Intro 0:10
You're listening to the Highbridge podcast, celebrating the people, places and history of the Highbridge area in search more

Mell 0:18
This season is funded by Seed which is a consortium of community organizations in sedges more comprising of Bridgewater senior citizens forum Bridgwater Town Council, Community Council for Somerset homes in central Somerset film, and young Somerset, which is funded and supported by Arts Council England, creative people in places lottery funding, and the Arts Council. The main aim of the project is to focus on the people, places, and activities in and around Highbridge, it's important to remember that history is not just about recording the past, but also recording what is happening now, as we create history for future generations. If you enjoy what you hear, do tell your friends and ask them to subscribe to hear future editions for free. Okay, I'm at home bridge Social Club. And I'm with Paul and Sharon who run the Highbridge Youth Arts. So I'm interested to find out amongst all the noise. It sounds like they're having loads of fun. How did this all start

Paul 1:45
Itgot started in May 2021. During lockdown, it's one of the projects of Seed funding Highbridge Sharon and I have known each other for a long time, and it was always a bit of an ambition to try and do something for kids in Highbridge. Otherwise they don't get a chance to do arts and dance and drama. It's affordable project for everyone. So it's two quid a week. So pretty much anyone can make it. And it's really just to give the kids a chance to enjoy themselves and learn how to produce productions.

Mell 2:13
So your background is it in theater?

Paul 2:16
No, not at all. Actually. I've worked for bands and stuff for most of my life. So I've got a background in the more technical side, run my own business as well. Sharon's a qualified dance teacher doing a master's just seemed like a really good idea to make something happen for Highbridge.

Mell 2:33
So why the arts what why, why performing arts?

Paul 2:38
Because you can get the best out of the kids they learn so much. They create all the pieces we do we did. Peter Pan, Highbridge pantomime. Last year in in December, the kids pretty much put script together themselves from basic ideas we gave them and they learn teamwork, better leadership, just a lot more than theatre above all else, it's a place they can come at the minute we're working on a theme around sanctuary that's gonna be part of Somerset Arts week later this year. The noise you hear in the background is them exploring what sanctuary means to them.

Mell 3:12
I was gonna say how much you say it's being driven by this and by the students themselves. So do they select the topics or do you throw a topic in and they have to work with that?

Paul 3:22
So the format we use is Sharon and I usually come up with a theme, so we had a panto theme. Two weeks ago, we just did an exchange riff stack wonky from Porlock and another theatre foods company performed in Highbridge community hall on the Sunday, They performed their piece we performed our piece, about six, seven weeks before that we gave the kids a theme around the pollution on the planet marine pollution, plastics things a bit relevant to Highbridge they then from that created the piece that they performed for about 20 minutes.

Mell 3:52
And what sort of ages is this aimed at?

Paul 3:55
So we have a younger group. That's five to nine year olds. So 3.45 to 5pm on a Thursday. The group you can hear in the background here is ranging from about 9 to actually 19 is our oldest student,

Mell 4:10
Do you find that you've given them a chance to explore and do something that's completely different in their to their comfort zone?

Paul 4:16
Yeah, absolutely. It stretches the kids gets then to use their imagination. It can give them a escape from what's going on in their day to day lives as well. For some of them, you know, we've got some additional special needs children working with us and give us a chance to express themselves.

Mell 4:33
Yeah. That's what I like about theatre. There's no rules in theatre you you can it's all pretend. But there's always there's always a storyline in the background of something that's that's a message or thought. I'm just fascinating how you made the jump from music across to just theater or have you worked in theaters on the techincal side.

Paul 4:57
I suppose I was lucky enough when I was a kid. School I happen to go to school that was a normal state school, but it had a stage and lighting rig. And I started off doing that kind of thing. And Midsummer Night's Dream and all the sort of usual productions that kids do at school. And I really enjoyed that. I guess it's the choice to give some chance, give some of the other kids a chance to enjoy that, I suppose are quite creative, in a different way. And I like bringing the rest of our kids

Mell 5:27
Start back in September?

Paul 5:28
Yeah, we start back in September. Maybe here in Highbridge Social Club, maybe in King Alfred school. In the drama school, we're just looking at best premises we use. We have Facebook group, which is Highbridge Youth Arts. It's a closed group for safeguarding, but any anyone can see the page there and apply to group to join the membership. There's about 150 sort of parents and friends in there at the moment. And we post regularly in Burnham Highbridge discussion groups work with we've others in Highbridge as well. So posts get put there.

Mell 6:03
So if anybody's got an interest, or they've got children that are itching to get performance wise,

Paul 6:10
Get in touch. It's highbridgeyoutharts@gmail.com And delighted to hear from anybody that wants to join is a very open group always got room for some more children to join us and say just two pounds a week. So very affordable.

Mell 6:23
That sounds it's an excellent project. And just by the noise, I can tell that they're having loads of fun.

Paul 6:29
Yeah, it's, they have a great time. We run consciously with an ethos of no rules, just the boundaries to keep things safe for everybody. So all the work we do we may give them the ideas we will coach them along, point them in the right direction, but the kids devise the pieces. Courtney, who's 12 I think is one of our students directed and narrated thelast piece we did.

Mell 6:53
Wow. That's fantastic experience. Yeah,

Paul 6:56
it's great. It really does. You can see the kids grow week by week.

Mell 7:01
Are you Highbridge born and bred?

