem, set in  roughly medieval world and using the places we visit, the things we find and our own wild imaginations...

The beginning of the adventure, maybe?

BEGINNING

A cloudy, rainy, stormy day

When only ducks and slugs are out

Dripping rain, dripping children

Soaking through their shoes

But a day hoping for rainbows

Characters we might use

MEN-AT-ARMS

Knucklehead knights,

Strong and brave with sword and spear and shield

Mighty, magnificent men-at-arms

With mace and mail and morning star

Monkeys or mammoths on their shields.

Quiet as moths and mice and mean as midges

They serve the King and Queen of the Woods

And are not very bright

The Wycoller landscape gave us settings...

RUINS

The rugged rocky ruins,

Old, ancient and rough

Thin windows, huge fireplace

that will hold

A whole company warm

Or roasting

TREES

Tall trees grow in those woods

Towering, toppling, tumbling trees

A tangle of leaves and branches and bark

Old, old trees and new saplings,

A world of green and brown

There are children in the trees

They hid in the leaves

Under the leaves

For so long, for too long

And they became green and 

As secret and silent as the trees themselves

Partners in the adventure:

Roughlee Primary School

Whitefield Infant and Nursery School

Mid-Pennine Arts

Wycoller Country Park

with funding from the Clore Duffield Foundation

Gawain?

A new Gawain - or a different Green Knight?

our stories will use the atmospheres and
settings of Wycoller Country Park

Some 700 years ago, possibly in the now lost Dieulacres Abbey near Leek, an anonymous scribe wrote down a narrative poem of heroes and temptation, enchantment, deceit, chivalry and naughtiness. A single manuscript survived the centuries and now Gawain and the Green Knight it is one of the gems of early English literature

Packhorse Bridge at Wycoller

Inspired by the story of Gawain and the recent translations and retellings by Simon Armitage and Michael Morpurgo,  Mid-Pennine Arts, Roughlee Primary School, Whitefield Infant School and myself have embarked upon an exciting heroic adventure of our own.

Playing with the sounds and rhythms of words, inventing our own characters and working in Wycoller Country Park, we're writing our own new alliterative, narrative poems

Our stories will grow, patterns of words will change, ideas will become music (with Hannah Jones), adventures will become textiles (with Ruth Evans) and everything will go…wherever it needs to go!

First session yesterday: telling the story of Gawain to get us started, making the story with people, howling like the wolves in the woods, falling in moats, being locked in dungeons…..

More instalments will follow!

First character studies:

the wet-weather witch watches 

from windows, waving 

at passers-by

In a wild wood, wild boars snort and snuffle in the leaves,

Horses run through the trees,

And in a dark cave, deep in the woods,

At the foot of a hill lives a black bear with her babies.

Every day the bears bathe in a raging, rushing, rattling river

One knight was riding through the forest and saw

beyond the trees,

beyond the woods

The ruins of a castle

And the golden broken remains of a temple

I have worked on Gawain projects before - most notably a puppet performance for the Flash TeaPot Parade a few years ago (you can work it out - the village itself is called Flash, not necessarily a description of the various teapots)

This new project is supported by
the Clore Duffield Foundation

Duchy of Lancaster
Warburtons