One of the more unusual pieces of theatre you can catch this summer begins this evening on a ferry boat moored outside Arnolfini in the centre of Bristol.
A small audience will be welcomed on board the Tower Belle ferry boat as it sets sail up the river, concluding its journey in Castle Park with a view of Arnolfini's Floating Ballast Seed Garden. During the journey and at the destination, the audience will be treated to 90 minutes of theatre and storytelling by 33 young actors from across Bristol.
For the performers, aged between seven and 19, this intriguing evening of performance is the culmination of a week-long summer school led by Travelling Light, Bristol's award-winning children's and youth theatre company. Travelling Light's popular annual summer schools invite kids to explore their theatrical side: this year's crop are working with two of Bristol's best-known theatre makers, Saikat Ahamed and Sita Calvert-Ennals, to explore storytelling, devising and visual theatre.
This year's performances will be inspired and informed by the dance-theatre piece Varmints, which Travelling Light co-produced earlier this year (in partnership with the brilliant director Sally Cookson, she of Bristol Old Vic's current joyous hit The Boy Who Cried Wolf). That piece drew on the intriguing children's novel of the same name by Helen Ward and Marc Craste. tells the tale of one small creature's struggle to preserve a world in danger of being lost forever: each day the city grows larger and the noise grows louder, until there is so much noise that no one can hear themselves think.
The performance's end-point, meanwhile, will be Arnolfini's Ballast Seed Garden. Brazilian artist Maria Thereza Alves has used seeds brought into Bristol on ships' ballast – earth, stones and gravel from trade boats from all over the world, from 1680-1900 – to create a garden on a disused concrete barge in Castle Park.
"The themes of nature and the environment found in Varmints tie in beautifully with Arnolfini's Ballast Seed Garden, and will provide plenty of inspiration for the performances," explains Georgina Trevor, Travelling Light's Young People's Producer. "The idea of seeds, their growth and hardiness, and especially their migration are of a particular interest. As the ballast seed garden is located in the heart of Bristol, the young people will look at seeds as a wider metaphor for our local history, and will explore the migration of people and their stories to the city."
Next year, Travelling Light celebrate an impressive 30 years of theatre-making with young performers.
