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New project – Room2Dream 360

Room2Dream 360 is an opera that will connect children in UK secondary schools, hospital schools and bereavement groups with their peers in other parts of the world who are facing loss as a result of conflict, war, death or illness.

It seeks to deepen the key learning from Dream a Difference to date that writing skills are improved through empathy; and quality of life and confidence are enhanced by performing your words in a safe place where you can be heard, understood and responded to.

Room2Dream asks the question: Has there ever been a more important time for the voices of young people, especially those who are most affected by life threatening situations, to be heard?

Skype and Zoom workshops are at the heart of a process that simultaneously enables young people to meet each other and test their performance and poetry reading skills online.

Room2Dream will create a 360degree film installation in a purpose designed tent in the grounds of the Garsington Opera Getty Estate 2022 and will be subsequently performed as a staged piece on their main stage in 2023 with elements of the digital installation echoed in the design.

The digital film installation will be viewed by the audience in the tent/dome or online through Google Cardboard.
The contextual themes of Room and Tent run through Room2Dream. ‘My Room’ is often the dream-space retreat of children seeking to flee the cabin fever of lockdown family life – even in non-virus times. The Tent alludes to the temporary stillness of ‘home’ experienced by refugee children on the move. It is on the contrasting canopies of these spaces that children project their dreams and fears – and where – using innovative digital technologies

Room2Dream will project the hopes, wishes and realities of its young participants, enabling mutual understanding through glimpses – some harsh, others celebratory – into what young people might want to share about their lives and experiences of loss and hope.

We will film the making of the project creating a cross-curriculum resource to inspire other international creative collaborations.

The Project

Skype/Zoom workshops will focus on writing a libretto that will feature songs filmed in 360 from 10 locations and include film scenes from UK and US locations, also filmed in 360.
Many young people across the globe have been in lockdown and have faced being at home in an unprecedented way.

We will invite young people across the world to explore what home means to them through these workshops, encouraging them to explore what they understand by freedom – some will find freedom in the garden, in their bedroom, bikeriding through the country whereas for others the idea of freedom may have no meaning . For some, home will be a place they yearn for as they face life on a waiting list, or the uncertainty of being an asylum seeker or refugee ; for others home will be an imagined place of safety in a dreamt future.
During the course of the libretto four people, our central protagonists, will make the journey to or from home; these walks/journeys will form the basis of the story.

Virtual reality and 360 degree filming will enable us to travel between these real and imagined worlds.

The action will take place over 24hours. Some will dream their place of safety through the night, while others will live them through the day, and inviting us into their dream, their place of safety, their home.