Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
Kingston University
The Light Garden - 5 projected works
2 April 2010 – 3 April 2010
Sadler’s Wells / ACE
The Light Garden, commissioned and funded by Sadler’s Wells (£4K) was a devised participatory form of children’s theatre consisting of 6 interactive elements: 2 projected film sequences, 3 projected moving image animations and the safe use of minimum stage props.
Davies used the above formal components to transform an interior performance space into an exterior campsite scene which offered an immersive theatrical experience incorporating the principle of a journey whilst maintaining a child’s viewpoint. The campsite setting provided entry into Davies’s re-imagined natural world which was designed to be navigated spontaneously based upon implicit cues. This was made possible by the presence of an improvisational dancer who mingled with the adult and child audience as they entered the space.
Davies’s research imperative originally came from her Choreodrome residency (2009) and the uninvited interference of children at a film screening at The Place. Davies then attended Fevered Sleep’s first symposium at Sadler’s Wells (2010). This led to research on methods for involving young children in the completion of an interactive live theatre/moving image artwork that adult audiences could also interpret and enjoy.
The Light Garden premiered at Sadler’s Wells to determine if/how children would respond to cues enabling them to complete the work at various points. The outdoor experience staged indoors proved effective in offering children opportunities to react impulsively and play with the scaled spectrum of movements in the natural world realised by Davies: from crawling ladybirds on a beanbag hillside to the larger phenomenon of weather over the campsite which they could control via Illuminated switches. A further measure of achievement was the journey’s ending. Against the backdrop of a large full moon shadows of participating children could be seen spontaneously dancing. The positive reception resulted in ACE funding (£10K) to refine and tour the piece.
