The Long-awaited Launch of the Sculpture Park

What a week! And thankfully the weather was up to it. Last Saturday saw us storytellers performing at the official launch of the sculptural environmental play area in St. Buryan, designed by a member of the Collective artist's network, and friend. Mel has worked for months on this project, and has done wonders with the space. It boasts an earthcave/earthhouse in the shape of a barrow, a beautiful wooden climb-in ship sculpture - designed by Jo also of the Collective - an amphitheatre (for storytelling! naturally...) mosaic pillars and stepping stones with a theme of rockets and stars, willow maze, arches, fence, herb garden, stone circle border, pump fountain, carved wood pillar entrance...! and altogether, while built as an environmental 'natural play area', it really is an interactive work of art and a wonderful piece of landscape design. Whilst only involved with it in a support-for-the-designer, occasional bits of admin like taking photographs for the website, Collective kind of way, we storytellers still felt proud to be connected with it, and delighted to be asked to perform at its opening. As John Le Carre said in his speech to open it, it's a unique space, and will end up being an attraction in its own right, and far from just a local feature. The amphitheatre was a lovely space to perform in, and the body-masks leered at the audience from behind us, like uninvited guests when not in use, while the flags rippled in the breeze. Classic moments included one little kid trying to climb into the Dragon's mouth, and pick the nose of the Goblin! when they were lying by after the end of a set. Our first ever performance of the classic Cornish folk story 'The Mermaid of Zennor' went down especially well, and in the evening we did an informal shorter set for adults who'd been working serving food and drink all day, which met with much hilarity and applause. Thanks to all at St. Buryan Community House for being such sporting hosts! 

   Another blog would be the trials, tests and parties of the Collective, what tales to tell of how this place was built, and the many involved in it and with it...would make a great novel, but hey, who wants to be sued?

     The week's other performances and events will have to wait till another post, as another Edition's just gone off, but as ever that means the website is waiting for updates, there's signage and flyers to do for more events, invoices still to be sent and......................eventually some time off hopefully.