PARKING AROUND

Outdoor community

12 local people who had never done Circus before, trained and performed alongside us to perform to 3000 audience members and get 280 local people involved.

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PARKING AROUND was a visually striking piece of Highly Physical Theatre with a strong but simple narrative, played out through Circus Acts, Dance and Physical Theatre. The received support from the Birmingham Rep, Active Parks and Hotel LaTour and was funded by Birmingham City Council.

RoguePlay recruited 12 local people between the ages of 19 and 46 years, to undertake an intensive training programme in two of the following disciplines; Silks, Static Trapeze, Hoop, Counterbalance, Capoeira, Dance and Physical Theatre built around their personal and physical training needs. Participants then took part in a further 3-week rehearsal and development process, in order to build a 20-30 minute performance piece alongside the professional artists for six outdoor performances in Small Heath, Walkers Heath and Eastside parks. And guess what??.........these outdoor performances were completely FREE to the public and followed by FREE participatory workshops for adults and children alike.

The result was amazing. The sun kept shining and the project in total gained 3000 audience members and saw 280 local people get up and give circus a go.

Of the 12 local people who were trained in circus, 6 are still training today and 4 of those have since gained paid work in circus or roles that require circus skills. So the legacy of Parking Around lives on!

The project also saw 3 volunteer apprentices working alongside the management team to gain experience in outdoor stage management roles, as well as a number of show time volunteers who avidly collected evaluation information and looked after the artists and participants alike.

OUR 12 LOCAL PARTICIPANTS:

Joining the RoguePlay family on this project were

Nicki Sunn,Fran Higginson, Niamh Smyth, Shan Bansil, Karis Richards, Jennifer Scott, Jane English, Oliver Davies, John Varga, Claire Lambert, Ciaran Duce and Ben Morley

THIS IS WHAT THEY SAID:

'I am very excited to be joining the RoguePlay team for this project, mainly because of how super talented they all are! I can't wait to learn from each individual artist as they are all so experienced in their field.'

Claire Lambert

'The project will enable me to further develop my art form in dance as well as combining with other art forms, aerial skills in particular, which I am most excited about.'

Ben Morley

'I'm looking forward to learning new skills from the Rogue Play professionals, adding all these skills to my own skill base and at the end of it all being able to look back at the project with pride and amazement!'

Karis Richards

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