Second Hand Dance have created a pair of short films (actually really only one film in two parts), called 'Night Tree', which are available to watch for free over the Christmas period on Sadler's Wells's webpage; and are aimed at the 3 - 7 year olds.
Two adults (Amarnagh Amuludun and Keir Patrick), set off on a wintry journey through the forest to find their special tree. On the way they dance through the landscape of fallen leaves, mud, and puddles, as well as meet (in part 1) a dancing deer (Mariana Camioloti), and (in part 2), a dancing owl (Takeshi Matsumoto). The film is based on the book by Eve Bunting.
The two explore nature and the night-time through movement, voice-over, music, song, and some nice drone camera-work. The original music for these films is by Amir Shoenfeld, and is very Pagan / ritualistic / earthy in style.
Of course the pair do find their special tree - a Christmas tree , already decorated with fairy lights. They the procede to adorn it further with garlands of popcorn and baubles of seed balls. They leave and return home, leaving the owl and deer to dance around the tree in the dark.
I watched these films alone, although throughout I was wondering just exactly how my nephew and neice would have reacted to this story, and if their reactions are typical to all children of this age, then they would have been completely bored, dismissive and derisive about the whole thing. I, on the other hand, an adult, could see the attention to detail, the creative skill, and the time and energy spent on creating these short films (8 minutes and 10 minutes respectively). Although I did wonder what message (if any) was being shown here, or what educative value these films had. Surely we don't want to be teaching children to leave popcorn on trees in the woods do we?
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 27.12.21
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