Touring abroad has been a feature of the David Glass Ensemble?s work since its foundation in 1989, writes Matthew Jones. The company has toured ?conventional? shows widely in Europe, South America, Canada and East Asia.
Being overseas so regularly over the years David Glass became increasingly conscious of the circumstances in which marginalised children and young people live. ?The Lost Child Project?, begun in 1997 and including the plays, ?The Hansel Gretel Machine?, ?The Lost Child? and ?The Red Thread?, was an artistic response directly linked to that experience,.
When ?The Red Thread? was co-produced in Hanoi with the National Youth Theatre of Vietnam, the performance included 25 hearing impaired children and a choir of 60 visually impaired children. The project has continued to develop from primarily performance to participatory work. Now a core strand of the Ensemble?s activities, this project focuses on sustainable participatory work with children and young people in South East Asia, Europe, South America and next year in Africa. They are from a diversity of circumstances: street children, children displaced through conflict, school children, victims of physical and sexual abuse and young offenders. The 43 projects to date have involved over 4,000 children in 13 countries. Nearly 55,000 people have seen their performances, with millions more watching on TV. Projects are now happening on average for 28 weeks a year (excluding more conventional overseas touring).
One project took place last January in Vientiane, capital of Lao People?s Democratic Republic (PDR).The country is one of the poorest in the world with an average income of below US$1 per day (official UN definition of poverty).There is more unexploded ordinance on the ground than in any other country and there is no British Council office and no British Embassy. There are, however, a large number of young people on the street ? many of them left school aged 12 ? and there is very little to do. More and more frequently they cross the river into Thailand where many of them are trafficked into the child sex industry sustained by Western tourism. There is also a fantastic dilapidated Soviet era circus space which we homed in on.
85 young people and 20 local Youth and Women?s Union workers took part in the three week project. We had been asked by our funders to explore the issues surrounding Aids/HIV. It is not yet a common problem in Lao ? but it will be. As the children did not have much direct experience of Aids, they devised the story of ?Arrogant Man? who abuses his own body and those of his friends and lovers. The performance begins with his death, killed by a demon on a motorbike who gives him 24 hours to redeem himself. This sequence was filmed on digital video at the morning market and outside a government office where most of the staff piled outside to watch. The live performance included scenes of hell, parties and an eerily beautiful vision of an HIV-infected child before birth, destined never to be born. The set was created solely from things to hand ? chicken baskets, ribbons, silk. When, unthinkingly, we suggested that the children might scatter some rice we were told this would be shockingly wasteful.
The children?s performance was stunning and the audience was amazed. Over 3,000 people saw the two performances, and it was broadcast live and repeated on Lao television. Before the show the audience was filmed arriving. In a country where there have been no cinemas for 30 years this generated an extraordinary reaction: people were open-mouthed or screamed when they saw themselves 30 foot high, live on screen.
After the performances the children established themselves as a permanent youth theatre. Since January the Lao Youth Theatre has performed extracts of the show at the opening of the first drop-in centre in the country; at a joint Lao PDR/Cambodian inter-governmental conference and, more importantly, have created a new piece. More children have joined them. In May we visited and asked what they wanted to do next: tour the plays and make a film, they said. When we met our partners, Lao Women?s Union and Save the Children, they asked for a five year plan of work. When we asked if any of our members were interested, one volunteered to spend six months in the country working with the children.
With the Ensemble abroad for more than half the year, when co-productions could be in Italy or Vietnam or Britain, when the work can be with artists, children or organisations, when it might be development, performance, participation, training or film, then ?touring abroad? is probably not an ideal description (looking for creative encounters, perhaps?).Working with people ? rather than to them ? has transformed the way we work and think.
Matthew Jones is Administrative Producer of David Glass Ensemble. t: 020 7357 9200 e: matthew.dge@virgin.net