First, as always, we started by doing some warm ups. This included a dance based on the 'Arabian Nights' customs. While going around in a circle, you took three steps then touch the floor, another three steps then reached up high. After doing this a few times, we turned to the opposite direction and continued. On this turn, the boys walked into the middle (all girls stood still). The boys had to crouch down low, then jump up into the air landing in a pose. They then returned to the circle so that we could once again follow the dance steps, but this time the girls had to enter into the middle. The only difference with this one was that although there was no jumping or monster-like posing involved, we had to toss our hair. Once the dancing was over, we were given a pile of materials. The idea was to create a story using only the pieces of cloth, but you couldn't wear it or rip it. We split up into groups, and everyone came up with brilliant stories and ideas on how to interpret them. There were stories to do with marriage, mythical creatures, deserts, talking flowers, and a thoroughly depressed caterpillar! After this we were told that now we had to use the cloth to represent a story from 'Arabian Nights'. We were given Es-Sindibad's tale. Still in our four groups, two were given the beginning explaining how Es-Sindibad was very foolish in his youth and out of wisdom decided to travel and make something for himself. The other two groups were given the other half of the tale, about how Es-Sindibad escapes an island using an extraordinary means of transport. It was brilliant! There were so many different ways discovered to show different parts of the story, and amazing ideas for a bird with such different looks even though it was the same creature they're showing. After that we tried to work out different ways of showing size difference between characters and the objects they find in the story, using group work. It was really fun, as we had so many ideas from just using pieces of cloth and certain ways to manipulate or use it! Mercedes Palmer-Higgins