Shu's Awakening
Introduction
Shu’s Awakening is a collaborative project, designed to unite people from all backgrounds, in order to create a unique musical theatre experience on the streets and alleyways of cities. The show will consist of combining elements such as expressionistic movement, ballet and contemporary dance with varied musical scores interacting with an animated story projected on large screens in the background. By choosing already existing songs by local and international artists, which portray the narrative of the plot through the context of lyrics or emotions provoked by composition, the performance will merge various styles from opera, to hip hop, to drum & bass. The aim is to bring together people from any culture, with any skill to get involved as long as they can create a character, which can fit in to the main concept of the storyline.
The theme of this production is the awareness of human beings and their impact on this earth, with a strong emphasis of the empowerment of each individual and the effect they can have if they all get over their own issues and unite as a human race, showing how every decision they make can change this world for all living beings, to make it a more sustainable and enjoyable existence for all of us and the future generations to come.
This message will be portrayed mainly through the story of Shu, the Spirit of Air, who seems to be one of the only colourful beings within this grey, dull robotic world. On her voyage to find her role in this weird puppetry system, which makes no sense to her, she meets many quirky and intriguing characters, all of which represent extreme attributes or symptoms commonly found within modern societies derived from misbehavioural treatment in their lifetime. Shu’s adventures take the audience on a tipsy-turvey journey through a grey, controlled cage of a robotic society, to a fluorescent fake escape realm in the dark edges of society, where she ever so gradually loses her colours and essentially herself, until she completely fades to grey and falls into a coma like state. Here she enters an inspirational dream of enlightenment, setting herself free as a bird, stepping out of the box, witnessing the big fat God of Greed holding all the strings in his hands controlling the people down below like a twisted game. With passion and rage she calls for a million colourful birds, which swoop down over the city, spreading flourishing seeds of the strangler fig tree that grow over the tall sky-scrappers, snapping the strings of the puppets and thereby breaking the illusion of power and weakening the control-hungry God of Greed and setting the puppets free.
The story was inspired by my journey around the world, where I witnessed a broken world and sorrowful aspects especially for the younger generations. With the portrayal of this story, setting it up in alleyways of cities around the world I hope to engage and ignite hope within the youth of cities around the world.
By constructing this project I aim to create a narrative outline, which young talent in each city can make their own, challenging them to co-create the musical score and choreography, giving them a platform to show their talent, step out of their comfort zone and connect with one another. With a different musical and performance team in each city, this will also represent the flair of each city, leaving the audience represented throughout the story.
Concept, Art&Story Copyright 2021 Natalie J. Cheetham
Shu’s Awakening is a collaborative project, designed to unite people from all backgrounds, in order to create a unique musical theatre experience on the streets and alleyways of cities. The show will consist of combining elements such as expressionistic movement, ballet and contemporary dance with varied musical scores interacting with an animated story projected on large screens in the background. By choosing already existing songs by local and international artists, which portray the narrative of the plot through the context of lyrics or emotions provoked by composition, the performance will merge various styles from opera, to hip hop, to drum & bass. The aim is to bring together people from any culture, with any skill to get involved as long as they can create a character, which can fit in to the main concept of the storyline.
The theme of this production is the awareness of human beings and their impact on this earth, with a strong emphasis of the empowerment of each individual and the effect they can have if they all get over their own issues and unite as a human race, showing how every decision they make can change this world for all living beings, to make it a more sustainable and enjoyable existence for all of us and the future generations to come.
This message will be portrayed mainly through the story of Shu, the Spirit of Air, who seems to be one of the only colourful beings within this grey, dull robotic world. On her voyage to find her role in this weird puppetry system, which makes no sense to her, she meets many quirky and intriguing characters, all of which represent extreme attributes or symptoms commonly found within modern societies derived from misbehavioural treatment in their lifetime. Shu’s adventures take the audience on a tipsy-turvey journey through a grey, controlled cage of a robotic society, to a fluorescent fake escape realm in the dark edges of society, where she ever so gradually loses her colours and essentially herself, until she completely fades to grey and falls into a coma like state. Here she enters an inspirational dream of enlightenment, setting herself free as a bird, stepping out of the box, witnessing the big fat God of Greed holding all the strings in his hands controlling the people down below like a twisted game. With passion and rage she calls for a million colourful birds, which swoop down over the city, spreading flourishing seeds of the strangler fig tree that grow over the tall sky-scrappers, snapping the strings of the puppets and thereby breaking the illusion of power and weakening the control-hungry God of Greed and setting the puppets free.
The story was inspired by my journey around the world, where I witnessed a broken world and sorrowful aspects especially for the younger generations. With the portrayal of this story, setting it up in alleyways of cities around the world I hope to engage and ignite hope within the youth of cities around the world.
By constructing this project I aim to create a narrative outline, which young talent in each city can make their own, challenging them to co-create the musical score and choreography, giving them a platform to show their talent, step out of their comfort zone and connect with one another. With a different musical and performance team in each city, this will also represent the flair of each city, leaving the audience represented throughout the story.
Concept, Art&Story Copyright 2021 Natalie J. Cheetham