The Leintwardine Y-Art group travelled to Hereford on the first of April to take part in a major art event in the middle of the city. After three months of creating, scripting, rehearsing and filming, the members arrived at noon, ready to perform alongside the other groups from around the county who were contributing to the day. The venue, Close House, had rooms and studios arranged around a courtyard, which were filled with artwork, sculpture, animation, film clips, and game boards made by Y-Art groups. These were all based on the theme of teenage emotions and included the expression of feelings from joy to despair. The performers who were going to appear live went to find their costumes and then ran through technical, and then full dress, rehearsals. The first public showing began at 5.45. Members of the public arrived and wandered through the rooms, looking at the artwork, before going in to the main building. The sets created by the organizers of the event were stunning. Leintwardine was provided with a very convincing newsroom, complete with screen for filmed interviews and a weather map, and the group used it to great advantage. . Everyone performed brilliantly, singing and dancing and acting without a hitch. The script was funny and cleverly put together and much appreciated by the audience. By the end of the evening, there had been six performances, seen by many hundreds of people.
One of the groups due to perform a mimed dance failed to appear at the last minute, and four of the Leintwardine players stepped in to take on their roles. After only an hour of rehearsal, they carried the mime off so well that nobody realized that they had not been working on it for months. By the time the final showing finished for the night, they had completed twelve performances, which is an astonishing amount of work. The whole group came home exhausted, but with the satisfaction of knowing that they had coped really well with the challenges that the day presented. They behaved like a professional troupe of actors throughout the day, and deserve to feel very proud of themselves.
Y-Art is now finished, and there are no plans for another initiative to follow from Hereford Council. Hopefully there will be some opportunity in the near future for the members of the group who want to keep on acting to get together in an organized way. In the meantime, we should like to thank the Parish Council for covering the cost of the use of the Leintwardine Centre, and Leintwardine Youth Group for feeding everybody and for facilitating the sessions in the hall.
