As part of plans to bring a £27m (US$41.4m, €36.7m) Puy Du Fou attraction to the UK, the team behind the project has brought in Steve Boyd – the man who choreographed the London 2012 Olympic Games opening ceremony among others – to train 1,000 volunteers for the night spectacle known as Eleven Arches.
Boyd – who has masterminded public involvement for every Olympics since 1992 and has handled choreography for multiple Super Bowl half-time shows, Oscars and Grammy telecasts – will serve in the debut season as creative director and head of volunteer activation for the training academy.
Modelled on the success of the not-for-profit Puy du Fou historical theme park in France, the Eleven Arches night show will run up to 30 times a year, with the 90-minute extravaganza held at Auckland Castle. It will tell the story of 2,000 years of British history – starting in Roman times and going all the way up to World War II. 1,000 volunteers trained by the academy, will not only perform on-stage, but also act as technical crew and handle elements such as first-aid, costume design, pyrotechnics and prop making, among other duties. Boyd and the Puy du Fou team created four masterclasses – one on pyro, combat, horse riding and human animation. The aim for the Eleven Arches team is to make County Durham a national centre for excellence for the performing arts.
“We just finished a week of intensive masterclasses in Bishop Auckland, working with 334 people from the local area” said Dan Boyd speaking exclusively to
AM2. “What we needed to do was bridge the gap between the Puy du Fou trailer of knights on horses and pyro displays to the question of ‘how do i get there?’. There was a definite way of showing people that they could do everything they were seeing.”
Puy du Fou in France operates almost exclusively on a volunteer basis. Taking part in the 8,000-person French version is so popular that several hundred volunteers have to be rejected each year.
“Our greatest goal is getting the broadest spectrum of participants, every socio-economic age range, everything,” continued Boyd. “If we get the first year right, then it becomes a word of mouth thing for recruitment year-after-year. That’s our overarching goal right now.”
While mainly preparing volunteers for a role in the Eleven Arches show, Boyd believes that learning goes beyond that.
“My background is one-off ceremonies and we usually have a cast of 6,000 to 10,000 people,” he said. “One of the things we see on social media. Once you’re in front of a billion people on TV or juggling flames in front of 6,000 people, something like a job interview is no big deal, that’s transferable. We also see people saying they mimic what they see in rehearsals, management skills, cast operations, they find ways of making the experience make sense in their professional work.
In September, Eleven Arches will host a mix-and-match session at Auckland Castle, where volunteers who have registered their interest will be assigned a role for the season. From 2016, the academy will run in the off-peak season between September and March, kids will also be able to participate in after-school and weekend activities.
“We have a call for action where people express their interest to become a volunteer,” said Boyd. “We are looking for 1,000 volunteers and I am absolutely confident that we will more than meet that quota with the hundreds we already have on file.
“Puy du Fou has the artistic side taken care of. I’m getting everybody ready for them. We’re finding the right people, we’re getting the ethos of volunteering and community together so everyone’s on the same level. Getting them working as a team. [Puy du Fou] are the guts of it, I’m getting them the right candidates. It’s like a cross between a really good wedding reception and gym class, it’s all about community.”
