ORGANISERS have hailed this year’s Henley Youth Festival a success and praised the town’s “amazing” young people.

About 2,000 children took part in 45 events, ranging from sport to art and cooking to drama, during the two-week festival, which ended on Sunday.

The theme was “Imagine….” and was carried through many of the costumes and activities, such as a mad hatter’s tea party in Market Place and the original dance events held in the second week.

The finale was a gala night at the Kenton Theatre on Saturday with performances by Henley’s Acorn Music Theatre Company, Stageworks and the Gillotts School swing band.

There was also a moving rendition of Eric Clapton’s Wonderful Tonight by Simon Classey, an 18-year-old student at The Henley College.

Guests included the Mayor Elizabeth Hodgkin, Henley MP John Howell and Richard Dick, the High Sheriff of Oxfordshire.

Councillor Hodgkin said: “The festival has been absolutely fantastic. There is a feeling of joy when you see everyone taking part and having fun. It is an experience that will always stay with the children. The gala night just blew me away.”

This was the 16th youth festival and the “biggest and best yet” according to Helen McClure, who chairs the organising committee.

She said: “Once again, it has been a hugely successful festival with lots of outstanding events and performances and an exhilarating, inspiring and overwhelmingly positive experience for one and all.

“Our theme inspired organisers and participants, from the fabulous sculptures and mad hatter’s tea party, through the incredible costumes and originality shown by our dancers, to the culinary creations and alternative visions shown by our poets and film-makers. This is what we want — to encourage children to ‘think outside the box’ and enable them to try things they wouldn’t otherwise do.”

Mrs McClure said the organisers wanted to strike a balance between giving children the opportunity to do something different while not putting too much added pressure on schools.

“We’ll be looking carefully at this next year,” she said. “It has been good to see so much involvement and support from older participants, in particular students from Gillotts and The Henley College. They have contributed in many different ways.

“We’ve seen amazing talent on stage at the Kenton. The theatre is a fabulous resource and one which we cherish. It is a vital part of the festival and we will do all we can to help secure its future.”

Mrs McClure added: “It has been good to forge and strengthen links with so many local organisations through sponsorship, joint ventures and new initiatives and we’ll be building on these and doing our best to help develop a ‘joined-up’ Henley as envisaged at the recent youth conference.”

Tina Jacobs, a member of the steering committee, said: “It has been a community focused festival.

“Sponsors ranging from the Bell Bookshop and Little Cooks to larger ones like the Henley Festival and Invesco, institutional supporters like the Henley Educational Trust, Rotary, Lions and Henley and District Fine Art Society and, of course, every school, teacher, parent and child has been involved in one way or another. It has been an exhilarating, inspiring and overwhelmingly positive experience.”

Alfie Hay, a festival founder and whose Jewel Of The River cantata was one of this year’s highlights, said: “The expressions of thanks I have received from families, members of the Henley community and interested residents show the community cohesion and appreciation of the positive strengths of young people.”

More than 100 children, aged four to 18, took part in the dance events, with a variety of performances from classical ballet to street dancing. Many of the dances were choreographed by the children themselves.

Event co-ordinator Alix Tong said: “It was wonderful to see so many talented children on stage enjoying themselves and dancing with so much energy and enthusiasm.”

The young dancer category was won by Tess Hearn, dancing to Forever Young, and Beth Bowden, performing a street version of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker.

The senior dancer catergory was won by Connie Bennett dancing to What You’re Made Of by Lucie Silvas and Ibby Hearn and Ellen Oliver dancing to Technologic by Daft Punk. The senior singer section was won by Simon Classey for his gala night performance, when he was accompanied by his father. During both weeks of the festival was an inclusive series of workshops for schools with more than 1,800 places for primary age children.

The workshops included story-telling, story-writing, singing, dance, understanding jazz, bringing Shakespeare to life and exploring the science of light from inside an inflatable dome. Many were chosen from suggestions madeby the schools themselves. Co-ordinator Antonia Rolph said: “The workshop series is at the heart of what the festival is about — to make different and inspiring learning opportunities available for children.

“Channelling them through schools means every child gets the chance to take part.”

On Saturday, there was an exhibition at the Old Fire Station gallery, off Market Place, of children’s interpretations of the festival theme. The walls were filled with around 200 works of art, photographs and film and there was a display of sculptures created in the artist workshops in schools.

This vibrancy and colour provided the perfect setting for the Mayor to present the prizes.

There were 96 entries in the writing competition, which was won by Tom Hesketh and Oliver Gann (juniors) and Philippa Slay (seniors).

Mr Hay, who organised the competition, said some of the entries were in prose and others in poetry.

He said: “There were some very original thoughts on the ‘Imagine...’ theme and there was some inventive use of language and expression.

“The winners made minimal use of words to convey deep ideas and for those who love our language and fear the carelessness of Twitter and e-text, the future is safe in their hands.”

The photography winners were Abi Webb (junior), Phillipa Slay and Josh Corrie (digitally manipulated).

The art winners were: Ages six and under: Esther Bowman, Monty Heath, Rebecca Hughes, Henry Neal.

Ages seven to nine: Ingrid Sarson, Matilda Clerehugh, Art Lawton, Millie Bowater.

Ages 10 to 11: Maisie Jackson, Marcus Bagshawe, Isadora Larter, Mackenzie McArthur.

Senior category, age 12 and above: Kirsty Milne.

Winners of mixed media:Poppy Priestley, Bede Lunn, Ellie Duncan.

Collaborative prizes: Adam Garrod and Teal Shermann, Henley Brownie Pack.

The winner of the Elizabeth Griffin Award for creativity and contribution to the festival was Beth Staley, a year 10 pupil at Gillotts School. She was praised for her “innovative” films that demonstrated great technical skill.

If you have any comments about this year’s festival or would like to be involved next year, visit www.hyf.org.uk

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Published on 06 April 2010 by the Henley Standard, Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire.