Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Actiontrack Blog Day 1

Michael Kemp (who won the TY English Prize) is one of the 46 pupils who yesterday started the 2010 Actiontrack project (performance at 8.15pm on Saturday evening). He will be blogging here every day leading up to that, and here is his first entry:

Tuesday: Today was the first day of Actiontrack Showbuild for Transition Year, which intends for us little varyingly talentless tykes to try to write, star in and dance our way through our own homemade musical to be performed this Saturday, jazz hands and all. It's early days and getting 46 different people to sit down in a huddle and bang out some Gilbert and Sullivan wasn't happening - so we started off with the game ZIP ZAP BOING!, which despite sounding like a 70s New Wave band, is a game where imagination, energy and performance are drawn together in a fun, competitive icebreaker.

As the day went on, it was time for us to group into fours and fives and begin improvising our own little sketches that continue the creative flow, taking different little parts of setting and genre and melding them into one consistent whole. The acting had to end though as we looked at the meaning of genre and its conventions and clichés, and we soon studied Steven Spielberg's Jaws to form a tangent for us to spring off from, and eventually reach some footing on our own musical.

Listen to a podcast interview recorded a year ago here with Actiontrack's Nick Brace about their work and the Showbuild process.

No comments: