The Tin Forest East End

A group of dancers camouflage themselves beneath bin bags in the car park of Reidvale Neighbourhood Centre in the East End. They stir into a frenzy of tightly choreographed movement. Stomping, clapping, and a giggle and the group disbands back beneath their bin bags. The Tin Forest East End is alive.

The audience is then taken on a journey through the Howf, where a man in a corner sleeps under the Tin Forest story; a story that has been the stimulus for all four strands of the community project.

Inside the neighbourhood centre is a magical tin forest, with trees made of pipes, where wishes hang in tin cans, and where music is orchestrated from anything the little man finds.

The space is filled with voices, images, videos and music. The little old man taps on a pan. The tap echoes through the forest and loops with other tin sounds. He has the ability to find wonder in anything and forms a tin orchestra around him. Later on, the community join together to sing a heart-warming and spine tingling rendition of ‘Mother Glasgow.’

The piece centres around filling a place ‘near nowhere and close to forgotten’ with ‘all the things people want.’ Whilst the narrative forms around the old man’s story as he sifts and searches, wishes and invents, community members filter in, interact and bring the space alive. The spirit of the community is palpable.

The Tin Forest East End continues on Thursday 19 June at 5.30 and 7.30pm – come and join us…