Introduction and Brief

Background Information

Moving Tides is an exciting processional project created and managed by a

new partnership between all schools in Weymouth & Portland, The Arts

University College Bournemouth, Activate Performing Arts, Weymouth &

Portland Partnership, RELAYs (Regional Educational Legacy through Arts

and Youth sports), the West Dorset Schools Sports Partnership and Extended

Schools Services. The vision is to produce a high quality, spectacular

procession that all young people in Weymouth & Portland will have the

opportunity to be part of. The procession will take place on 12 July 2012 as an

introduction to the Olympic Torch Relay celebrations. Young people will also

benefit from workshops with professional dance and percussion artists as well

as workshops from AUCB Young Designers.

Moving Tides ran in 2008 and 2009 to much acclaim. In 2010 the AUCB

became a partner and students work in local school developing fantastical

and colourful costumes and make-up, which were seen in the procession of

300 children. This year the project is much larger hoping to reach up to 600

young people and the Young designers from AUCB costume and Make-up

course will be there to inspire and energise young people about creating a

character through costume and make-up design.

What do we need?

Costume

Young designers from the AUCB are to design and create a prototype

costume, which can be made by primary school children.

You will work with the teachers to develop your ideas during the design

development stage and during the workshops in the schools, where you will

demonstrate how to create the costumes.

In conjunction with the teacher from your placement school you will prepare

lesson plans for 4 workshops. You will need to prepare resources and

materials required before the workshops.

You will attend the procession day and work with your school to get the group

ready.

Themes

The overarching theme for this year’s Moving Tides procession is 

OCEANS OF THE WORLD

You may consider the following areas to explore. 

1. Sea life that is indigenous to this area and specifically the Jurassic 

Coast or other world heritage sites

2. Marine Life

3. Under the Sea

4. Deep Sea Creatures

5. Tropical Waters

What are the practicalities?

The procession will consist of approximately 600 young people – the young 

people will be of various ages, many will be year 6 (age 10) pupils from local 

primary schools. Approximately 200 costumes for year 6 primary schools 

have already been created. AUCB costumes will sit alongside these 

costumes. We aspire to create high quality, spectacular, eye-catching 

costumes. These costumes will be used for an outdoor procession for young 

people therefore there are a number of practicalities to consider:

1. Think about how your costume/ make-up design may work in a 

processional/carnival environment. Carnival is essentially about 

mischief, the extra-ordinary and exaggeration. We want you to be as 

imaginative as possible

2. The colours need to be bold and bright. You will work with the Moving 

Tides steering group to insure the colour palette compliments the 

whole procession. 

3. With 600 young people participating we need costumes and make-up 

that is practical and quick to put on.

4. This procession is going to be televised therefore small detail is not 

needed make bold statements with the pattern and textures.

5. Although the procession takes place in the summer, weather conditions 

are unpredictable – the Weymouth seafront can be very windy so 

costumes must be able to withstand and/or filter the wind.6. Think about sightlines – designing tall costumes may be a good idea 

so that more people can see. Hats and headdresses are a very good 

idea. 

7. This is a carbon neutral procession (so there will be no lorries/floats) –

however in addition to young people walking other forms of sustainable

transport may be used such as bikes, trollies, roller skates and so on –

how may a costume be created for this kind of use?

8. Remember that young people will be working with their teachers to 

create these costumes in the classroom – they cannot be too 

technically challenging to create or too expensive.

Budget

Costume

We have a very limited budget for materials and therefore the emphasis is on 

using scrap/recycled materials for this brief. Each school will need to create 

30 costumes as a cost of £10 per costume. The schools will source materials 

from their own stocks to support the material budget i.e. paint, paint brushes 

etc.

You will be required to create a budget early on in the design development 

process and be very diligent to record all purchases – keeping all receipts. 

Bulk items will be sourced centrally