New film with Michael Rosen

A new short film featuring the Fitzwilliam Museum, its famous lions and 125 Cambridge schoolchildren has been produced with former British Children’s Laureate Michael Rosen. Creating my Cambridge from Historyworks on Vimeo. Michael Rosen is the best loved writer of dozens of children’s books, including We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. Produced by Historyworks, the film Creating my Cambridge shows how to inspire children to get creative with words and sounds, introducing poetry, song, rap and body percussion. It also features excerpts and the creative process behind Michael’s new poem about the Museum’s stone lions. The Listening Lions was commissioned by Historyworks in 2014 as part of Cambridge’s ‘Cycle of Songs’.
Michael Rosen commented: "In my new poem about the Fitzwilliam Lions, I’ve written the poem pretending to be the lions. I heard about the story about them getting up at night and going to drink from the conduit on Trumpington Street. I thought it was interesting that they look as if they are asleep. Then I thought about them dreaming. What would very old lions who have been there almost two hundred years be dreaming about? And what would they hear as they sit there, year after year, rain and sun? Poems and Songs are very good for letting you into the minds of people, and are sometimes in effect soliloquies. It has been very rewarding to be hosted at the Fitzwilliam Museum today, to be moved by words and personal stories." The film was created on December 5 2014 when Michael Rosen led a lyric workshop with Cambridge primary school children at the Fitzwilliam. The event also featured newly commissioned songs and rounds and raps from composer Kirsty Martin, freestyle rap from Cambridge rapper Inja, and body percussion by Tizzy Faller and Mario Satchwell of CaMEO.

16 December 2014