Paul 7:03
No, I moved here seven years ago now from Milton Keynes. So I've settled down here. And it's just a nice place

Mell 7:12
As an outsider coming in what do you see in Highbridge?

Paul 7:15
I play skittles, for a couple of skittle teams. Made a whole load of friends, people like Sharon and others always made welcome down here and people help each other out. Yeah, we look after our own in Highbridge.

Mell 7:28
That's a lovely, lovely sentiment, a little thing to finish on. Thank you very much, Paul. I'll try and see if I can grab Sharon, amongst all this chaos, and hopefully have a few words here as well. Yeah, no,

Paul 7:37
thanks for coming down. And it's great to just be doing some good things in Highbridge,

Mell 7:41
absolutely.

Okay, chance to talk to Sharon. So Paul explained how the project came about. What's What's your background? How have you come into all this?

Sharon 7:57
Okay, so for the last 24 years, I've been I graduated two or three years ago, and I've been working in the community on different projects, I've worked in secondary schools teaching primary schools teaching dance. So I did that for a long time, but abroad. But I really want to start something in Highbridge for Highbridge. That was not only drama based, but also dance based. Sure. But mainly, it was affordable for young people, because it can be expensive. I also teach at a local dance school, but that's very expensive to attend. And that makes it exclusive. So I wanted to create something was inclusive. That was a space where also kids who come and do drama, but really work on their ideas. It's really important to me that they bought their work and their creativity, and then we just facilitated a space for them to do that. So that was really important. So I'm really happy how it's built. We did Peter Pan, which they created themselves. And that and we had all different sort of characters coming in, and there was nothing that we couldn't produce. So they went, Oh, we want this something really bizarre to happen. Right. So we made it happen. So yeah, it's just been really exciting. And it's been really, really good quality work that the young people have given us. So yeah, it's been really good.

Mell 9:10
Paul was saying about, it's been interesting watching some of the some of the students actually grow during that time period.

Sharon 9:17
Yeah, and I think that's to do with the creativity and the atmosphere that we create, because they start off probably quite shy and not really knowing what to expect. But we try and do games and stuff to start with. It sort of leads them in really gentle to express themselves in a certain way. We know also, we've evolved something we do a check in. So when we all get together again, we do a quick check in to say how you, feeling something good happened this week. So bad happened. Or you can even pass as well. If you're not feeling like talking, that's good as well. And that really builds connections for the young people so they really get to trust each other. So somebody's had a really bad week at school. This is a space a short space where they can go you know what, this happened and it kind of upset me and the other students or the other young people tend to support them. And then given that bit of support, to see that happening is really, really exciting. And the reason why we kind of do this to see them supporting each other and growing, not only creatively, but as young people really being responsive to each other, and looking after each other, and growing those bonds, yeah,

Mell 10:18
so, the ages Paul saying about the two different groups. Are they different to work with? Do they work differently?

Sharon 10:25
Yes, definitely, I'd say the younger group for me is a lot more I have to pack in a lot more activities are a lot more harder, they get through work quite quickly, and they want to move on. Where as this older group, you can maybe see it tonight we were working on football mums came up, I had football moms can be really in your face and really loud. So we worked on that. And they'll run with that, that maybe for the whole lesson. And then we do a little show at the end. So I think the older group are kinda taking the lead for themselves. And there's less teaching or less input from us, which is the idea really, that it all comes from them. So you have a younger group do need that more direction, they just need a bit more direct direction, a little bit more structure.

Mell 10:42
So, plans for the future, what would you hope this goes?

Sharon 11:10
Well, we're looking at because, you know, because I teach drama, as well as dance. But this became really drama based this year. So next year, we're looking at doing a separate dance, and then a separate drama class. Because what happened was is some people like to dance, some people like to drama, and we've kind of gotten a bit of a mishmash. So next year, we're planning student hours dance class, and then hours dramas class. So you can attend both if you want to, or just pick one or the other that you're more into. So and then we're hoping to maybe create a dance that we can maybe go to the local fete, so we get that a little bit of interaction and performance. And also with the phase we're hoping to build some more places to, to perform at the Highbridge community hall. Its a great space to perform. And we're looking to perhaps getting some staging as well, because we find on one level with you know, just moving forward just trying to grow the group. And yeah, just give us many young people the opportunity to create really, that's the idea. That's the main thing. Of course,

Mell 12:09
Of course with theater you've got you've got the theatre on one end and dance. And then in the middle, you've got physical theater that,

Sharon 12:16
Yeah, that's that's something I love that that's a really nice branch over said that has happened, especially within Peter Pan and the fight scenes that we did. And also recently we did a Gods scene and fighting against CEOs who wants to take over planet and the CEOs are fighting against the gods, the Greek gods, this is all came from them. So yeah, the actual fight scene, and that was very physical theater. And then we had a narrator that stopped them and froze them. And yeah, so that kind of work sort of naturally occurs in the space. Sounds fantastic. It's really, it's really great. It's a privilege to work with them. Actually.

Mell 12:49
Physical theatre always lends itself to working with young people and working with ideas that just keep coming in.

Sharon 12:55
Yeah, they do. So basically, we'd sort of maybe plant the seed and then they grow with it. And that's, that's the Yeah, that's the premise of what we're doing it really,

Mell 13:04
Okay, well, all I can do is leave you to go back back to what sounds like chaos, but I can see that they're all quite focused on what they're doing.

Sharon 13:14
Yeah. So thanks very much.

Mell 13:16
No, thank you very much. Thank you.

Outro 13:18
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