Mousehole Cat
Once upon a time, Antonia Barber wrote a children’s
book about a cat from the little village of Mousehole who
helped her human, Tom Bawcock, to save the village from starvation
at Christmas time. When they went out into the raging seas
she calmed the storm cat with her beautiful singing (in our
case, dancing as well!), enabling Tom to bring the catch safely
back to harbour.
Kay Jones read the story and saw the possibilities of turning
it into a piece of dance theatre. Duchy Ballet then commissioned
Ian Hughes, who had written the accompaniment to the Channel
4 video, “The Mousehole Cat” to write the music
and Terence Etheridge was asked to do the choreography. The
set designer, David Cockayne, had also worked on previous
productions.
For the first time, Duchy Ballet applied to Awards for All
and received a grant to develop an education programme connected
with the production. This was highly successful and brought
over 200 children to see a ballet, most of whom had never
done so before.
The Mousehole Cat was a magical experience and aroused enormous
local interest.
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