Our experience

[Slide 1]After the feedback we received on our presentation last week, we met up again to research ideas further and talk about other potential ideas. Inspired by the work we produced in the Devising Workshop with Parrot in the Tank, we began speaking about an area of our walk that we did not mention in our initial presentation as, although fascinating, we assumed it to be insignificant. [Slide 2] The St. Alfeges Church and adjacent to it, the St. Alfege Park the more we researched into this location, the more we realized the beauty and stories behind it. [Slide 3] Besides the obvious locations of the Cutty Sark, the O2 centre, and the Greenwich Meantime Line, this was one of the most striking places that we saw. [Slide 4] Whilst there are children playing in a playground and people sitting and socializing on picnic benches, there are also gravestones that are centuries old surrounding the whole park. [Slide 5] This remarkable contrast between the old life of those who died centuries ago, and the new life and new energy of young children playing in the park is what has captured us as a group, and for this reason we decided to research the area further. Harriet found and introduced us all to the story of St. Alfege, [Slide 6] a man who sacrificed his life for the sake of his people.

St. Alfege
Way, way back, in 954 AD, a man called Alfege was born into a wealthy Anglo-Saxon family. Despite his familys privilege within society, Alfege made a bold decision to give up his familys wealth in order to follow his religion, entering into a monastery and living in solitude. His kind and gentle nature soon attracted him a following, and in 984 he was appointed Bishop of Winchester. It has been said that there were no beggars in Winchester whilst Alfege was bishop. His gracious acts, which included completely restoring and reforming the church, lead to his becoming the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1006. By the time he was appointed this role, he was well known and loved by his followers for his gentleness, his knowledge of the scriptures and his courage in interacting with Vikings in an attempt to convert them to Christianity. [Slide 7] During this time, invasions by Danish Pirates were common along the Kentish coast. Betrayed by one of his own monks Alfege was abducted by a group of Pirates and taken along the River Thames up to Greenwich, where he was held hostage for six months. The Pirates asked the people of Canterbury for a ransom of 3000, or else they would slaughter Archbishop Alfege. [Slide 8] But Alfege knew that his people, being so poor, would not be able to afford the ransom. He immediately refused and to the Pirates cries of give us gold Alfege responded The gold I give you is the word of God. And so the pirates carried out their threats to kill him. On 19 April 1012 AD, they bludgeoned him with ox bones, stones and the handles of their axes until one of the Pirates, out of compassion for his horrific, slow and violent slaughtering, killed him by a single blow to the head with his axe. The Pirates disposed of his body into the Thames. A few weeks later, a miracle was reported. It is said that one of the Danish oars that had touched the blood of Alfege began to blossom into leaves and flowers. As a result of this, the Danes allowed Alfeges body to be

buried at St. Pauls Cathedral. In 1078 St. Anselm and Archbishop Lanfranc, agreed that his efforts of divine justice served him the title of Sainthood.

Our Final Idea

[slide 9]We are planning to create a shrine-like centrepiece to Alfege. Our vision is to have a body in the centre of the space, standing as St. Alfege on top of a pile of ox bones. The centrepiece will incorporate Christian, Pagan, Pirate and Viking iconography throughout. We are also playing around with the idea of using an object in space, rather than a body, to symbolise the character of Alfege, such as a cross draped in religious clothing. There will be a dark, mahogany style to the piece, in props such as the bones, and perhaps the object that is used to symbolize Alfeges character. Alfeges costume, or decoration, will be in deep reds and golds, to portray his religious importance. In terms of sound, Jack plans to record the sound of the St. Alfege church bells and we would want the location of our speakers to be unknown, hiding them amongst the rubble in the centre and using the darkness of our space to its full advantage. This would create an eerie environment. In terms of Lighting, Alex has considered and is currently looking into different ways in which we can uplight the Saint. We want to keep the lighting simple in order to draw attention to the central focus of our piece.