Supported by ARts Council England, Connect Arts is an online arts portal that brings young people from troubled backgrounds & disability-led children together with professional artists across Europe to write & create ground breaking new theatrical work.
Discover our puppet circus opera created via Connect Arts called…
In this project, we wrote, created, filmed and presented live on Zoom our puppet circus opera called ‘The Secret Fairyland’.
Young people battling homelessness in Nottingham co-wrote the story, disability-led children from Oakfield School in Nottingham co-created the puppets & set, and they joined our professional acroabtic musicans from across Europe in a live-streamed Zoom performance that took place at Oakfield School Hall on January 24, 2024.
Please scroll down to see how we made this project…
See some of our past and current outreach projects
HOMEPLAY
THIS IS ABILITY
THE JINGAH PROJECT
BUILDING RAINBOWS
CONNECT ARTS
MEET THE TEAM
CHLOE CHARODY
COMPOSER / ARTISTIC DIRECTOR / LEAD PRODUCER
ELI HUBER
PERFORMER / CIRCUS COACH
JOSH FRAZER
PERFORMER / ACCESS MENTOR
SONJA SCHEBECK
PERFORMER / ACCESS MENTOR
DUNCAN TOWNSEND
WRITER / ACCESS MENTOR
IZZY HOLLIS
PUPPET MAKER / ACCESS MENTOR
THE LIVE ZOOM PERFORMANCE OF our puppet circus opera ‘THE SECRET FAIRYLAND’ @ OAKFIELD SCHOOL NOTTINGHAM (24.01.24)
A few snaps from the performance of our puppet circus opera ‘The Secret Fairyland’ with the wonderful children from Oakfield School and our team of professional acrobatic musicians that joined us on Zoom from across Europe 🎪🦄🌈
CREATING OUR acrobatic puppet ‘SHAUNA’ for our puppet circus opera ‘THE SECRET FAIRYLAND’
Designed out of entirely recycled materials by Izzy Hollis.
Izzy & the children at Oakfield, ready to take their puppet on a tour of their school!
Adjusting parts of Shauna’s design so that she can swing on trapeze!
Well done to Izzy and all the wonderful children at Oakfield School. Shauna is gorgeous and we can’t to see her star in our brand new puppet-circus-opera ‘The Secret Fairyland’
Izzy and the Oakfield children take Shauna on a tour around Oakfield School and test out her trapeze skills in the school foyer…
Shauna has said good bye to the children at Oakfield School and is on her way to rehearsals with our professional team of acrobats and acrobatic opera singers! How exciting…
The 9 children at the disability-led school, Oakfield School, Nottingham created their own interpretations of Izzy’s design.
Shauna’s dress was made by the children from Oakfield School
WORKSHOPS WITH OUR PROFESSIONAL ARTISTS
Concurrently running alongside our workshops with disability-led young people and young people from troubled backgrounds, are workshops led by our professional team who are busy developing new skills for ‘The Secret Fairyland’. Sonja & Josh are in Vienna and Caitlin & Remi are in Berlin.
MAKING THE SET FOR OUR PUPPET CIRCUS OPERA
Our set maker and mentor Bryony McCombie Smith discusses the creation of the set for The Secret Fairyland (originally titled ‘Rainbow World) live from Oakfield School Nottingham just moments before our live-streamed Zoom performance took place.
The Design
Skills Building Webinars
On Jan 30th at 7pm UK time, our wonderful makers Izzy Hollis & Bryony McCombie-Smith led a webinar where they discussed their techniques in sustainable puppet & set making and how this influenced their approach in creating the puppets & set for our puppet circus opera with the young disability-led children from Oakfield School.
Shauna Vahey from Oakfields School in Nottingham during workshops with Izzy Hollis to create the puppet, “Shauna”.
The story of ‘The Secret Fairyland’ centres around a young girl called Shauna who is a real life disability-led child that co-wrote the story of ‘Mrs Giggly’s Magic School’ for our digital theatre programme, HomePlay that was funded by ACE in 2021.
After a number of creative writing workshops in late 2023 with a team of young people from Nottingham (aged 16-25) who are on the verge of homelessness, we decided to write and create a new puppet circus opera that would form a part of Mrs Giggly’s Magic School - and thus, The Secret Fairyland was born.
The exciting part about this is that The Secret Fairyland will tour internationally with the live stage production of Mrs Giggly’s Magic School that is playing throughout England and Australia in 2024 at some very exciting venues including The Arts Depot in London.
The Secret Fairyland is a special place that Shauna discovers after falling inside her toy-box following a game of hide-and-seek with her imaginary friends in her bedroom. Unknown to Shauna, deep inside her toy box is a giant rainbow slide that twirls and whirls, twists and turns around a colourful world of giant sweets and cheeky fairies that leads to a magical castle where Mrs Giggly’s Magic School resides…
WATCH THE DIFFERENT LIVE PERFORMANCE PRESENTATIONS OF ‘THE SECRET FAIRYland’ that took place during connect arts…
Live Zoom performance of ‘The Secret Fairyland’ for school children across England that took place on January 24 2024 at Oakfield School, Nottingham
‘The Secret Fairyland’ in the film of our circus opera ‘Mrs Giggly’s Magic School’ (Mrs Giggly’s Magic School was created at Oakfield School Nottingham in 2021)
understanding The effects this project has had on the mental well being of troubled young people
Extracts from the research papers by nursing students Harriet Smyth-Kirk and Sophie Robertson taken during Connect Arts.
