A DANCE PROJECT FOR YEAR 10 STUDENTS

The Lindenmeyer System isn’t just a dance; it’s an experience – one that participants will remember for a long, long time. Audience members are herded into the performance space, labelled and attached to a portable chair, which they must carry with them and use as instructed throughout the performance.  A Master of Ceremonies, complete with microphone, bellows out orders…move over here, sit there, fill in this form…and then the dance begins. 

The group of nine dancers move around and through the audience creating an extraordinary dance experience inspired by the themes of migration and cultural identity, stopping periodically to move the audience around the space to create new performance areas and different viewing angles.  Sometimes confrontational, sometimes submissive, the choreography graphically illustrates the frustration, fear and vulnerability of individuals who find themselves ‘up against the system’…and all the while, the audience is right there, IN the dance.

When a group of members from The Cultural Hub saw the piece in Holland last year, they were immediately inspired to bring the company over to the UK to work with Bournemouth and Poole schools.  Linking directly to the GCSE Dance curriculum, with important connections with the citizenship agenda, the piece offers a plethora of opportunities to open up debate and learning with the participating students.

André Gingras, the choreographer, was born in Canada and has been working in Holland since 1999.  Before the participating teachers bring their students to the performance, André will run workshops exploring the themes of the performance and dance techniques involved.  These will take place in November 2006.  More than 400 students from 4 different schools will see the performances in February 2007 and then they will develop project work, based around what they have experienced, which they will then share with André when he returns to the UK in late March.

Written by Ruth Eastwood- Lighthouse Chief Executive (at the time)