Royal Wedding Charitable Gift Fund: Changing lives through Arts and Sport
5th April 2011
Something in the Air was created for children who have traditionally been considered hard to communicate with
Oily Cart
Since 1981 Oily Cart has been taking its unique blend of theatre to children and young people in schools and venues across the UK. Challenging accepted definitions of theatre and audience, it creates innovative, multi-sensory and highly interactive productions for the very young and for young people with profound and multiple learning disabilities.
Case Study – “Something in the Air”
Something in the Air is a Production by Oily Cart, for young people with Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities and/or an Autistic Spectrum Disorder.
Oily Cart creates ‘All sorts of shows, for all sorts of kids’, defying conventional forms of theatre in order to communicate with non-traditional, often non-verbal audiences. The impact of the work is witnessed through the young people’s responses and the feedback provided by those close to them.
Something in the Air was a collaboration between Oily Cart and aerial theatre company Ockham's Razor, commissioned by Manchester International Festival in 2009. For each show an audience of six young people and six carers were seated in specially created 'nest' chairs and raised into the air to fly in safety and comfort with the performers.
Oily Cart ran residencies at three Manchester Special Schools in the run up to the public performances of Something in the Air at the Contact Theatre in Manchester in July 2009. The show then toured to Newbridge School Oldham, Trinity School Dagenham, The Unicorn Theatre London, and Galeri in Wales during April and May 2010.
Something in the Air was created for children who have traditionally been considered ‘hard to communicate with’. A teacher in one of the schools commented that it was good that the production was aimed at ‘our hardest to reach children’ as it was unusual for them to be seen as the ‘target’ group. Although the children were fully involved in the life of the school, she felt that often the experiences they were offered by visitors from outside were not always aimed at them. A parent who attended a public performance with her daughter also said that she felt she had spent her daughter’s life campaigning for her in education, and that it was moving and surprising for her to come to an event where people valued and celebrated her disabled daughter.
Oily Cart is unique in creating original work for these specialist audiences and will continue to tour productions each year to Special Schools and venues across the UK.
Prince William and Catherine Middleton have selected KeyFund as one of the charities to benefit from their Royal Wedding Charitable Gift Fund, which they created to help celebrate their wedding.
For further information, visit the Royal Wedding Charitable Gift Fund website.
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