A blind man or woman, pushing a tandem, walks into the middle of the space.  This is the hero/heroine of a new, medium-scale, outdoor dance performance on and around tandems, performed by blind, partially sighted and sighted dancers.

The show will follow the hero/heroine on an extraordinary journey – a quest for adventure & knowledge – through real and imagined landscapes, helped or hindered by the incredible people he or she meets along the way.

The new show will build on the imagery, & ideas for staging, sound and audio description developed during the research & development phase.  Click the button to see a short film of this phase.

Tandem Ballet (or whatever we call it) will be a touring production, with six dancer/performer (blind, partially sighted and sighted), and three tandems.

Workshops for Local People
We aim to be able to offer workshops, either as stand alone activity, or for participants to join in performances.  Or, a simple tandem ride.

Green Horses on the Wall

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?
Does it make you proud or do you think it’s lame?
Do impossible dreams just bring us pain or do they keep your heart aflame?
Bits of bikes stuck on Putney Leisure Centre’s rooftop
“a flippin’ waste of money” it’s all too easy to mock.
But back behind the iron curtain, in the days when obedience was certain
and dictators dictated the day for one and all,
crazy dreams of freedom were called… green horses on the wall.

Once we dreamt a dream, that seemed to be what life seemed to mean
as kids it kept us keen and became the engine of our teens
but then responsibilities crashed the scene
and we needed to be lean mean money making machines
or maybe we got lucky and got the chance to study
postponing dog-eat-dog, tooth and claw, red and bloody
but sooner or later our still waters got muddy
Money, Money, Money, it’s not that funny
in a rich man’s world
we all need a roof over our head, a place to lay our bed
“dreaming won’t pay the bills” is what mum and dad always said
so the voice of reason told our dreams “you lot, drop dead!”
Those crazy dreams that made life worth living when we were small
Our invisible friends, those Green Horses on the Wall

If you can’t be with the one you love, do you love the one you’re with?
Do you love where you live?
Do you ask where your life has taken, or what your dreams can give?
Beneath your school uniformed tower block
is your home a cheeky multi-coloured sock?
Despite the countdown of nine to five tick tocks
are you wild and crazy like a fox?
Across the lost horizons of your inner life, does your soul stand proud and tall?
Riding high upon the saddle, of Green Horses on the Wall

Ride em Cowboy! You ride em hard!
Your poker face can Hold em, you don’t need the winning cards
Dreamers know that life’s a bluff, but only your very best is good enough
Cos life round here can be tough, you’ve got to deal with all kinds of stuff
and sometimes it all gets too much.
but, when it does, remember…
deep inside your heart are open prairies, where Green Horses ride the wall
don’t believe you’re just another brick, or you won’t hear destiny call
she awaits you, in the Grand Canyon of imagination
where life’s a summer blockbuster of your own creation
a Putney Modern Western, watched from high up in the stalls
where you can dare to dream…
Green Horses on the Walls

Chris Paradox 2012

Commissioned by:

The Circus Street Creation Centre, & 2005 Streets of Brighton artistic commissions, were produced by Karen for Zap Art.

KP Projects is working with Strangelings as a Producer, assisting with strategic development and fundraising in particular.

In summer 2012, Strangelings won a Without Walls Research & Development award, for the initial development of The Rocket, which is currently underway.

Check out the blog of the work in progress:  http://thestrangelingsrocket.wordpress.com/

The Rocket
A new mid-scale street show, inspired by the high divers, human cannonballs and the  ‘Wall of Death’ shows of the traditional travelling fairground spectacles. A human powered spectacle where a couple of bicyclists, roller-skaters and dare-devils re-interpret the classic spectacles of the past.

Presented in the round from a circular, inclined track similar to a low level bicycle velodrome, where a series of spectacular and not so spectacular acts are performed by members of a 13^th generation travelling performing troupe from Lancashire who have, in the tradition of previous generations, adapted to the zeitgeist of the moment and created a zero carbon human/bicycle powered show.

