Press Release

Cultural Architects: 'Who do You Want to Be?'

On Friday 4 July 2003, Year 8 boys from Looe Community School in Cornwall will give a ground-breaking performance as part of a Creative Partnerships Cornwall project.

Marc Silver and Nic Hillel of Yeast Directions are usually to be found filming Channel 4 documentaries in far corners of the globe, and onstage VJ-ing with musicians like Nitin Sawhney. The Looe boys have been working with Marc and Nic alongside local VJ Tom Harding, dancers Sarah Waller and Phil Hill, and artist John Keys to create their own unique performance environment, in a project that has challenged each of them to dream about their futures.

Identified by the school's Deputy Head as having the ability to change opinions and attitudes in a peer group - a phenomenon that sports psychologists have recently named 'cultural architects' - these boys could go several ways at this point in their school careers, and the aim here is to offer the potential-rich young minds an opportunity to choose a positive direction rather than a negative one.

The project is part of a joint investiagtion by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) and Creative Partnerships into the use of Physical Education and School Sport as tools for developing creative approaches to learning and school improvement. In fact two key teachers at the school have played a crucial part in the process.
Martin McHugh and Mike Keveth have fed into the project all the elements that drive a football team, for example, to achieve excellence in the face of stiff competition. In this way these boys have seen for the first time that working hard and working together can achieve some incredible results that simply aren't possible done alone. This is the synergy that is often spoken about in successful teams - these boys have realised that they are far more than the sum of their parts when working together.

All this has been done using a subject not often associated with boys - dance.
Sarah Waller, also co-ordinating the project on behalf of Creative Partnerships, says the process has been a tough and also enlightening one for the boys. On a massive 10ft square screen with football team benches on each side where the boys sit between performing, is shown film they have made that takes them through their hopes and dreams of the future, mixing images of their heroes with images of their hopes for their own lives. When one boy is asked on camera who inspires him, he says, 'My mum inspires me.' Another cites David Beckham. When asked which animal they would like to be, one boy conjures up that of a bird, leading into sequences the boys have created about flying and the associations that brings to do with aspirations, freedom, flights of imagination. It's a powerful set of images.

Sarah also says, 'The boys have developed so many skills - not just physical and body skills, and learning how to use new technology creatively, but each one has had to reach inside themselves to achieve new depths of determination & confidence. It's been a very difficult process in unexpected ways; the boys have found that yes, they may be able to do the moves, but gaining the stamina & mindset to keep working and working on something to make it better - that's been the hard bit.'
She also says, 'Martin McHugh has been pivotal in driving the boys to run faster and push harder, applying the same tactics used in school sport to developing a dance performance. It's worked brilliantly. Using dance as the catalyst, and traditional PE approaches to drive the work, the boys are deeply surprised at what they've managed to achieve.'

Even ticket selling has led to a new piece of learning for the group. When asked to sell tickets for the show, most said they couldn't, or didn't want to. After Martin McHugh suggested the ticket income might be spent on an activity the boys themselves could choose, they went out with renewed purpose and sold the lot in a day. Incentive is another aspect the boys have learned about.

The theme of the residency has been 'who do you want to be?', analysing role models and pathways to success not just for these Year 8 boys, but as importantly for the Primary school groups who will also benefit from the work. As part of the project the Looe boys have been designing elements of a workshop that they themselves will be delivering for younger boys in the cluster Primary schools, under the watchful eye of the professionals - making them into role models for the younger ones in their turn.

It's a powerful combination of factors. It's a new way of taking potentially negative pivotal moments and transforming them into opportunities. For Creative Partnerships this is exactly the kind of result it is hoping for - finding new ways of transforming expectations in young people, building their aspirations for their futures, and offering them an empowered sense of choice in those futures.

Notes for editors

Creative Partnerships Cornwall is one of sixteen regions in a national scheme from the Arts Council of England, the DCMS and DfES.

Performances are at 11.30am and 7.30pm on Friday 4 July 2003.

Contact details

For more information contact Lindsey Hall Creative Director, and team, on 01872 275187.