Greenwich World Cultural Festival

1st July 2012

When you walk into the grounds of Eltham Palace in South East London it is like entering a secret garden, or walking through the wardrobe and finding yourself in Narnia. This Art Deco hidden gem, built around the remains of the Palace first recorded in Domesday Book of 1086, is the location Greenwich Dance and Greenwich Theatre present the annual Greenwich World Cultural Festival, a celebration of dance, music and theatre from around the world.

As Greenwich Dance’s Resident Artist I arranged a Creative Clay workshop in the Sunken Moat, led by my eldest son Max and his friend Jess, to make clay figures inspired by the dance taking place around them. Constantly busy with all ages creating a figure to take home.

Max and Jess Creative Clay Workshop 2Creative Clay workshop inspired by dance in the festival

Visitors to the festival were given a map of the palace grounds showing a bridge crossing the dry moat at three given times during the afternoon, asked to meet beside the bridge to be led to the area where a dance would be performed by Beyond Front@

Beyond Front@ at Eltham Palace

Beyond Front@ at Eltham Palace Beyond Front@ 2Beyond Front@ dancing in the grounds of Eltham Palace

I gave the spectators small pieces of paper and pencils and suggested they try to get some of the movement on to paper, at the end of the dance we hung them on the Thought Tree.

musicians  Musicians played in surprise places around the grounds

big picnic big picnicProtein Dance’s The Picnic commissioned by Greenwich Dance

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