Well, we didn’t, but we certainly enjoyed quite a chunk of this last one at the event of the same name held in and around Media City and Salford Quays. Deckchairs by the Ship Canal? What would those activists, who in 1843 launched the campaign for work to finish early on Saturday, have made of that? Job done?
We were blessed with good weather, so as well as taking part in three workshops and three performances we had time to wander around and see what else was going on. There was plenty: street food, sports, arts, dancing, acting. Goodness, you’d need several weekends to do all of that.
We had fun. We were joined by some of our friends from Blackburn People’s Choir and of course the whole point of the workshop was to involve members of the public. The workshops lasted forty-five minutes and were followed by a fifteen minute performance. The performance consisted of the song we’d just learnt with everyone singing and choir members then offered two or three songs from our repertoire.
Okay, so the songs we learnt in the workshop were ones that the choir may have learnt some time ago. But it was really a long time ago and newer members won’t have met them anyway. And yet. Within forty-five minutes we were singing in parts and without music or words. And we hadn’t skimped on the warm up.
We learnt three songs in total; a South African lullaby, a romantic ballad and an African activist song.
We mixed up parts a little; a couple of altos and tenors sang bass and a bass sang soprano. All good fun.
It was great to see members of the public join in with gusto and becoming confident very quickly.
And they don’t need to wait until the next “We Invented the Weekend” to do it again. We rehearse at GoChurch on Tuesday evenings at 7.00 pm. It’s near the Broadway Metrolink station. And we don’t audition. Read more here.
