Lighting the Fire 2011

The Spark Children's Arts Festival, in partnership with Curve and supported by The Mighty Creatives, presented a programme of CPD events in 2011.

Lighting the Fire is a unique course inspired by the cross-curricular, cross-disciplinary and highly collaborative training programmes of one of Italy's leading children's theatre companies - La Baracca, based in Bologna, northern Italy.

Aimed at East Midlands teachers, policy makers and artists, it brough together artists and educators to inform each other's understanding of the value of the arts in early years development and to develop their own parctice in creative activities for young children.

The course invited leading artists and companies from the children's theatre sector to inspire particiapnts, and to develop practical skills and build confidence in using craetive activities with very young children.

Beginning with an overview of "What Makes Creativity Grow" by the leading authority on infant development, Professor Colwyn Trevarthen, the course delivered 7 sessions over 7 months to 72 people. These sessions explored performance, design, puppetry, storytelling and voice work and how these can be applied to enhance early years teaching and learning.

Sessions were led by artists from Oily Cart Theatre Company, Starcatcher, Theatr Iolo, La Baracca, Half Moon Theatre and Curve and ran from February to June 2011 in Leicester.

Below you can see a film made by Ashok Mistry documenting the sessions

Lighting the fire from Ashok Mistry on Vimeo.

Some quotes from participants

"[Colwyn's talk gave] me a deeper understanding of how complex very young babies are... I ahve been able to share what I learnt with parents which has been helpful to them."

"Great to see theory put into practice with genuine performance. Hugely skilled performer - able to observe first hand the children interacting with the show."

"It's brilliant- practical, affordable training is great and very valued, especially when on your doorstep."

Want to hear more about future training?

If you would like to know more about professional development opportunities, join LEAP (Leicester Early Arts Partnership), a free network of educators and creative practitioners that shares information and good practice. Email: hazel@themighty creatives.com. More information

To hear about all Spark training please join our mailing list via the button on the Home Page and select "Early Arts Training".

Download hard-copies of the 2011 programmes below