Rubbish Boy is a visual, physical theatre piece for children, tailored to be accessible to the mainstream as well as those with various learning disabilities. It is a fantastical story about the environment and the consequences of collective action. We believe that playing with re-envisioning our environment awakens an awareness through which we can come to accept our individual responsibility within the bigger world. Rubbish Boy is therefore set in a world created entirely out of doctored rubbish, evoking natural environments such as the sea, the forest, or the mountains. The use of rubbish for surprising and unexpected purposes emphasises the ambiguity of what we consider worthless. It assigns discarded objects a new and exciting function, reinstating their meaning, making us realise that objects have value beyond the obvious, and that only through being resourceful with our surroundings can we find balance in life.
Short summary of plot
A boy wakes up to find that his flesh and blood have turned into rubbish. His arms are made out of plastic lids, his torso out of a milk bottle, his legs are tin cans. What’s more, the Moon has disappeared from the sky and is nowhere to be found. We follow Rubbish Boy on his epic journey through the most extreme environments on earth: the freezing and hostile mountains at the top of the world, the dark and dingy bottom of the polluted ocean, and the remotest bog in the forest. We watch as he meets an array of fascinating characters, all of them with a strong opinion on what is going on in the world. Where has the Moon gone and does Rubbish Boy have what it takes to find her? What happens if we don’t hang up our dreams and pull together to save something we care about?
Style
Merging physical theatre, object manipulation, puppetry, music and voice, the show draws on many sensory tools to provide an all-encompassing and immersive experience. Working to create a performance accessible to children on the autism spectrum as well as those with severe learning disabilities, we want to focus on offering multiple points of connection not reached through everyday forms of communication. We are working with song, sound and rhythm as well as other interactive elements such as texture, smell and physical replication to create multilayered relationships with the audience throughout the narrative journey.
Our plan
As alumni of the Mahindra United World College of India (MUWCI), we are interested in taking our expertise in this field back to the place where our passion for community work was initially sparked. The incredibly worthy work of some of the centres we had the opportunity to work with during our studies (e.g. Sadhana Village) reminded us of the need in India for models of inclusive practice and we want to extend our research in this area whilst simultaneously hoping to ‘give back’ to the local communities surrounding our college.
The Proposal
So far our proposed outreach to India for this first stage (May-August 2012) includes:
Touring Rubbish Boy and accompanying workshops to schools and Inclusive education/care centres in Maharashtra.
Collaborating with the Youth, Environment & Sustainability (YES) summer programme at MUWCI to devise an Inclusive Theatre Programme to be taken to surrounding schools and centres.
Facilitating the creation of a piece of Inclusive Theatre with adults at Sadhana Village in collaboration with MUWCI students, to be performed for the local community.
Developing an ongoing link with MUWCI students to expand their practice of Inclusive Theatre work with the local communities.
Academic research into the need, uses and possible developments of Inclusive Theatre Practice in India.
Through this programme we aim to forge lasting relationships between current students and alumni, as well as between the college and surrounding communities. Further, we hope that exploring self-advocacy through creative expression will help to enrich the lives of some of the most marginalised people whilst contributing to the vital environmental work MUWCI are already facilitating.
What we need from you
We are currently in the process of securing funds through the MA in Applied Theatre at The Central School of Speech and Drama, however this is a minimal amount and that's why we are on WeFund. A substantial portion of the immediate feedback we received after asking around for funding contacts was 'I don't have any connections, but would like to contribute a little myself.' Well, here we are. No amount is small amount, we would be extremely grateful for your help. If we raise our target of £1500, your money will go towards getting Rubbish Boy over to the great country, if we can go any higher, you will contributing to him having a bed over his head and a few bus/train seats to plonk his bum onto. Check out our pledges, it will be worth it!
Big love,
Buried Moon
Kati Francis and Sasha Nemeckova
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In case you are one of those people experiencing problems getting through PayPal and finalising the transaction, the email address that paypal recongises is not anemeckova@gmail.com, but anemeckova@googlemail.com. They are one and the same, unfortunately PayPal can't compute that, which I believe has led to a few difficulties. Let me know whether things work better with the new one. If not and you would still like to donate, get in touch with me personally and I'll forward you Kati's bank details where you can pay her directly and we will then transfer it all on to WeFund. Big love from all of us at Buried Moon.
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