Summer of 2012 brought about new creative development within The Alnwick Garden. The UK’s top contemporary garden and champion of the arts made the decision to develop it’s own in-house suite of characters. Let’s Circus was chosen as the director and training providers for these young, emerging professional animateurs. Over the course of the summer season these characters were devised, costumed, rehearsed and performed every day between June and October by a group of 12 young artists, under the mentorship of Let’s Circus. The resultant ‘Alnwick Garden Bunch’ brought entertainment, play and interactivity to the public within the world class venue.
Also in 2012, Let’s Circus were commissioned to create a ‘Still’ The UK’s first Festival of Human Sculpture. Combining live performance with visual art, a national call-out lead to 6 new commissions from artists and companies across the UK. Each commission of new work with the human body core to the piece, was showcased within the outdoor environment as part of the 10-day festival. These site specific works included roaming characters, the aerial transformation of a chrysalis into a butterfly, physical theatre/dance, and a mass-participation moving sculpture of humans leading to ‘The Rainbow Cascade’ of colourful people within the venue’s famous centrepiece water feature ensemble. Most of these works continued to other arts programmes across the UK.
Project Lifetime: 2012
Location: Alnwick, Northumberland
