Clod Ensemble tour On The High Road to CAST, Doncaster on 8 May and are offering £5 tickets to community partners and local institutions that support and nurture young artists.
This highly anticipated new production by Clod Ensemble, is a gripping, vivid piece of theatre which combines a stark monochrome design, kaleidoscopic movement and exhilarating music. Directed by Suzy Willson, a dynamic company of outstanding dancers, actors and singers warp time and perspective to create an epic moving sculpture. The central image feels especially relevant in a world in which difference and intolerance, displacement, refuge and climate change are omnipresent, and we must work out how to live together.
Featuring live performances from Irish folk singer Thomas McCarthy (Gradam Ceoil TG4’s Singer of the Year 2019), acclaimed soprano Melanie Pappenheim and cult cabaret icon George Heyworth, one half of Bourgeois & Maurice, the production will offer a true gig experience.
Of the company’s decision to offer heavily reduced tickets, co-Artistic Director Paul Clark said: “As we absorb the huge cuts to education budgets and radical changes to the curriculum, we are seeing a reduction in students taking up courses in dance, music, drama and visual arts. The creative industries are one of the parts of our economy in which we are genuinely world leaders – it feels like an act of self-harm that we are dismantling an ecosystem that nurtures it.
I have been working in secondary schools for over a decade through our music education project Living Room Music and have seen first-hand the effect of the over-stretched resources. The decline is consistent across all arts subjects, with registration for 2018 arts GCSEs in England plummeting by 150,000 over the past five years. Meanwhile, Independent Schools continue to generously fund arts within their schools – academically, as a recreational centre of school life and also as an essential component of students’ broader cultural awareness.
Depressingly, a career in the arts is becoming increasingly the preserve of the wealthy. It is vital that students from all socio-economic backgrounds have access to the same opportunities as more privileged and privately educated students. At Clod Ensemble we believe it essential that young people have the opportunity to experience high quality contemporary performance work without facing the barriers of price.”
To register a school or youth group for these ticket offers, please contact Clod Ensemble directly by phone on 0207 749 0555 or email admin@clodensemble.com.
On The High Road is supported by New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth. Clod Ensemble is supported by Arts Council England & the Wellcome Trust.
