This is my first blog post on 'National Theatre Wales Community'- therefore I felt it should be a good one! And what could be better than being able to blog about the great time I had with TEAM Aberystwyth at their recent Assembly "Is Aberystwyth the end of the Road?".

Having been 'found' on here by Devinda back in January- I was called to the Arts centre for a meeting with him and Catherine about whether I would be interested in getting involved with 'Outdoors' and 'Assembly', right here in my student town- Aberystwyth. I felt 'yes' was the right answer to this question, and therefore 2 months down the line found myself walking down dark alleyways holding an ipod touch, and climbing consti at least three times in three days!!

But I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Assembly was a completely different project to anything I had ever had the opportunity to work on before. It combined performance and discussion in a way in which an 'audience' where perceived as being members of a 'community'. It gave myself and the other Team members, an opportunity to interact with locals, visitors and students of Aberystwyth in exploring the answer to the Assembly question.

We were split into four separate groups (Shells, pebbles, driftwood and Seaweed) and had to venture into the crowd in order to find a 'community' of people who wanted to be in our individual groups.

Although originally I was labelled the 'bi-lingual' group (welsh & English) I soon discovered that the majority of the bilingualism came from people who spoke fluent french!!

In our group, we discussed different aspects of this question, and from the four special guests came up with four separate answers that eventually lead us to our overall answer:

1.  Aberystwyth was a place where people could be nurtured and encouraged to grow and change.
2.  Aberystwyth had a very positive community of local people
3.  More was needed to be done in order to entertain and encourage young people
4.  Aberystwyth was a place of choice. People chose to move here or stay, very little HAD to move here.

The 'Pebble' groups overall answer to the 'Is Aberystwyth the end of the Road?'  was

No, Aberystwyth is a DOORWAY, in which people can come in and out and they can either stop and stay for a while, or they can just pass through and then move on.

I believe the success of the Assembly rely's not only on the people who attend, discuss and support The National theatre of Wales but also the enthusiasm, dedication and passion of the people who are involved behind the scenes. The group moral and enthusiasm from Catherine, Devinda and the rest of the TEAM certainly inspired myself- and I'm sure many of the other volunteers! (Oh and the free food helped too, cheers!)

Assembly has offered myself the chance to be involved in a new form of theatre; and just like Aberystwyth it will leave a lasting impression.

p.s Anyone know where I can find the photographs from the evening??

Love & Cake x