Tree of Light
Community Celebrations is a national programme which will create high-profile spectacular and innovative celebrations in communities across the UK. Legacy Trust UK has committed £3 million to this programme which aims to create a cultural legacy in each of the successful areas (Scotland, Northern Ireland, East Midlands and South East England).
The Tree of Light brings together 1,200 performers and a choir of 450 around a gigantic industrial “tree” of light, for a major new large-scale outdoor performance, focusing on sustainability, creativity and local heritage and taking place at dusk in parkland across the South East in the summer of 2012.
The piece tells an epic tale from the long life of a mythical tree and will be a visual and sonic feast for the senses – full of drama, excitement and joy. It is an exuberant and highly physical celebration of the natural world and of our part in it.
The Tree of Light will be performed by people of all ages from across the South East. The culmination of a wider project exploring the science and art of trees, this piece is a grand community celebration and will be a very moving human spectacle highlighting the rich and fragile relationship between people and their environment.
The creative team, working under the artistic direction of Henley Festival’s Stewart Collins, includes set designers Block9, composer Orlando Gough, and performance director/choreographer Charlie Morrissey, with Electric Peddles providing bicycle generated electricity to help power the event.
The Tree of Light will be performed on the following dates:
30th June 2012 in Windsor Great Park
9th July 2012 in Oxford (South Parks) in partnership with the Torch Relay overnight stop Roadshow
10th July 2012 in Reading
21st July 2012 finale at Stonor Park, Oxfordshire
Arts and science partners are working with ten groups in each of the Oxford, Henley, Reading and Windsor/Slough ‘hubs’. Participants’ ideas and aspirations will then be expressed artistically as groups work with the Tree of Light’s lead artists towards the final performances. These include installation design team Block9, choreographer Charlie Morrisey and composer Orlando Gough, working with animateurs at community level.
The massive Tree of Light that Block9 produces will use LED lighting and will be powered by Electric Pedals’ adapted bicycles and rowing apparatus. The large-scale celebrations will embody the powerful sustainability message that is at the heart of the Cultural Olympiad and the London 2012 Games as dance, music and movement combine with cutting edge digital technology to create a blaze of light – a visually stunning public spectacle that involves more than a thousand people.
For more information on the project, visit www.thetreeoflight.org
