Here’s another first, a visit to Riley Theatre in the Northern School of Contemporary Dance at the bottom of Chapeltown Road. I pass this place every time I go to Leeds but have never had occasion to visit before. I was invited to go see a production aimed at the younger end of the theatre-going spectrum, specifically the 4-11 age group – catch ’em young!
The show was a mixture of dance, puppetry and video projection which was meant to reflect the current state of the environment, although the story seems to have been tweaked a bit from the original synopsis on Coalesce’s website. It lost none of its message so all was well – or not, depending upon how you look at it.
Janice Ho as Mika and Luke Speddings as dad in dancing mode.
Mika lives with dad and spends time reading and playing with a stuffed toy polar bear. One day they go to the park for a walk and to sail a paper boat on the pond. Their attention is grabbed by an urban fox puppet who is rummaging about in a pile of litter, where it gets its head stuck in a discarded can. It disappears to emerge as a dancer and frees itself from the tin.
A seagull forms on the screen but all at once a whirlwind builds up and carries Mika away. They end up at the North Pole where fish are swimming and leaping from a stream until a real polar bear, represented by a puppet, arrives to try to catch it for food.
More dancing ensues with Mika trying to befriend the animal by offering it a sweet from the packet they have discovered in their anorak pocket. The bear turns its nose up, so a result for Mika – it was obviously not a Fox’s Glacier Mint. By the way children, should you encounter any form of ursine creature, please treat it with respect but keep it at a distance, like old men, they have a tendency to be very grumpy, especially when, as here, the ice cap they inhabit is shown to be cracking up and shrinking.
Eventually, the small floe they shared becomes too small to accommodate them both but fortunately dad comes to the rescue with a larger version of the paper boat and Mika joins him for the voyage home. The bear floats off into the distance, hopefully to discover a large expanse of tundra.
Beware of the bear – and Luke Speddings
As with most of the shows I have seen aimed at younger children, this was performed brilliantly and restored my faith in the human race, as the kids were using their imagination to experience the story, even though the puppets were obviously just that and nothing like as realistic as CGI images they will have become accustomed to from films, television and the internet. Having said that, there was one child who seemed to be a bit spooked by the bear puppet, but was soon reassured by their adult companion.
Mika, Janice Ho, with her paper boat, trying to impress the polar bear, operated by Luke Speddings.
I was impressed by the way in which the minimalist set worked. There were two small structures which served as the rubbish heaps, a couple of icebergs and, when turned round and interlocked, acted as the floe on which Mika and the polar bear were adrift. You can see from the photograph that the bear puppet was very good and it was skilfully operated. The video graphics, photography and music all added to the overall effect to bring the whole thing together.
It is fine for me to pass judgement on pieces of this nature but I have not been a six year-old for seventy years now, and then it was the 1950s version, so I am in no position to speak from authority, What I can do, however, is to take note of those who are in the target demographic now and they were rapt the whole way through. There was hardly a peep out of any of them, which I can only interpret as a resounding endorsement as to its success.
The dancing from Janice Ho and Luke Speddings, as Mika and Dad respectively, was choreographed by Fern Wareham and Rachel Maffei. The music was composed by Richard Smithson and the dramaturg was Nina Hajiyianni. Aaron Howell was the visual artist, who also provided the photography and videography with Elly Wellford. The set design and puppetry was by Ben Palmer and the piece was Produced by Spin Arts.
Although it has moved on from Leeds, Mika and the Polar Bear can be seen on various dates until 26th February at Theatre Porto at Ellesmere Port, with performances at Burnley Youth Theatre on 17th February, The North Wall, Oxford, on 14th March and Z-arts, Manchester, on 18th April.
Full details of everything Coalesce Dance related, including bookings, can be found at https://www.coalescedancetheatre.com/
To see what is coming to Riley Theatre please go to https://www.nscd.ac.uk/riley-theatre/whats-on/
Photographs by Elly Wel
Tyke It To The Limit 