Having limbered up on Wednesday night we rocked up at Symphony Hall this morning to finish off the job only to find ourselves trumped. A team of guys with a giant cherry picker where busy applying a vast vinyl to the building’s vast front window – far more pressured than our small scale fiddling around.

Our job was strangely stress free. Being a treasure hunt rather than a conventional edition of the Steps Series means there are none of the complicated narrative or choreographic challenges, instead there are some of the most complicated and intricate vinyls we have ever delivered – miniature French Horn anyone?

Photography and painting were completed today on Year 2′s comic book adaptation of Treasure Island. Day 1 involved learning about tableaux and how comic book conventions work as well as reading the book. On Day 2 Kay came in to work with the children on their costume designs whilst Craig and I worked through storyboarding the eight chapters with the chapter groups (him odd and me even) and the two classes started making props and treasure maps.

Yesterday and today we were joined by Ming De Nasty who did a heroic job photographing a vast array of set ups we put before her both on location and in front of the blue screen. At the same time the classes were doing loads of activities surrounding the project including painting backdrops

Last week Craig and I undertook a site visit to Symphony Hall and plotted an orchestral treasure hunt adventure there. Simon Ford, who had been put on stand-by, undertook late night vigils creating detailed vinyl representations of a vast array of instruments. Early this week I did a late night shift cutting all the vinyl and ‘picking out’ the unwanted vinyl and tonight Craig, Denise and I started the sticking job.

It’s a demanding sticking job because on glass the smallest imperfections of application are visible and I, in my late night delirium earlier in the week, make things massively more difficult than they should have been. By rolling up the vinyl I made applying the backing paper (which Craig and I did late on Tuesday) much more difficult than it should have been.

On Friday we finish the job and The Orchestra Dream opens at Symphony Hall on Saturday.

Having very much enjoyed Surtra – the Sidi Larbi/ Shaolin monk/Antony Gormley kung-fu/dance-fest at the Hippodrome last week I’m on the lookout for a bit more contemporary dance. With Pilot Night on Thursday night at our place and Friday nights domestically in demand I may struggle to get to Dan Canham’s Ours Was The Fen Country which is a shame as it sounds like an intriguing idea and worth checking out.

Last night at the Dorchester Hotel. PRS for Music Foundation’s New Music 20×12 won the Concert Series and Festivals category of the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards. Which, as The Voyage was one of the twenty twelve minute long pieces which made up the series must make us 1/20 winners. Unfortunately we didn’t get to go to the Dorchester… Well done to the PRS team for pulling it all together.

Winners of the Audience and Engagement Category were The Philharmonia Orchestra for their Universe of Sound project, which arrives at the Birmingham Municipal Bank building on Broad Street on 25th May. Coincidently we have been commissioned by Symphony Hall to compliment Universe of Sound by installing The Orchestra Dream – a spin off from The Steps Series – in their foyer spaces.

It takes an hour or so to read, so long as you spend some time gazing at the lovely photos and of course being all about generosity and openness and making things happen you are welcome to read it on-line: and we recommend you do.

Two items of news coinciding reflect the tenor of the times. From Sandwell news that The Public is under threat of closure and from Sheffield, news that Point Blank are to broker more free temporary space in the Midlands.

Despite it’s painful birth we have a strong affection for The Public, we had a great time installing Sandwell Steps there in 2011 and have enjoyed regular visits since, including a great evening watching Bobby Baker. The building is home to many local arts organizations including Black Country Touring and the Learnplay Foundation who have started a lobbying initiative to persuade the local council to retain The Public. You may choose to add your weight behind this and sign their petition.

Point Blank are a resourceful theatre company based in Sheffield who have the happy skill of persuading landlords of empty properties that it would be cost-effective to let artists use them for free. They are the company who brokered the space on Birmingham’s New Street last year which was run by Little Earthquake and next week they are holding an open event Transforming Empty Space: Birmingham Meet on 23rd May at 12:30 in which they will share news of new space coming available for use. So you may choose to go to that.

The important thing to note is that temporary free access to a shop unit given to artists by a landlord as a way of dodging business rates whilst a paying tenant is found does not replace The Public. In order for the arts to thrive they needs proper support not crumbs that fall from a table. I’ll end there before a re-rehearse my rant.

Last night was perhaps the first time that our opening night anxiety has been more focused on whether the venue would be finished than whether the show would be finished. Two Snowhill is a huge new office development, the biggest to open outside London this year, so there is little surprise there have remained many snags to iron out. We probably haven’t helped the snagging process as increasing numbers of builders have been popping in with their mates to visit the show as it has been prepared.

The building, which runs along the east side of Snowhill Station, has been jointly developed by Hines and Ballymore and they commissioned us to make their official opening a memorable event. I think we delivered the show looks fantastic because the floor is sliver, the low ceiling white, the walls are almost all glass with spectacular views over north Birmingham. The building’s atrium is fantastic, the rice has its lovely glowing golden colour and the paper it stands on is all white, we were in our brown housecoats and thoughtfully most of the guests had arranged in advance to wear dark suits – the kind of coordination that Prince in his pomp would have been proud of.

These events are often quite stressful as mixing people who have come not to see the art with free booze can lead to rice casualties but we escaped quite lightly, with only a few people inadvertently walking into statistics.

As the evening wore on we got more and more positive feedback and the suggestion there could be more ‘corporate gigs’ on the horizon. HOWEVER the key inspiration of this current gig is that it is not wholly corporate. Hines and Barrymore are opening Two Snowhill up to the public until 21st April so people can take in the show, the building and the spectacular views. There has been a lot of coverage. Birmingham Post have done a big preview piece, Created in Birmingham have kindly given it a plug and Adrian Goldberg, who is a great supporter of Stan’s Cafe had me on his Radio WM show yesterday to talk about the piece. He saw it back in 2008 and is a big fan “I can’t tell you how much fun the show is … you’d be mad, mad, mad not to go!”.

If you want to be on Telly, come to the show THIS EVENING at 18:30 as we will be LIVE on BBC Midlands Today.

These are busy times for many people. We are delight to announce that in a couple of weeks (22nd April) Improbable will be bringing their new show The Bear to our venue @ A E Harris. Later that week Stan’s Cafe Associate Artist Bernadette Russell will be at the venue with a Work-in-Progress Preview of her new show 366 Days of Happiness, a show with serious roots in Birmingham. If you want to come and see this you won’t have to pay any cash but you do need to be invited (which is easy). Details of both these shows are on the @ A E Harris website.

Over at MAC next week (16th – 20th April) there are further showings of the Jane Packman Company show A Thousand Shards of Glass, which you may have missed when it was at @ A E Harris last year.

If you need to earn some cash before seeing these shows maybe you can become the new/first producer for The Other Way Works (though you will need better qualifications than just needing the cash).

If you need to make cheese, friends of Stan’s Blanch & Shock can show you how in London on 20th April.

The first get-in day was very productive. From the sixth floor of Two Snowhill we have spectacular views over north Birmingham and these have helped inspire the statistics we are using. The show is going to look very beautiful. All is well.