Creativity Quest, Einstein’s Dreams, The Container, Debate London, Culture Detectives, Billboard, Re:bourne, Fourth Plinth, Creative Partnerships (London, Essex, Kent…and most recently, Lithuania and Norway), Space To Learn, The Learning Town Project, ReAuthoring, and Sounds of the Stars.

Looking back on one’s work via project titles creates a strange reality distortion field: some of these projects spanned several years, others were one-offs, and still others are ongoing. By the numbers we won three awards, worked in half a dozen countries, presented/performed at five festivals, and connected with nearly 100 schools. We’ve provided gainful and hopefully enjoyable employment to more than 150 people while managing to not default on loans (since we’ve never had any), ask for a government bail-out, or make headlines by living large on taxpayer-fuelled bonuses.

It’d take too long to list all of the friends and colleagues we’ve made since 2006. But hopefully you know who you are. Nimble Fish would be far less nimble (and way fishier) without your talent, energy and dedication. Here’s to a bright and creative future for all of us, Mayan calendars notwithstanding…

Just so that we’re contributing something (and it doesn’t appear as though we’re being summer-lazy and letting Katherine do all the blog-work…) I shall add that real estate placards, eggs, and battery amps will never again have quite the same meaning for any of us. Intrigued? Good, then come along to Herne Bay on Saturday 27 August. You won’t be disappointed.

The L in question is in the photo below. The place: Lower Marsh Street, a lovely little micro ‘hood behind Waterloo Station that was recently the scene of Secret Sleuthing. Part of the BIGLOP Festival, Secret Sleuthing challenged teams of young Londoners to find and decode a series of clues planted on Lower Marsh Street that led them to a Punchdrunk-styled hidden location nearby. Once inside, more clues were on offer…which ultimately led our sleuths back onto the high street where they had to whisper the secret password to ‘hidden agents’–better known locally as shop-owners in on the game.

Although Secret Sleuthing finished two weeks ago, we checked recently and all nine of the first letter clues were still there. If you find yourself on Lower Marsh Street, have a sleuth yourself. Here’s a hint: the nine letters spell the name of a nearby street, which in turn led to the hidden location. The location itself is closed now, but we think that looking is as much (or even more) fun than finding…

I spent this morning singing with teachers on a pier. As a trainer, I was paid for this; the teachers were also paid, in that the work they would normally have done at school was covered by other teachers. We were led by a wonderful vocalist through a series of exercises and activities in voice, rhythm, posture, presentation and performance. The vocalist was paid, too.

I’m chanting this mantra of remuneration for a slightly perverse reason. Creating a site-specific jazz riff on ‘Row Row Your Boat’ may or may not immediately help students hit their government-mandated targets in maths, literacy or other subjects. Discovering the wonders of diaphragmatic breathing may not correlate directly with better classroom behaviour. In fact, if I’m completely honest, it is possible that today’s session in all of its singing, vocalising, rapping, snapping, clapping glory–all in promenade, beneath the glorious summer sun, on a wooden platform stretching into the sea–might have no effect at all, other than to have been an awful lot of fun for those of us actually doing it.

It is perhaps reckless to say such things at a time when school budgets are being slashed, teacher pensions are being pared back, and indeed the entire public infrastructure is under siege. Better to keep quiet, perhaps, about such blatantly joyfully, possibly not terribly ‘practical’ work, right? Wrong. Now is precisely the time to talk about sessions like today’s. The adage says to sing when you’re winning. That’s easy. But to sing, loudly and without fear (and in public), when everything you feel is valuable in society is under threat? That is something else entirely.That is a statement of rebellion. A statement of value.

And that value is this: teachers, and everyone else who toils in the public sector, deserve their opportunities to leave the classroom behind for a morning and revisit joy, laughter, enjoyment, and emotional wonderment. Strangely, we do not begrudge these things to the private sector so worshipped by our political masters. I know plenty of folks in business who, despite being under the media microscope more than ever, still have their ‘away’ days playing paintball or their lavish end-of-quarter bashes on the continent. Such things aren’t considered perqs or frivolities. The private sector knows that loosening up, playing and celebrating are essential components to unlocking camaraderie and creativity. 

We don’t apply the same standards to public sector employees. Teachers, in particular, feel a tremendous burden to make every second of their working lives visibly and measurably ‘count’ in the service of boxes ticked and targets attained. For lower pay and longer hours, we work them harder and harder. And if they’re let out of teaching duties for professional development, well…it had better produce results.

I’m confident that today’s session will, in fact, produce results. The teachers left our session humming and smiling. They were talking about how to bring music and rhythm into their classrooms as ways of engaging children. They were talking about planning more trips to the seaside and the pier in the still-warm months of the early autumn. They felt good. They were energised, excited about life and work, and feeling creative and full of ideas. And that, of course, is pretty much the general ‘person description’ coveted by any private company worth its stock shares.

