Vincent Dance Theatre Announces New National Touring Production For 2020: IN LOCO PARENTIS

Vincent Dance Theatre announces national tour of powerful new stage work exploring the inner worlds of care-experienced young people.

In Loco Parentis by Vincent Dance Theatre: Touring nationally 3 - 31 March, 2020. For full list of tour venues and dates visit https://www.vincentdt.com/calendar/.

Vincent Dance Theatre, the critically acclaimed company behind the emotionally raw and darkly funny Virgin Territory and Shut Down, will be touring a powerful new work for the stage in March 2020.

In Loco Parentis combines movement, strong visual imagery and spoken word to investigate the cycles of childhood trauma, rupture and repair that shape the lives of care-experienced children and young people.

Featuring text by Wendy Houston and performed by long-term Vincent Dance Theatre collaborators, Robert Clark, Janusz Orlik and Aurora Lubos, In Loco Parentis investigates the psychological impact and emotional labour of living outside of conventional family structures.

In 2008 there were around 60,000 children in care, with that figure rising year on year. At the end of March 2018 there were 75,420 looked-after children in England, up 4% on the previous year. Despite interventions from the Cameron Government, which sought to speed up the adoption process and provide funds to offer therapeutic support to adopted children, the numbers of children being adopted continues to fall, and the shortage of foster carers remains unchanged.

The result of a period of a six-month period of research and collaboration with care -experienced young people and the adults in their lives, In Loco Parentis unpacks some of the secrets and stigmas surrounding the care system in order to challenge, provoke and stimulate public debate.

In Loco Parentis is the latest in a series of productions on stage, on film and online created by Artistic Director and Choreographer Charlotte Vincent that focus on how adult choices and behaviours impact on children's lives.

In 2018, Vincent created Art of Attachment in partnership with women recovering from substance misuse at Brighton Oasis Project. This work for the stage, featuring brave and moving performances from some of the women themselves, explored the cycle of abuse and trauma that leads to mothers living with substance misuse being separated from their children.

In Loco Parentis follows on from this to investigate the effect trauma has on children's attitude, self-worth, development and behaviour, and how a difficult and disrupted start in life impacts on their sense of who they are and where they belong.

"In Loco Parentis explores what happens to children when their parents aren't able to look after them,' says Vincent. "These are young people impacted by trauma in childhood so the work also aims to meet what that looks like head on.

"I want to raise public understanding about what kids go through, remove stigma around the challenging behaviours that emerge from that and encourage greater empathy towards the most vulnerable people in our society whose 'life chances' are often written off at an early age because of the difficult start they have had in life."

In Loco Parentis is the company's fourth production created using a highly participatory, socially engaged model of research to form the production, in which collaborators' voices feature strongly in the creative process and the finished work - either in the soundtrack or performing live on stage.

Accompanying the performances are a series of discussions and debates aimed at social care, social work, foster care, care home workers and child developmental practitioners that offer opportunities to discuss the 'emotional labour' involved in looking after, protecting and supporting children living in care.

In Loco Parentis is co-commissioned by Pavilion Dance South West and Worthing Theatres.

For review tickets, images and interviews, contact Chloe Barker, Vincent Dance Theatre's Press & Marketing Consultant on 07921 866109 or at chloegudrun@live.co.uk.

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