Project Overview
When children and adults undertake a task together on equal terms, something new and magical happens. Each triggers something in the other. They go on a journey of discovery together, looking with new eyes, hearing with new ears and creating new understanding. In difficult or depressing situations, such as incarceration, poverty or illness, a small moment such as this is magnified tenfold.
An important feature of this project has been its minimal use of verbal language. Of course one reason is practical: with such a mix of nationalities, cultures and idioms, dance and music provide a common language. A teenage girl living in a Travellers' site under a flyover in West London described it poetically: "Dance can cross bridges and make you forget which side you're on"
The Flying Gorillas are a group of professional artists based in West London, UK. In Dali Muchi they teamed up with Philadelphia Foundation of Transylvania in Romania and Teatro Stabile di Innovazione, in Perugia, Italy. There were three stages:
- Organizers, artists and administrators meeting in the three host nations to share views and to decide on ways of recruiting artists, ways of engaging young volunteers and ways of identifying appropriate groups of children to participate in the project.
- Laboratories in which artists from the three nations work together in a studio, exploring performance techniques that do not rely on language and are suitable for children (no nudity or swearing). Local artists were recruited from Romania and Italy, adding to the team assembled for Dali Muchi from UK, France, Germany and Finland. At the end of each laboratory, a team was selected to refine the new material and to use it the third stage, specially created workshops for local children.
- The workshops took place in local schools and theatres as well as the Roma camp near Valea Lui Mihai, Romania; the Westway Travellers' site in London, the children's oncology ward of Perugia Hospital and on family days in Belmarsh and Holloway Prisons, London.
Each workshop culminated in a performance by the professionals with a specially devised finale involving the children themselves. All the workshops began with the three exercises that we developed through the laboratories. These are explained and illustrated in the handbook in eight languages. Having a translator present in the workshop can be helpful: we found that the best translators were non-artists, who were able to remain detached communicating the ideas without diluting the dynamic delivery of the artists. Generally, the best way to deliver the workshops was to rely on musical and physical imagery, supported by a set of about 20 key words which it is quite practical to remember in any language, at least for the duration of a workshop.
Transmigration of Cultural Players
Dali Muchi has engendered transmigration of cultural players, artists, administrators and agents. The company itself provides a role model of European co-operation with two European directors (Italian and British) and artists from Finland, France, Germany and UK. The project has provided The Philadelphia Foundation of Transylvania with a fully functional new dance studio which now operates as a base for performance artists, including two professional dance companies Tinidance and Nyíló Akác Néptánccsoport, both of whom have since toured Romania, Hungary and Slovenia. Artists from Nyíló Akác Néptánccsoport have been invited to work as guest lecturers at Middlesex University Faculty of Art, Design and Performing Arts and the London Contemporary Dance School. The new project at Teatro Fontemaggiore has led to a new programme of arts for children in hospital in Perugia, with links to practitioners at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, UK. A core team of artists and administrators from all three partner organisations is currently planning an exciting new collaboration, made possible by Dali Muchi:
Next: Baby Lion
The Flying Gorillas UK, Teatro Stabile di Innovazione Fontemaggiore Italy; and Philadelphia Foundation of Transylvania Romania will be joined by Mini Teater Ljubljana, Slovenia; BT Muzic Evi Istanbul, Turkey; Sami Parliament, Finland on an exciting new programme based at The Children's Museum, Amman and Wadi Rum, Jordan.
Dali Muchi will provide essential workshop material for research and fieldwork which will result in Baby Lion, a new performance for children.
Artists from these seven nations will work with scientists in Amman, Istanbul, North Finland and London and children from Traveller, Roma, Bedouin and Nomad families in an amazing new performance which will
- a) incorporate games, songs, dances, insights and experiences from these children
- b) explore art/science boundaries with choreographed, live experiments set to music