Blaze was a Cultural Olympiad sponsored youth culture project run throughout Lancashire county from 2010-2012. In 2010, The Institute received a grant to work with the Fusion Community Theatre in Nelson to develop a sporting event as a work of theatre. After a two month process learning about sport design, the theatrical components of sport, and a couple of public sport interventions, we organized The Big Game, a staging of all of the games we invented at the local cricket club.
2011 saw further progress on the Big Game and it was run again in Oswaldtwistle. In 2012 the project became more ambitious; the students wanted to run a street game. The students won a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to study the history of Lancashire and incorporate it into a game. They chose the theme of time, and created an adventure entitled Street Quest.
In the game, players traveled through time from different parts of Lancashire's history finding clues on how to find a mother's lost daughter, all while trying to avoid the Time Police. The game was a huge success at the festival and a great learning experience for all of the young people involved.
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In our work students wrote their own skits, made up
a Haka dance,
and wrote and filmed several short movies on sport
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Community Research from Aesthletics on Vimeo.
2010 Project finale at Nelson Cricket Club showcasing all of the games the students invented
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Scenes from Street Quest: fencing the court jester,
a Time Policeman hiding in wait of a player, the
orphanage matron,
and throwing body parts into
the Norman's bucket
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