Is this the room for the Actors Reunion? 

I had a dream last night (Oh Boy): where I walked into a large classroom by the sea which was clearly the Community Arts reunion we’re in the process of planning at the moment.  It was full of students I’d known before, plus quite a few others who I’d not met before.  The atmosphere was buzzing and before too long we found ourselves on the beach, building sandcastles, water slides and participating in group sing-alongs.  A rare old time was being had.  A couple of students spoke to me in riddles when I asked them what on earth was going on and I spent most of the time on the beach feeling quite bemused about the whole experience.  (But I just had to look, having read the book, I’d love to turn you on, they said to me.)

“Is this the room for the Actor’s Reunion?” someone asked and it was at this point that I woke up.  It was no secret that in LIPA’s early days that many applicants would mistake the Community Arts course for the Acting course and see it as a potential route into that programme if they hadn’t been successful in being recruited directly into it.  This was hardly surprising given that initially the two programmes shared some common modules and the Acting route had developed a terrific reputation for providing world class actors.   

But before too long we were able to develop a Community Arts programme which developed its own distinctiveness and ethos and whose differences with the Acting programme could be more clearly articulated. We even went as far as developing our own Latin motto, in response to LIPA’s corporate Latin aspiration, Non Nobis Solum Sed Toti Mundo Nati, translated as Not Born For Ourselves Alone, But For The Whole World which summed up the ambition and values of the organisation as a whole.  It was also an inspiration for Sir Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Oratorio which was performed in the city in 1991, some years before LIPA opened.

We decided to hang our Latin credentials on ‘Per Radices Ramosque Usque Ad Caelum’ which we emblazoned our Programme Handbooks as our symbol of difference. It translates as ‘From the roots and branches and out to the skies’.  Sir Paul never got to write an Oratorio for us and as far as I know, no-one was ever assessed on whether they had read or even understood our Latin motto: but no matter.  It was part of a drive to establish Community Arts as a distinct presence within LIPA and it played its part well.  Not enough to stop students busting into my seaside dream though asking whether they had found the correct reunion, more’s the pity. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose I might have wistfully reflected in that dream.

(Featured Image: 1st year Collaborative Performance Project in 1996: Songs from the Sea).

Author: drnicko

Awarded an MBE for services to arts-based businesses, I am passionate about generating inspiring, socially engaging, creative practice within educational contexts both nationally and internationally. View all posts by drnicko