As part of Erewash Festival of Lights I worked on a great project to create some ‘carnivalesque’ costumes for Long Eaton’s Light parade with Dovedale Primary School. The theme was based on 12 days of Christmas, I had a vision to create 12 decorated trees, each themed on one of the verses; pretty ambitious for a 4 day project, but hey that’s me! I’ve wanted to develop some carnival type costumes for ages now, using recycled materials as the medium, so this was a great opportunity to experiment.

In School

The first week involved a fair bit of singing, just to make sure we knew the words to ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ and lots of making. I worked with 2 year 5 groups, each worked in groups to make the tree designs. The next week they all worked individually to create the 78 characters, ie. 12 drummers drumming, 11 pipers piping …. Then as more children wanted to be involved with the parade, I came up with the crazy additional plan of masks, so that’s 60 masks, with glow sticks too!

After a hectic session in the studio I arrived with trees assembled and ready to be fitted; exhausted I did wonder why, but was greeted by some very excited children, all very impressed with the trees; that made it all worthwhile, it turned out to be a really special occasion, it was just lovely to see them proudly march along the streets of Long Eaton. A magical build up to Christmas, that is often lost on us adults.