Nativity with a Twist, 21st December 2016
St John’s Welcome Centre’s Hope for Abbey Project and community members of Abbey Hulton, worked with Kreative Foundations for several months to create a Nativity Performance with a twist, thanks to funding from the People’s Health Trust.
The idea originated from part of the group who receive respite care due to their disabilities, who for the past few years have watched the local primary school perform a traditional Nativity. In 2016 the group wanted to repay the favour and instead perform a nativity, with a twist, for the community. They wanted it to be comical and fun, yet still in keeping with the church itself.
Leading up to the performance, Kreative Foundations worked with the group for several months to develop their confidence – holding a series of drama workshops to develop a variety of techniques. Additionally the workshops focussed on supporting the group to take ownership of their show. Combined with some community members, the group were instrumental in the development of all aspects of the performance – the initial ideas, script, music selection, performance content, props, costumes and rehearsals. It was also a performance that developed naturally through their amazing personalities.
If that wasn’t enough! The parts of Mary and Joseph, and some other characters, were performed by puppets, who interacted with the performers on the day. A special thanks to Gifted Workshops, who directed, filmed and produced a brilliant pre-recorded sequence of the puppets performing their tiring journey to Bethlehem, which was displayed on screens above the cast whilst they performed their dance routine.
As you can probably tell, we had so much fun creating this performance with the group. It was never a performance that focussed on perfection, but instead about enjoyment, which we feel made it perfect! We’d like to thank everyone involved and the amazing organisations who worked with us.