The Grasshopper’s Green Herbarian Band

A five-foot wasp was spotted playing the cymbals in-between the trees of the Cambridge University Botanic Garden earlier this week. But visitors had no cause for alarm - the giant bugs with their musical instruments were The Grasshopper's Green Herbarian Band. Students from the Red Balloon Learner Centre in Cambridge, which specialises in the education of severely bullied children, spent a day at the Garden disguised as giant insects. Professional performers worked together with ten students, aged 12 to 17, to make a video inspired by the surreal music of Syd Barrett, a founding member of Pink Floyd. The Botanic Garden joined forces with Escape Artists, a multi-arts charity that promotes the use of arts amongst groups marginalised from society, and the Insect Circus, a quirky travelling museum of mechanical menagerie and an acrobatic troupe. The Red Balloon educates students who have been bullied to the extent that attendance in a mainstream school has become impossible. Around half its students have either attempted suicide or given it serious consideration.