KEN TOWL went along to South Norwood for an opening night of dance, theatre, film and rap which displayed young talents and an urgency for action to safeguard our environment
Arcadia: the name of the classical ideal of unsullied nature, an Eden, a Utopia.
Arcadia is also the name of Stanley Arts’ latest multimedia event that runs over this weekend. The Arcadia Festival, which includes guest speakers, “eco-activities” and a Holi celebration, centres around twice-nightly (at 6.30pm and 8.30pm) performances that take full advantage of Stanley Halls’ warren of spaces.
We are greeted outside an auditorium by a strange creature, a mutant astronaut, a refugee from a contaminated future, whose head appears to be a bloated and bloodshot eyeball.
Welcome to our world: the performance begins with an other-worldly guide
In stark terms and stern voice, it warns us that we are destroying the planet before leading us inside to watch the dance troupe EGGZ perform the first of four pieces representing the elements: earth, air, fire and water.
It is a powerful opener.
The dancers’ movements channel anger and this is reflected in their frowning masks. Take care, they seem to be saying, this is important.
The choreographer, Birdgang, have inspired something remarkable here, a performance that is at once wild and disciplined. The dancers are up to the challenge; everyone is impressed. Later, another audience member will describe them as “incredible” and I would have to agree.
When we see the second dance in another room, they perform without masks and you can see just how young they are. They were so good, I had imagined they were older.
The dances alternated with short plays representing the four seasons.
I particularly liked Winter, which featured a bravura performance by four (very) young scientists arguing with each other about the nature of facts, opinions and science itself, which managed to be both profound and funny.
Getting the message out: the festival’s artworks are up to the minute
There was a penny-drop moment in Summer when, in a hidden room in the Victorian bowels of the Stanley Halls, when a school-age actor, portraying one of a group of partying “world elite”, said that, when discussing the climate crisis, “young people are more eloquent than us”.
Again, any earnestness was undercut by humour. Greta Thunberg, for example, was referred to as Greta Thunderberg.
One Last Breath added the elements of film and rap to the mix.
The film was entertaining enough, although the environmental theme felt a little shoehorned into what otherwise came across as a treatment for a soap opera. Better were the trio of assured live performances from the principal actors that followed.
There are installations, too.
On point: younger people are impatient with climate inaction
I particularly liked the Boundless Box in the yard, where you can sit and hear birdsong from South Norwood Country Park.
The Cultivate Croydon installation, another youth-led work, about what Croydon’s green spaces mean to people, featured a hand-made poster that said, “Please don’t flog Shirley Heath to the golf club. We need our beautiful, shared, open spaces. We don’t need more golf”, a reference to an eco campaign and petition which had been launched earlier this week in articles on Inside Croydon.
It led me to reflect on golf clubs as the antithesis of Arcadia, a perverse, tamed version of nature, a rendering of green spaces into greens, nature for the few who can afford the fees.
Croydon may not be Arcadia, but it does have precious green breathing spaces and, after what I saw at Stanley Arts, plenty of young people who want to keep it that way.
Furthermore, in Stanley Arts, Croydon has a precious resource, an eclectic and imaginative programme that gives breathing space to arts and culture for the many, not the few.
- Arcadia events, both free and charged, continue over the weekend. For more information go to https://stanleyarts.org/
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
Good to see young people taking action to raise awareness about the threats to our environment and all of our futures – if only the older generations would listen!