There’s a celebratory feel in the air this year. After the lockdowns of the past two years, 2022 sees a full return to glory for many local and national events. There are also some extra ones taking place – the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and the Commonwealth Games. There’s also a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ celebration of creativity taking place across the nation in the form of the Unboxed Festival.
Unboxed Festival
Unboxed is a unique celebration of all our creativity. A nation-wide moment of inclusive mass-participation, taking the form of 10 unmissable events and experiences in places and spaces across the UK. From coastal towns and city centres to areas of outstanding natural beauty. It is a celebration of new ideas shaped across science, technology, engineering, the arts and mathematics.
In 2020 Walk the Plank were commissioned to create one of these 10 projects. They brought Extraordinary Bodies into the process to ensure their project was accessible to all. They created Green Space Dark Skies.
Green Space Dark Skies
Green Space Dark Skies invites you to join up to 20,000 people, from all paths in life, to experience beautiful landscapes across the UK. The event will take place at dusk, between April and September 2022. Anyone is welcome to sign up to this series of mass gatherings which celebrate nature and our responsibility to protect it. It also encourages everyone’s right to explore the countryside. Using low impact lights we will create magical, memorable moments outdoors. Cirque Bijou and Extraordinary Bodies have been given the role of creative directors of one of the Green Space Dark Skies events.
Taking place on 21st May 2022, Cirque Bijou and Extraordinary Bodies’ event will be an accessible, large-scale and participatory celebration on the magical Dartmoor National Park.
Directed by Jamie Beddard and Billy Alwen, this is a celebration of the outdoors and our relationship with our environment. It will see hundreds of Lumenators carrying low impact lights through a stunning and unique environment. This event will include a choir, choreography, unique soundtrack and spoken word, and of course some breathtaking circus in the open air.
Creative Team
One of the things Extraordinary Bodies and Cirque Bijou do best is bring together a unique team of creative and production professionals. Together they ensure live events are spectacular, inclusive and safe. Walk the Plank asked us to make sure our event was as inclusive as we could make it, as sustainable as possible and as unusual and captivating as always.
For this event we have commissioned a new piece of music from young composer Ally Bryant. We met Ally through our Extraordinary Bodies engagement work with Plymouth Theatre Royal, whilst making Human. Poetry has been written for the piece by long term Extraordinary Bodies collaborator Dave Young, aka The Shouting Mute. Our inclusive choir will be led by Colin Rea (Big Noise Chorus) and our choreography is led by Natasha Player (Pavilion Dance South West). They’ll be working with local dance group Far Flung Dance Theatre and you – the Lumenators! Circus artists are Tilly Lee Kronick and Andrew Gregory. We can’t wait for you to be part of it!
Take Part
The only way to see this unique work in an exceptionally beautiful (and secret) location is by joining us! We want you to carry a hand-held light and help us to create this once-in-a-lifetime event outdoors. It’s free to take part and everyone is welcome to sign up – in fact, we want you to tell us what you need in order to be involved.
Together, we will celebrate nature, show that the countryside belongs to all of us, and that it is our job to protect it.
