This is a past event
A major new Aberdeen arts project celebrating the city and its people.
Across the city, September 2015 to April 2016.
National Theatre of Scotland and Aberdeen City Council present GRANITE
The National Theatre of Scotland and Aberdeen City Council are inviting the people of Aberdeen to take part in a major new production that will explore the city’s rich history, celebrate the character of its citizens and re-imagine its future place in the world.
From September 2015 to April 2016, a National Theatre of Scotland team of creative artists will produce a programme of performances, interactive multimedia installations and events that will bring the city’s streets to life, before the project culminates in a series of large-scale, site-specific performances within the quadrangle of the world’s largest grey granite building, Marischal College. National Theatre of Scotland Associate Director Simon Sharkey (The Tin Forest, Extreme) will lead the project and has chosen a team of world-class creative artists to join his team, including costume and set designer Becky Minto (Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games Ceremonies), lighting designer Colin Grenfell (Black Watch), dramaturg Peter Arnott (Janis Joplin: Full Tilt) and video artist Graeme Roger (Culloden Battlefield Artist in Residence).In order to deliver the project, the National Theatre of Scotland team will work closely with some of the city’s leading creative groups, who will lend their ideas, expertise and performing talent. These include Aberdeen Performing Arts, ACT Aberdeen, Citymoves, SHMU and the Sound Emporium Research Group (SERG) from the University of Aberdeen’s Department of Music.In the nine years since its inception, the National Theatre of Scotland has built up an internationally renowned reputation for its trailblazing approach to participatory arts projects. The pioneering model sees teams of professional theatre artists working in towns and cities across Scotland for months at a time, to co-create world-class pieces of theatre that leave a longstanding impact on the communities involved. Most recently, as part of the Glasgow 2014 Cultural Programme, the Company produced The Tin Forest, bringing together participants from across Glasgow, Scotland and the world, to create a festival of theatre inside an iconic industrial building on the banks of the River Clyde during the fortnight of the Commonwealth Games. The National Theatre of Scotland last worked with Aberdeen City Council in 2011 on Extreme, a similarly well-received production, whose finale involved audience members being kidnapped into the back of a van, forced to escape from a prison cell and to finally perform as part of a pop group, on stage, in front of the rest of the audience.The theme and foundation of the project is granite: the stone from which the city is built, upon which the city built its global reputation and the characteristics of which the people of North East Scotland are widely held to personify – resilience, grit and robustness, but with an underlying sparkle and charm. In the course of Granite, the team aims to dig out and present stories that describe local people’s personal relationships to the city, which connect with the project’s overarching themes of tenacity and poetry.The project launched in September 2015 and is sponsored by Deloitte. Supported by Aberdeen Inspired, Balmoral Group, Mackie’s of Scotland and Creative Scotland Produced in association with Aberdeen Performing Arts, ACT Aberdeen, Citymoves Dance Agency, Station House Media Unit and University of Aberdeen Music.