LIFE IN LOCKDOWN

2020 is surely already a year that will live long in the memory! Change always throws up issues. But such sudden and extensive change to long embedded routines and practices has presented issues perhaps on a different scale to what we are used. However, forced adaptation is useful and, indeed, imperative for survival so perhaps 2020 will be the springboard for the future we want.

At Fabula Arts we were disappointed not to be able to offer our Lost Words workshops for school children which were booked for the summer term. We also could not deliver our Play in a Week projects this summer term nor our planned workshops at the Quinton Poetry Festival.

However, new opportunities presented themselves. We have worked with four schools to create Leavers Videos for their pupils moving on to different schools. These were remote projects that allowed students to use creative videography techniques to record their memories of school life. We have also worked with two schools to make New Pupils Videos, to take the place of the Induction events that should have taken place. This remote project was a way of new pupils beginning to connect with each other and with their new teachers even in the virtual world.

Our Youth Theatre group sessions have carried on all through this period also. We have taken part in the Company Three project, the Coronavirus Time Capsule. This was a way for young people all over the world to record their experiences of Lockdown through the use of video. The Youth Theatre has also celebrated four birthdays in Lockdown and experienced a variety of other activity, ranging from radio plays about a horse called Mr Bobbins to improvisations concerned with the vagaries of Zoom calls!

And with the country beginning to get back on its feet, we look forward to the future and unleashing lots of energy and enthusiasm that has been pent up for months. Some outdoor Youth Theatre sessions are planned for the summer and a new cycle is in preparation for September.

Hard times are often a catalyst for great times to come and that is certainly what we are looking forward to.

For information about our Youth Theatre groups, please get in touch with James at info@fabulaarts.co.uk or on 07554 748835.