Day of Adventures

I'm posting this on the train from Svendborg to Odense, both in Denmark. One of the unis where I teach has a meeting twice a year with good food, better company and fun times nestled nicely among (in)formal chat about the uni, this meeting takes place in the maritime town of Svendborg and I've been there a couple of times now.

Oddly enough, this is the town in Denmark that most reminds me of London - it's a sensibility to the past, a certain reluctance to tear down and build new and it therefore offers up a nice bit of psychogeography. It also helps that the place is heavy on maritime symbols, mermaids, anchors, waves cut in wood abound. I have a troubled realationship with my old Nikon D70 and since most of my memory for the camera has either died or been hidden by my son, I currently have the capacity of four photos on one of the silly 16Mb cards that came free with something at one point or another, but here's half of what I snapped:



Soon it's Odense, birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen - I'm not really a big fan of his depressing fairy tales, but I am partial to his paper cuts. I will choose my four shots carefully - or possibly get a new card.

- kommer gratis i biografen

Den 16. juli inviterer en hemmelig klub alle børn over 7 år til at blive forvandlet til skov-ånder og gå på et magisk eventyr. Samtidig rydder ånderne, iført masker og nysgerrighed, lidt op efter menneskene og møder nogle af de andre åndevæsener der bor i skoven. Dagen efter er alle ånderne inviteret i biografen til at se den Japanske tegnefilm Chihiro og heksene.

Det er gratis at være med, men man skal tilmelde sig på www.schhh.org og der er kun begrænsede pladser.



English translation:

The forest spirits go to the cinema for free

On 16th July, a secret club invites all children over the age of 7 to be transformed into forest spirits and embark on a magical adventure.
At the same time the spirits, showing masked faces and curiosity, clean up a little after the humans and meet some of the other spirits of the forest. The day after, all are invited to the cinema to watch the beautiful Japanese animation 'Spirited Away'.

It is free to take part, but you must sign up early at www.schhh.org as there are only limited spaces available.

A New Haunt
31st October, 2pm-6pm, Watling St. near St. Paul's Cathedral



Regular readers of this highly irregular blog may remember when I briefly mentioned taking "Fighting Fantasy" storytelling to the streets - this is now happening.


image of the flyer - see it at the website for a secret club

For The House of Fairy Tales a secret club has developed a ghost story. The original brief said "treasure hunt" but this was the perfect opportunity to play around with the format and this one also offered the chance to include a progressional making-experience - participants are basically applying for a Permission to Haunt and must go on a quest to learn the necessary skills and to fill out their application form.


some of the stubs, forms, appendices and marks applicants will meet

The format is a story - participants are presented by a series of texts, but because we're mainly dealing with children and want this to evolve throughout the day, some passages are played by actors and "readers". Kid (of all ages) who play are informed that they take part in a story, they have a couple of choices that exclude some activities and I think that this will be interesting to observe. I still want to explore this method of delivery further and am thinking of a time-limited run in that format.

It is great to finally have formalised these activities as a secret club and we are going to throw a lot of things at you in 2011. We have learned a lot from our collaborations with The House of Fairy Tales and we share their idea of teaching things that schools tend not to value.