The Secret Grove of the Garden @ Royal Botanic Gardens

The Secret Grove of the Garden, situated in a peaceful, secluded spot in Edinburgh’s Royal Botanics, combines interactive theatre, creative workshops and outdoor art installations into a magical, unique project that encourages participants — both children and adults — to explore their environment and different ways of learning. Sitting in the glorious sun on a bench in the Grove, I chatted to the project co-ordinator, Will Golding.

The Secret Grove is such a diverse project, encompassing theatre, art, science, environmental awareness and a plethora of workshops including ‘Make poetry now!’, ‘Green wood working’, ‘Food farce discussion’ and The real significance of Edinburgh’s old town’. Is there a guiding aim behind the project that brings all these areas and activities together?

My individual voice cannot speak for the many opinions and approaches contained in this project; however, for me, if I have to pick one thing, it is to help fulfil what I see as a basic human need: the need to learn and develop by being exposed to new inspiration and ideas, and then putting this into practice, and/or teaching it to someone else.

Just as green spaces have been squeezed out of the concentrated urban city, so it seems that education has been squeezed out of ordinary lived life and restricted to certain domains and environments and for specific purposes. This project aims for a synthesis of living and learning.”

You refer to your audience members as ‘spect-actors’ — what a great word! Did you want them to participate so that they’ll internalise the messages more? I know that leaning by doing and really engaging is much more effective than passive watching or listening.

Yeah, it's a good term that one of the performance team started to use to explain how the performance is participant led. The experiences, thoughts and questions of the audience determine the direction of the piece through what is of interest and relevance to them. A spect-actor then becomes the spectacle as an actor being guided. Here what they learn, 'internalise' or experience is not a certain content, message or emotion, but rather a new form of understanding and inquiry. It is in this way that we hope it empowers confidence in asking questions and arouses curiosity.

Do you think that community-based projects like this are a much more effective way of initiating societal change (e.g. to get people to behave in ways less destructive to the environment) than campaigning and lobbying the government?

This depends on your objective, or what you see as societal change. I think, or hope, that the biggest impact of something like this is more like little ripples that extend out far and in different directions, rather than a big splash. Its impact may not necessarily be clearly visible at first, compared with other more overtly political activities. With lobbying and such you have a clear objective or aim, one change you hope to achieve. This, rather, is more like an algorithm that, once set up, from their takes on its own momentum and direction.

Despite the guiding themes of learning and inquiry, and the fact that the project draws inspiration from the educational philosophies of Augusto Boal and Paulo Freire (‘empowerment through drama’) and Patrick Geddes (‘learning with hand, heart and head’), the project is suitable for both children and adults; in fact, some of the workshops, such as ‘Green wood working’, ‘Starting to write (for adults)’ and ‘Food farce discussion’ are aimed specifically at adults. Will says that often, parents go into a workshop merely in order to accompany their kids, but end up being the ones who get the most out of it. That was certainly the case in the poetry workshop I attended, led by the confident and friendly St. Andrews University graduate Harry Giles. After an hour of sitting in a circle, learning about poetry techniques and then writing some poetry themselves, many of the initially reluctant adults stood up and read out their surprisingly adventurous and creative poetry.

On the other hand, the interactive performance is definitely more appropriate for young children. A thin storyline about the city of ‘Burghedin’, whose inhabitants have lost their imagination, provides a reason for the ‘spect-actors’ to explore the Grove, looking for the various inhabitants (a butterfly, a bee, a bird and an apple tree, among others), all in some state of distress (which doesn’t necessarily relate to loss of imagination). Along the way, they learn about these animals and plants and find ways to help them, either through creativity, such as colouring in the butterfly’s big white wings, or more straightforward methods, such as finding some flowers for the bee. Although the story isn’t as cohesive and well thought through as possible, it does provide a fun, educational activity for young children.

The Secret Grove is organised and performed entirely by volunteers, mostly local residents and students, with absolutely no budget. Although it may not be as polished and professional as many shows at the Fringe, it benefits from a beautiful setting in the Botanics, the friendliest performers you’ll ever meet, and a good dose of creativity and whimsy (I especially liked the delightful crocheted flowers attached to a tree — without harming it, of course). And it provides a perfect place to spend a sunny afternoon, a haven of calm away from the crazy pace of the Fringe. As one of the many poems hanging off the apple tree points out:

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stop and stare
-W.H. Davies