Email: alisongrist@tiscali.co.uk Call: +44 (0)7940 59 00 70

October 2008:  To Tate Britain where they were holding a family activity day ( BP Saturdays: Kinetic Tate.) Kids were encouraged to participate in dance and physical movement classes in the gallery rooms, bungee racing and urban ‘free running’ too. My four year old son loved it. It’s great that kids can run around freely on days like this at one of our venerable art institutions – so fantastic we don’t have to shush them every ten seconds...
 
In Room 13, where the works on the wall depicts the art of leisure, kids and their families were taught the skills of the circus by ‘Nofit State’. There my son took a liking to the mini-pedal car which you moved by standing upright on it, like a junior version of the unicycle. My partner was brilliant at spinning plates on a stick. Elsewhere kids were throwing scarves into the air, balancing poles on their chins and our friend’s son, Zeb, loved chucking a bowler hat in the air to see if he could catch it on his head.

Now, I haven’t been on stilts since I was 11 years old. I clearly remember walking up and down the garden, running and dancing on them - clickety click, click.

As stilts were on offer I thought I’d have another go. Two minutes later, after walking around the gallery on the old leg splints, telling everyone to “look at me, look at me,” I was told off by Mr. Nofit State for not holding them correctly for health and safety reasons. Of course I should be tucking them under my armpits instead of holding them out like I was carrying a painting! Well it never feels the same does it? My freedom felt compromised.
 
But then, hold the front page, for the FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE I managed to hula hoop!!

As I’d tried and failed miserably on every previous attempt, I casually watched Mr. Nofit State doing it, then sneakily admired a tiny five year old girl, easily and brilliantly making the hoop go round and round. I suddenly realised that, unlike with the stilts, I’d been doing it wrong before, too much swaying my hips. So I had another go. I picked up a large hoop, spun it round then jerked my boobs and bottom in and out in dynamic, rhythmic fashion.