Today, the 3rd November, we were visited by Rob from the Okehampton Rotary Club. Rob came to present us with a cheque that helped us to create a procession in this year’s Okehampton Carnival, as well as to put on an evening of film on at Okehampton Cinema.

The cheque was used to bring our commissioned project and performance at Arnos Vale Cemetery in Bristol, ‘Morpheus’, to Okehampton. The performance was based around the Greek God of Sleep, Morpheus, and included different musical pieces and installation art.

‘The Carriageway Piece’ which was influenced by the carriageway at Arnos Vale, which was used by horse and cart to transport the deceased to their final resting place. We created a horse’s head to represent this and to lead the performance.

We developed a smaller version of the performance, and used the horses head on Hannah’s mobility scooter to lead us around the Carnival. A major theme of the performance were butterflies, inspired by a fence at the top of Arnos Vale that was completely covered in them. We represented this in the carnival by creating giant butterfly lanterns, as well as creating butterfly costumes.

The initial performance was filmed so that everyone can view the performance; this film was premièred at Okehampton Cinema. We also screened some of our most recent films created in other sessions, such as one of our Jam Buddies music videos and the filming of Party in the Park. We also displayed an exhibition in the cinema of our Morpheus performance.

It was lovely to have Rob come and visit us and have a look at what we do and to find out more about the Project. A big thank you to Rob and the Rotary club for all of their support.

Written by Jake Hooper and Rebecca Nicholls, Published by Dom Palfreman

It's the first Wednesday of November, which means it's time for a new Turning Tides Radio Vibe Podcast!

This month we have all the usual features but with a spooky theme, as we created the show over the Halloween period. With the 'Guess the Song' game and the request section featuring Halloween songs. The Official Turning Tides Top 5 Countdown keeps you in the loop with the current singles in the charts, and the 'Turning Tides Live and Loud' section features some recordings of the guys from our Dawlish School project singing their favourite songs. As well as a story told by song created in our half term Jam Buddies Workshop. Follow the link to listen!

If you would like any more information about us, please visit www.theturningtidesproject.org.uk. For more info about our show, or if you would like to request a song to be featured, contact jake.tttp@outlook.com and we'll make it happen!

Written by Jake Hooper, Published by Dom Palfreman

#tttp #inclusive #podcast #radioshow #presenters #weareawesome

For this years Okehampton Carnival we dressed up as butterflies which was part of our Morpheus production, which took place earlier on in the year. It took us four weeks of preparation to get ready for the carnival. In this time we made butterfly lanterns out of willow and paper, they are very tall and impressive; we had some troubles getting the candles into the lanterns.

Our butterflies were very bright and vivid and the candles shining through them made them look very pretty. After we covered the willow in newspaper we painted it in PVA glue to make it stronger, then painted it in a layer of UV paint and even more PVA to make it weather proof.

Once we finished weather proofing wen cut out shapes from music paper and other jazzy paper, fabric and materials to make the wings look more like butterfly wings. Some people carried these and other people played their drums. We have been practising our drumming but we didn't really take in to account how difficult it would be to hear the whistle blower outside so we had to sort of go with the flow! None the less,  we were still loud and awesome! Not only did we have all of this we also had butterfly wings on, masks and our Morpheus horse to lead the way.

All of this hard work paid off as we improved on last years result of second place by coming FIRST IN OUR CATEGORY!!! We were the best costumed group and we were given a certificate which we stuck on the horses face so everybody could see.

We had tired feet and arms by the end of the night but it was totally worth it!

Written by Abi Innocent, Published by Dom Palfreman