What a year 2020 has been! We first of all want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has supported us throughout this difficult year. Our audiences, colleagues, stakeholders, participants, young people, and friends have been fantastic and are the reason why we do what we do.

As many of you know our new CEO, Laura Kriefman, joined us in March and had the ultimate baptism of fire, having to close two buildings and manage a new team (most of whom were furloughed until September!) But we’re still going 9 months later and we’ve achieved so much, by doing what we do best; taking our work out to you and supporting local and emerging artists (despite a dramatic reduction in income we’ve still been able to provide paid employment to 60+ people this year).

Here’s just a handful of some of the amazing things we’ve achieved this year:

• Entertaining 1000 residents of the St Judes community in a safe, socially distanced way and without them having to leave their properties, with our Giant Backalley Giant Puppet Parade in September (watch a film of the parade created by Plymouth Culture here)

• Launching a free monthly Coxside Cafe Acoustica at Teats Hill Amphitheatre bringing live music, theatre, dance and poetry to the local community on the last Friday of the month (so far it’s been attended by more than 300 people)

• Relaunching our ReBels Talent Development weekly classes for ages 12-15 in September – increasing the number of classes and finding new venues so they can be smaller to ensure social distancing and extra safety, and all for just £60 a year (and they can attend as many sessions as they like – some attend three 90 minute sessions a week all for the one single annual fee!)

• Taking a dance performance of Singing In The Rain to the gardens of Care Homes and Day Centres across Plymouth in July – we worked with a number of dancers and dance companies, to celebrate National Afternoon Tea Week and entertain residents and carers during lockdown.

• Entertaining more than 300 late night shoppers with ReBels With Rhythm on Plymouth Piazza, with our ReBels dance groups, Mercedes Romero’s Flamenco and Vibha Selvaratnam’s Bharatantyam on 10 December (and if you saw our Facebook live or the ITV news you’ll know it poured with rain!)

• Launching our B-Hive free online resource (with tutorials, chakllenges and how to guides) which has been viewed more than 60,000 times since March, resulting in our YouTube subscribers increase by 760%!

So what’s next?

This is the first Christmas in, well, more years than we can remember that we aren’t putting on any shows (which is usually our busiest time of the year!) Therefore our team are taking advantage of this and treating themselves to a well earned break. We’ll be off the radar from 5pm Friday 18 December until Monday 4 January (so if you contact us via email, phone or on social media we won’t respond until 4 January at the earliest).

We’ve got so much planned for 2021. Here’s just a few to whet your appetite

Mon 11 Jan – Start of new ReBels Talent Development Training Spring term

New classes this term include Urban Storytelling, Creative Projection (working with projection mapping and graphics for performance) Dancing On Cars (yes really!) and Junk Yard Music (where you’ll get to create your own junk band) Join for just £40 which covers classes from January to July.

More info / sign up here

Sat 16 & Sun 17 Jan – Giant Puppet Making Workshops

Barbican Theatre ReBels invite you to help us build and decorate giant 5m and 7m tall puppets for a parade around the backalley service lanes in Keyham, Plymouth, on the evening of Thursday 21 January (see below!)

More info /sign up here

Thu 21 Jan – Backalley Puppet Parade in Keyham

Following the success and amazing reaction from residents from our inaugural parade in St Judes in September 2020 we’re taking a similar parade to the back alleys of Keyham. We’ll be working with expert puppet maker Ruth Webb and local residents to create nautical style puppets in early January (see above)

Watch a film of our first Backalley Puppet Parade in St Judes in Sept 2020 here

Fri 29 Jan 6pm – 7:30pm – Coxside Cafe Acoustica ‘Wassail & Warmth’ at Teats Hill Amphitheatre

We’re back at our monthly cafe acoustica home with some lively and entertaining acoustic music, spoken word and January celebrations as we start the year off.

Featuring specially selected music from Alex Hart, Jon Fazal and Coffee Cup Choir, as well   as ReBels training groups and Take A Part Coxside partners Tess Wilmot and Crab & Bee. There will be Wassail and New Year inspired workshops at dusk from 4pm with Crab & Bee and Tess Wilmot to make crafts, taste apple slinkies, build paper boats and prepare for the Wish Making rituals after dark.

Sat 6 Feb 7pm – 9pm  – ReBels Prime Saturday

We’re taking over the amazing Prime Skatepark in Coxside for a night of riotous fun featuring DJ’s, Skaters, Plymouth Parkour and Street Dance Crews along with members of our ReBels talent development dance, music and movement groups. Tickets to participate in the night, or to observe the fun,  go on sale in January.

Details of how you can be involved (as a participant or a member of the audience) will be posted soon

Fri 12 Feb Secret Playground

Music, dancing and ‘messing around’ with creativity in an amazing (secret) urban space. Our ReBels members from Acoustic Performance, Cityscape Creativity, Creative Projections, and Rhythm & Words groups will be collaborating and creating with DJs, local musicians and artists for a night of fun in a new exciting disused venue.

Details of how you can be involved (as a participant or a member of the audience) will be posted soon

Thurs 25 – Sun 28 Feb Make Amplify ‘Challenge Accepted’

A three day Challenge with makeAMPLIFY, Prime Skatepark and Barbican Theatre.

Challenge Accepted is a chance to re-imagine a Prime Skatepark using movement, projection, lighting and sound. The result will be a multi media installation and live performance and we want to make it with you. makeAMPLIFY are looking for local creatives and enthusiastic first timers to create something new, and unexpected, together.

We will be working indoors and outdoors, weird and long hours, and try things we’ve never done, with people we’ve never met and all in about 72 hours. We expect it to be as bonkers and satisfying as it is exhausting! Enthusiasm, open mindedness and teamwork counts more than skills and experience, and we are really interested to work with as wide a range of people as possible. Check out makeAMPLIFY talking about the project here

If you’d like to be involved with this challenge please email you full name, date of birth, postcode and the sorts of things you’re interested in to rebels@barbicantheatre.co.uk

Fri 26 Feb 6pm – 7:30pm Coxside Cafe Acoustica ‘Escapism’ at Teats Hill Amphitheatre

Our monthly evening of laid back live acoustic music, spoken word and dance. This month we’re joined by members of our ReBels Acoustic Performance group for some brand new performance pieces incorporating music in storytelling, plus Muthanna and a puppet parade from Above Bounds and their light up jellyfish!

Phew!

We hope you have a wonderful festive season and a Happy, Healthy New Year.

Stay safe and we look forward to seeing you in 2021.

The Barbican Theatre Team

Ps. You can support our work with local young and emerging artists by donating to our charity  – any amount will really help to keep offering classes and performances for free or at a very low price. Please donate here.