11:04am Wednesday 1st September 2010
By Graham Moody
Previous visitors to Battersea Arts Centre's Scratch festival might remember Dancing Brick and their show, 6.0: How Heap and Pebble Took on the World and Won.
The show was first aired there two years ago when it was just a 10 minute idea, but now it has grown into a full-hour long performance that won an award at last year's Edinburgh Festival and is about to embark on a national tour, beginning at BAC next Thursday.
"It has changed a lot since the first 10 minute idea we had," says Valentina Ceschi, who, along with Thomas Eccleshare, created the company and performs the show.
"The last time people at BAC would have seen it was March last year when it was 45 minutes long but it has come a long way from then.
"After our first Scratch performance at BAC, they were interested in helping us and invited us back to do a residency which led to the longer version which we took to Edinburgh last year.
"We got nominated for the second time as a company for a Total Theatre award in the category for best emerging company and also won the Archies Brick award, which meant we got to perform at the Archies Brick Theatre in Glasgow which was brilliant."
Combining physical theatre, clowning and plenty of audience interaction, the play revolves around two ice skaters, Heap Krusiak and Pebble Adverati, who, despite global warming melting all the world's ice, are still determined to skate.
"It's a really exciting show to perform as it feels fresh and new every night because of the audience participation," says Valentina.
"Sometimes it's a much quieter audience and we have to be gentle with them.
"Other times they go more for the comedy or more for the tragedy.
"We started off thinking we would really push the environmental message by having these ice skaters not being able to skate because the ice has melted.
"The world had changed but they kept wanting to do it.
"However, we found that audiences were more interested in the characters and wanted to know more about the human aspect of loss so we worked on that a bit more.
"The environment is almost in the background now and it's more how global warming effects people in a human way.
"It leaves the audience more touched by it."
6.0: How Heap and Pebble Took on the World and Won, Battersea Arts Centre, Lavender Hill, September 9 to 25, 7.30pm, £10. Call 020 7223 2223 or visit bac.org.
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