Dance and theatre students at Cornwall College in St Austell spent a day in the Keay Theatre with Powered Up yesterday. In a workshop loosely based around climate change and optimistic ways to look at the future, groups of students devised four short performances using our pedal-powered generator.
Pictured above are four dance students who powered the stage lighting for their performance by pedalling while they danced!
Theatre students wrote and performed a piece of satire about the current energy crisis. There was a self-written rap performance from another group, and volunteers pedalled to generate power for the lights and music for another dance performance.
The day started with Ellen Moule, Blystra Arts' theatre practitioner and associate Director of Cornwall Youth Theatre Company easing us all into the day with some theatre games and introducing the themes and some music to work with. Over the course of the day, the groups wrote and devised their performances until we were all ready to see the end results. Everyone really enjoyed what their fellow groups had devised. All the pieces were extremely different from each other which demonstrated how many different uses the pedal powered kit can be put to.
We'd like to thank Cornwall College and its dance and theatre students for engaging with this project so keenly and enthusiastically. One student had never ridden a bike before, but despite some initial trepidation, volunteered to pedal whenever they could. Feedback from the day ranged from "Thank you, I really enjoyed that." to "My legs hurt!"
Hopefully see you all again soon!