The Rocket will draw on clown and character led performances to present seemingly dangerous and death-defying tricks in a comedic and poetic way, drawing comedy from risk, and success from failure.  We are keen to explore the world of the travelling family to create the atmosphere of the show and the types of spectacle to be attempted building to the show’s much anticipated grand finale.

As in Strangelings‘ previous work we are inspired by familiar archetypes and traditions and attempt to re-interpret them by creating our own version of these worlds and subtly twisting them to make shows that make people laugh and are enjoyed by all ages.

Strangelings have been creating original performances since 1998.   The work has varied from subjects historically rooted in Edwardian, Victorian and circus traditions through to a live retro radio station and post-modern museum to guided tours of public gardens and interpretations of museum and art gallery collections.

We have explored many forms and scale of performance including day and evening installations, walkabouts, circle and large-scale shows. We have gained a reputation for featuring high quality and meticulously detailed sets and props combined with strong characterisation and consistency in quality.

Strangelings has built up strong relationships with many festivals, agencies and arts officers over the years who continue to support our work enabling us to tour nationally and internationally throughout the year. Since 1998 we have successfully delivered commissioned work for amongst others Arts Council England, Manchester Art Gallery, Corbis, Alnwick Garden , Liverpool City Council and Bridgeman Art Library.

David Bernstein is founder and Artistic director of Strangelings and has devised, created set and props for, and performed in, all their shows.  David is a performer, director and company manager and has worked with a wide range of street theatre, cabaret and theatre companies.  For this project David will further develop his directing skills which have previously seen him working with The Swimmers, Bicycle Ballet and Company FZ.

We will be working with Mat Burch, currently the head rigger at The Circus Space London to consult on the structure and rigging possibilities. Mat has worked with Strangelings since 2004 as a performer and rigging consultant  and has a wide knowledge of both.

We will again be working with Charlie Camm as set builder who has worked with us since 1999 on several projects and currently runs a set and prop building company in Dorset, providing services to many West End and touring theatre shows as well as outdoor companies such as Mimbre and Red Herring.

We will be looking at working with experienced devising performers that we have collaborated with in the past to maximise the research period. We like to work with people whose work we’ve been aware of and who we know we can depend upon to create work with.

We will also be working with Producer, Karen Poley on strategic development and fundraising for the project.  Karen is the Creative Producer of Bicycle Ballet and installation project, reCyculture.  She has been creating outdoor events and performances since 1996 and has worked with a range of artists and companies including Charlie Morrissey, Periplum, Magnetic Events, and Zap Art, amongst others.

Chris ‘Paradox’ Patterson is an ‘Inspiration Engineer’ and ‘one legged, existentialist, stand up, beat poet.’ He has been performing at spoken word events, festivals and venues across the UK and world since 2002.

After losing his leg in a diving accident in 2008, he has adapted his act and also runs inspirational performance poetry workshops.

http://www.inspiration-engineer.net

Green Horses on the Wall developed from an installation project called Performance Parking (or, how to park your bike so it doesn’t get nicked!), which was commissioned for the Alton Estate, by Wandsworth Arts Festival in 2011, as part of a larger Bicycle Ballet project.

Watching the first bikes being installed above Roehampton Library, a local resident came up laughing that the installations reminded him of a saying in his country, Romania, ‘Green horses on the wall.’ When you see green horses on the wall, you’re dreaming of incredible or impossible ideas as in ‘a pipe dream’ or ‘when pigs might fly’.

The 2012 project will embrace this wonderful notion, with more impossible and improbable, recycled installations around the estate.

As part of the project, performance poet Chris ‘Paradox’ Patterson has been commissioned to create a short spoken word piece about ridiculous ideas and what crazy dreams mean for the local community. Download the poem here:  Green Horses – POEM

The installations went up on 9th May until early Sept around the Alton Estate