What do you value enough....?

-
There’s all sorts of things going on at YewTree Youth Theatre at the moment so it’s tricky to pick what to focus on...I’m devising with Sapphire and Gold for their Christmas shows, Black Company is very much in the swing of rehearsals for Beauty and the Beast to be performed in June, we are starting to make plans for our 20th Birthday party in September, Gemma and Crimson Company are rehearsing scenes from Connection plays whilst Purple are enjoying delving into the world of James and the Giant Peach and that’s to name but a few of our current projects…

After some deliberation I decided to pick, “Plinth” the piece that we are devising in response to the Lynda Benglis exhibition at The Hepworth, Wakefield as the focus of this week’s blog.   The process of making “Plinth,” began when we went to have a look at the gallery last month.  After a thoughtful and thorough look round the current exhibition we decided that we wanted our piece of performance to ask two questions of the audience:

What do you value enough to put on a plinth?
What should you value enough to put on a plinth?

To understand why we alighted on these questions it might be useful to define what we mean by the word plinth – if the word doesn’t mean anything to you or is ambiguous we are defining it as the rectangular slab or block that forms the lowest part of the base of a column, statue or pedestal and it’s what you put art work on to display it.  This means that if something is stood a plinth it is deemed to be of importance, value, worthy of being raised in stature, essentially better than other things.  Hence the direction of our questions…if we were to look at our lives, what would we pull out as being the most important thing?

When we started the devising yesterday we added a third question, which we felt would be equally important during our creative process:

What do other people value enough to put on a plinth?


The resulting discussions were fascinating and as a result “Plinth,” to be performed on the 27th of June at the Gallery will include issues as varied as belonging, the right to vote, medical research, make up, wealth and education.  I’m going to enjoy the process of crafting a piece that allows us to debate and ask questions about these issue before ultimately making decisions about how we will present them to the audience.  Already the company have had to reflect on what they value in their lives and lifestyle and how that corresponds and differs to others.  It’s going to be a fascinating journey.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chloe's Leavers Blog - finally :)

-
  Please excuse how this was written, I do a very silly drama school course, and I haven’t had to write more than my name in 9 months. I’m sat in my silly dorm bed writing me this on my DSA laptop (a win for the mentally ill girlies), realising how utterly bad my ability to Words has become. Anyway.. Leaving YTYT was one of the oddest experiences of my life, and yet, I don’t remember it at all. I’d spent the last few years, waving off some of my closest friends as they went on to conquer their dreams, in a tearful circle, yet all I have is a fuzzy memory and a video saved in an instagram highlight. I’d sell a kidney to try and bring back that experience, to do my final show unclouded by new medication and intrusive thoughts, but as that isn’t possible, I thought I’d finally write my leavers blog, even if it is a year late. I started Yew Tree in 2017, as a way to explore drama outside of the agonising GCSE setting, and across the years, it became a lifeline for me, providing confidence,
Read more

Arwen's Leavers blog

-
I made a start writing this leaver’s blog when I was on a bloody needed holiday over a month ago, on the glorious Isle of Islay in Scotland. I’m re-writing it now, because I think it was naff to be honest. And I’m not in the same mindset as I was then. Also I might have had a few too many drams of whisky whilst writing it there, so there’s that. A line I’ll keep from it however is: “How am I meant to do justice and summarise in my writing the enormity of an impact that Yewtree has had on me these last 5-ish years?” How can I articulate all the skills that I've learnt and developed? The experiences I’ve had? There’s so much, where and what do I start on? So I’ll do just that, and put some of the skills I’ve learnt into use: “You can’t be a creative, a critic, and an editor at the same time” But in fairness - I don’t think I could share and articulate all those things. And I’m not sure that I want to, they’re for me. I can’t put that expectation on myself. The past year I’ve felt as
Read more

Celebrating the past in the present...

-
  Next year Yew Tree Youth Theatre will be 30 years old.   We haven’t quite decided how we will celebrate - any suggestions would be gratefully received. No doubt there will be some nostalgic perambulating down memory lane and some haphazard but joyous celebrating of three decades of creativity we have shared.   Some variation of those two themes would feel fitting. This blog however is something different. This blog is a celebration of the present of those who attended YTYT in the past. Alumni, graduates, previous members – I can never seem to find the right term – but whatever word is chosen I know for sure they are part of the fabric of the youth theatre and I’m grateful to have known all of them, mainly because I have learnt so much from them.   I also can’t put a number on how many people have spent significant time with YTYT over the last 29 years.   I know we started with a group of 8 and now have about 80 members, I know at our peak just before COVID we had about 130 young pe
Read more