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Space Steps |
Beaumont Leys School, Leicester
Great Meadow Road, off Anstey Lane, LE4 0FL
Open to the public 13:00 - 15:00
21st & 28th November, 5th & 12th December 2009
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Devised by Simon Ford, Craig Stephens and James Yarker with Denise Stanton
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Rheanna Boyes, Kieran Figg, Vinay Jamnadas, Jasmin Kaur, Jemini Pandya, Ashika Pattni, Ranko Radulovic and Georgia Whitaker
with Ms. Livesley, Ms Hicken and Ms Hall
Sound Design by Lovedeep Bharaj, Coutney Bliss, Rosie-Olivier Heggs,
Bhavik Solanki, Annabelle Tarrant and Ross Westbrook with Angus Wallace
Alien / Robot Designs by classes 9RLH and 7SB
Produced by Miss. Crosby and Andrew Fox
Space Steps was funded by The Mighty Creative
When we were invited to Beaumont Leys School to discuss a possible collaboration we
arrived expecting to discuss animations or pod-casts, but as soon as we saw the gleaming
corridors of their brand new, £17M building, it was clear we had to persuade them
to invest in an edition of the Steps Series. Persuasion wasn't difficult and they took on
the challenge with vigour. A team of students visited Spy Steps to gain ideas and later
the school's leadership were taken to generate political will for the project.
Craig took a session in which pupils pitched ideas for the edition's overall theme. Our
favourite, given the futuristic nature of the school and its daytime status as an enclosed community,
was to turn the building into a space ship. Of course having a metaphor that casts the school
as a vehical for lifting its crew out of its current circumstances and transporting them to another world
is an attractive one, expecially in an underprivilaged area of Leciseter.
Reflecting on their response to Spy Steps pupils helped guide the structure of Space Steps.
The piece starts at the building's front entrance, where robot guards slide aside
to allow admission. From here the piece follows a relatively smooth route around the building
concluding at the top floor with the flight deck. Although there are connections between incidents
early in the piece and those later on, its structure only slightly less conservative than
Odyssey Steps.
A test on a hidden piece of wall suggested that the school's paint job wasn't as robust as those
we had encountered elswhere with the project, so vinyl had to be concentrated on floors, doors,
glass, metal and perspex. Banks of lockers turned into seed banks, incubation units for aliens and
storage facilities for the elements. Music rooms became fuel tanks. Stowaways attempt to steal
the diamond drive, aliens escape and have to be recaptured, General Teaching arrives and the crew
prepare to make the jump to hyhperspace.
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