If the government really wants the public sector to be more like the private one, they need to put their money where their rhetoric is. It’s not about tests, targets, cuts, threats and half-baked restructuring. Instead, we need to loosen up and let teachers, and perhaps everyone in the public sector, sing a bit.

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Hello out there in ReAuthoring land. Yes, it’s been awhile since there’s been a post here (nearly a year, to be precise) but silence doesn’t mean inaction. We’ve been busy tinkering away in the ReAuthoring shop…new ideas, new partners, new projects. Stay tuned.

In the mean time, enjoy the following gentle piss-take on the whole ‘medium is the message’ craze in the literary world, courtesy of Horrible Histories, which is possibly the best sketch programme on the telly at present. Great!

Just back from a few days in Lithuania, a country I’ll admit that I never anticipated visiting. In fact, one might argue that the only way to develop an appreciation for a country so far off the Western cultural radar is to be thrown into it headlong, which was my experience: Nimble Fish was asked to deliver a pilot programme seeking to link cultural entrepreneurs with schools, in a Creative Partnerships style arrangement. This sort of thing is new in Lithuania, so much so that the language doesn’t even have a word for ‘entrepreneur’.

The intention, of course, was to convey British knowledge about creativity-in-education for the benefit of Lithuania’s next generation of artists, teachers and young people. I’d like to think that some of that happened, but what struck me most was how much creativity, drive and energy are already in play there. There are artists collectives linked with government ministries, university students launching visionary cultural NGOs, and all manner of activity aimed at transformation, improvement, and enlightenment. In short, Lithuania is a country very much buzzing with creative energy and action (perhaps less surprising knowing that the capital, Vilnius, was the 2009 European Capital of Culture.) And all of it, happening on a comparative shoestring.

The Arts Council cuts announced yesterday were painful to many, and I’d be the first to say that Government is foolhardy to do so much damage for so little return: drop a Eurofighter or two, and that’s the arts sorted. And yet, despite the cuts we remain rich in ideas, experience and talent…and relatively speaking, rich also in money and infrastructure. Artists and cultural entrepreneurs are making amazing things happen in Lithuania, with far fewer resources. We can and must continue to make amazing things happen here, whatever idiocy is handed down by Government.

By the way, if you’re in the market for a great rural getaway I can highly recommend this little place outside of Trakai…

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Dateline: London

Reports of eagle-eyed young people sleuthing for clues are on the rise today following the opening of several new Culture Detective Bureaus across London. In these school-based Bureaus, young Detectives are being trained to find evidence around them leading to the discovery of what ‘culture’ means to their communities and how it connects them to the 2012 London Olympics. Altogether, nine Culture Detective Bureaus are being established.

The Detectives are using many sleuthing tools in their search for cultural evidence, including film, photo, movement, and art. Below is a snapshot of a recent exploration captured via Comic Life by Abigail Hunt (Culture Detectives Bureau Chief, Lewisham branch). Note the 3-D speech bubbles!

The Culture Detectives project is conceived and run by Nimble Fish as part of the Biggest Learning Opportunity on Earth programme, a creative learning programme taking place across more than 140 London schools. The programme is the largest such educational scheme specifically focused on the upcoming London Olympic and Paralympic Games.

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Stay tuned for next steps with the project. There will be some, and they will be soon.

A random, holiday-inspired list of stuff that was good in the Nimble Fish universe in 2010:

• Creating and delivering Space to Learn, our new programme of site-responsive teaching and learning. We engaged eight schools, dozens of teachers and loads of kids. It was about how to re-see and re-use the spaces and places all around us as innovative locations to enhance teaching. Great fun, and more to come.

• We were pleased and proud to have taken our first Re:authoring Project offering, Katherine May‘s Burning Out, to the Pulse Fringe Festival. Re:authoring has been quiet this autumn but will pick up in the spring (so watch this Nimble space.)

• The re:bourne festival was a real highlight of 2010. Created with our friends at Workers of Art, the festival was a site-responsive, community co-devised celebration of the past, present and future of Sittingbourne, a place that gets more knocks than it deserves. We had a blast doing it; hopefully, the more than 3,000 people who came along had fun, too.

• Very pleased to have been selected as one of 13 arts companies to help A New Direction deliver the Biggest Learning Opportunity on Earth, an arts-led and Olympics-focused programme of work stretching across 145 London schools…which makes it the largest education programme associated with the London 2012 Olympics. Just finishing the planning phase of things and looking forward to kicking things into gear in 2011.

• We were glad to be able to help our friend Laura Mugridge get some things sorted for her fab new show, Running on Air, which went on to win a Fringe First at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The show was very much Laura’s and Tom’s baby, but we enjoyed being part of the early development dialogue and helping Laura score some kit to make the show happen. Running on Air will tour soon; don’t miss it!

• Thinking, planning, devising, and laughing with our friends and collaborators. The future of the arts sector sometimes looks scary right now, but it is also filled with opportunity and great people. Happy holidays, and here’s to a prosperous and exciting new year!

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