Alan Lane: ‘the act of performance is made more by the introduction of the citizen’

There’s a lot of opinion circulating at the moment about the tension between professional performance and community art, comparing ‘proper art’ to finger-painting community engagement, entertaining the rich versus enriching the lives of your neighbours. We even had two Sir Nicholas’ (Serota and Hytner) duelling in newspaper columns over whether we need an entirely new Arts Council designed to support work that focused on community. But I reckon we might be missing the point. I think there is a better structure than this dichotomy, and I suspect opera have understood this for a while now.

I’m in the middle of rehearsals for Slung Low’s production of Britten’s Noye’s Fludde with the peerless Manchester Collective. The project will see conductor Nic Chalmers lead a performance including poet and broadcaster Lemn Sissay as the voice of God, and 180 kids from the brilliant Ingram Road Primary School in Holbeck at the heart of the show as foxes, unicorns, mice, a pair of T-Rexes and 86 other pairs of animals.

The opera is brilliant: a big powerful show bringing the tale of the Flood (as told in The Mysteries) to life in middle English with huge sweeping acts of story, church music and choral moments. Manchester Collective play it brilliantly – as one would expect from a professional orchestra full of excellence – but when you add 180 kids all giving their best Kyrie! the show takes flight. It becomes something more than the sum of its parts. It becomes exquisite. The performance becomes a ceremony and meaning and enjoyment explodes out of it; the act of performance is made more by the introduction of the citizen. Britten understood this truth. As did the opening of the London 2012 Olympics, and much that’s been exciting about the UK performance since. 

Slung Low's production of Flood was part of Hull's City of Culture celebrations in 2017 © Malcolm Johnson

It’s been a delight as we’ve worked on the show to learn more about the original 1958 production of Noye’s Fludde and the thinking behind it. The bringing together of the professional and experienced with the amateur and new. A troop of recorder players, the inclusion of bells, and even slung mugs all offering ways for players and performers of all different levels of experience and craft. A tapestry making the whole greater.

There are many reasons why it’s brilliant to work with Lemn Sissay on any and every production, but one of the many things he reminds me of is that biography is important – we carry who we are, as well as who we want to be, in every work of art. There is meaning that can’t be ignored. The privilege of having Lemn Sissay play our God is a decision full of politics, talent and meaning.

The choice to bring Manchester Collective to Holbeck to make an opera is full of the same. I was asked recently if an opera written nearly 100 years ago based on a story many thousands of years old was something that could speak to contemporary audiences – if it was a story that still held any power. Holbeck is a place of great precariousness. Some of that is to do with capitalism – it is a place of great poverty, and all the difficulties that come with that. Some of that precariousness is to do with the hostile environment – the Government policy of keeping asylum seekers on the near-constant move so they never make real deep connections in any one community.

So, in 2023 Slung Low finds itself, along with friends Manchester Collective and Lemn Sissay and all the project’s supporters, working in a community where there are families displaced by godlike fury; where there are families who have run from rising water and a flood-ruined future; and where there are families who have sought sanctuary in a boat not big enough for everyone who wants to get in it and who found themselves barely safe on dry land after a terrifying voyage. It's the perfect story to be telling here now.

Slung Low and Manchester Collective are set to present a joint production of Noah’s Flood next month ©Tom Arber

I think Britten knew this. He understood, whether it be Orford or Holbeck or wherever you read this today, that performance is not only enriched by the involvement of its community but there are some pieces of art, powerful pieces, that transcend the categories of ‘professional’ or ‘community’, ‘excellent’ or ‘embedded’ and, through ceremony, reach higher meanings. Manchester Collective could not make this show (not with the power it will have) on its own, neither could Slung Low. The same could be said of Ingram Road Primary School or Olympias Music Foundation. But together there is a meaning greater than the sum of its parts; drawing together talent and biography, skill and heart.

So, whilst some might want to argue about which is better – high art or community performance – you and I will know that the real power is understanding how the two lift the other up. And we all benefit from that.

Alan Lane is artistic director of Leeds-based theatre company Slung Low which, along with Manchester Collective will present Benjamin Britten’s Noah’s Flood at The Warehouse in Holbeck, Leeds on 7 July (as part of LEEDS 2023) and at Depot Mayfield in Manchester on 9 July (as part of MIF23).