Greens shoot....

As the first days of Spring arrive I did my bit for the environment at the weekend by attending not one but three events organised by the Canaries in a Coalmine project. The first of these, a dance performance called Global Storming, held at the E.M. Forster Theatre, Tonbridge School was simply fantastic. This was a combination of junior schools, senior schools and community dance projects. Yes there was a little bit of that feeling of being at the school Christmas play and having to applaud every scene with a cutsie show-off girl in it, but mixed in with some of the distinctly mediocre performances were some quite stunning dance pieces. I hate to single out people or groups but feel I must; the Commotion groups and Hillview dancers were absolutely superb; Tonbridge blog has learnt that one or two of the more senior members of the group are, not at all surprisingly, on their way to ballet schools and the like. The piece entitled Fusion was breath takingly brilliant and showed great poise, complexity and creativity. I went along expecting to be lightly entertained and came out feeling really quite moved emotionally. And as if that weren't enough there was the lantern procession (not march, as we were all reminded, as we turned up at West Kent College car park on a foul Saturday evening.) Myself, my kids and around 70 others walked up Tonbridge High Street carrying home made lanterns (recycled paper of course!) a few had brought wind up torches, none of the lanterns were lit because A. It would have been bad for the climate and B. they would have set light to themselves, and maybe the the whole town. After becoming more and more soaked and being gawked at by people in McDonalds and Starbucks we arrived at Tonbridge School not knowing quite what if anything we'd achieved. My excuse was that I only went along to give the kids something to do anyway. Then later the same night there was the Concert to Save the Planet (or gig if you prefer) billed to be open air at the Castle, but ending up also at Tonbridge School in Big School Hall. Despite the rather ambitious title this too was a great event; that is though enough for one posting, so that's another story....