The Secret Cinema.

28/04/2013, secret venue.

(It’s time to dance!)

Finally the day of the Secret Cinema screening has arrived! I booked my ticket several months ago, when a friend of mine told me about this London crazy event that has exploded in the past 5 years.When you buy the ticket through their website, you know nothing about the show you’re about to see, just the date. Apart from some little clues posted on the Facebook page, everything is secret:  location, movie title and dress code, until the day before the scheduled performance when you’ll receive an email like this:

We looked forward to seeing you at the Beaumont Community Council Meeting.  – It is TIME TO DANCE – Dress Code: 80s. White Vests. Pink dresses. Jeans. Cowboy Boots. Cowboy Hats. Please bring a pack of balloons. And at the bottom you’ll find the address.

When I arrived at the location, the Troxy theatre, I saw a massive group of cowboys, girls and boys dressed in early ‘80s clothes queuing outside the theatre and while we were in the line, some characters in costume asked us to dance with them against “the ordinance” (and of course I did!). Inside the theatre some groups of characters acted bored teenagers, chewing their bubble gums while staring at the stage, that was decorated like a Council meeting room with desks, chairs and a big USA flag hanging at the center. A pin-up  made her way up and down the theatre, spreading pop-corns bags on her old fashioned skates and some actors invited us to seat on the available armchairs. The performance started with a City Council meeting and a Reverend  asked everybody to pray. We all had a sheet with the godspell and we all acted it loudly together.

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Ultra-red
RE:ASSEMBLY
18-21 April 2013

Off-site exhibition at multiple locations
Open 1-6pm

What happens when an international arts collective is placed in an inner city London school over a four-year period?

The Serpentine Gallery presented the project RE-ASSEMBLY, a four day exhibition in partnership between the central London St Marylebone Church of England School and international sound collective Ultra-Red.

 RE-ASSEMBLY demonstrates the important role that art can play in schools.

Initiated and guided by the Serpentine Gallery’s Edgware Road Project, the residency has placed Ultra-red in the heart of the school since 2009 to work with students and teachers and develop a project around subjects as citizenship and migration.

Ultra-red and students have developed sound walks, installations, audio recordings and listening sessions departing from the question, “What is the sound of citizenship?”.

Like most other schools in London, the St Marylebone student body is diverse. Many of the students are refugees, asylum seekers or new immigrants to the United Kingdom. Schools are essential to the production of social citizenship, which involves preparing the young to participate actively and productively in civic and community life. Working with 150 students in Geography and History, Ultra-red brought artists and activists to redevelop a special unit on migration, based on listening exercises in the neighbourhood and the school.

The students, the school staff, the Ultra-Red and the Serpentine gallery played an equal role in developing the project.

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