High Peak Community Arts

Community Arts in the High Peak

SMART

SMART (Serious Makers of ARTs) launched in October half term thanks to a new grant from Northern Rail Community Improvement Fund.
The SMART scheme aims to support young people’s ambitions to enter the arts sector with a creative training scheme for age 13 – 25s, especially aimed at those interested in non-traditional routes into careers.

We began with a Creative Training Camp between 29 th – 31 st October, where participants learned the basics of planning and running a workshop, had one-to-ones with experienced creative professionals and stretched their creativity in Virtual Reality creative apps. Sessions were run by Trixi Bold, a community dance practitioner with 18 years experience of dance teaching and leadership training; Gareth Carbery, multi-intrumentalist and music producer with 25 years experience of collaboration and education; and Joseph Doubtfire, visual artist and specialist in VR applications for 3D sculpting. Trixi said “I always love running leadership training, it’s so important for young people’s development as artists or other creative practitioners”. Progression from these sessions will be supported by HPCA Creative Programme Manager, Sophie Mackreth, with over 20 years experience of producing community and youth arts programmes.

Nine people aged from across the age range signed up in October, and they will get future opportunities to test their skills as a young volunteer on other HPCA projects, access mentoring and apply for paid work on the youth programme. Two members are now joining the Derbyshire Makes steering group – watch this space for more news on that Sophie said “this approach is particularly suited for neurodivergent young people, or anyone who faces a barrier to accessing routes such college and university. These settings and the reliance on unpaid work experience have traditionally excluded many creative people from entering the creative industries.”

Anyone wanting to sign up should go to www.highpeakarts.org/SMART, or contact sophie@highpeakarts.org for more information. Sessions are at Victoria Hall in Glossop, but there is some transport support available.

Photography

In the Spring, and luckily with sunny days, the Space to Explore group had a series of photography workshops with artist Mark Turton. With ‘attention to detail’ as our theme, participants explored the gardens and surrounds of St. Matthew’s Church and took lots of lovely photographs- including many of the beautiful flowers. Some people then enjoyed editing their photos – others just enjoyed taking photos and then looking at each other’s pictures projected onto the wall, analysing what worked well with the different shots and choosing favourites. Several people created postcard designs from a collection of their images. We are going to use these by writing useful information about different aspects of neurodivergence on the back, and having some sets printed to distribute. Watch this space!

Creative Writing and Shadow Puppets

 

As a way of celebrating and enjoying participants’ special interests – including trains, ships, planes, Berlin, dragons, dogs, otters, octopi, penguins and planets – participants worked with artist Gordon MacClellan to create a splendid array of shadow puppets which we then wove into fun stories in our final session before the summer break.

Murderous Circus – brought the house down!

Anyone who has seen a Tall Tales show before will know that the young members of High Peak Community Arts had a whirlwind ready to bring to Buxton, and on 13th August we played two shows of Murderous Circus on 13th August to sold-out and almost-sold-out audiences.

More than 40 young people aged 8 – 16 joined the Summer School, working on the original story and script which has been written since the Easter holidays.  Murderous Circus featured their songs, dance and drama, with pre-filmed clips and animations projected into the Big Top – assembled in the Buxton Community School 6th Form Dance Studio.  Not everyone is born to be on stage, so some worked back stage, specialising in props and costumes – everything made from scratch from the beginning of August.

 

One audience member said “Where do you get the stories from?  It’s kind of chaotic, but in a way that most theatre just isn’t.  It’s brilliant!”

This year’s Tall Tales was part-funded by The People’s Projects which HPCA won in June 2023 in a public vote with ITV.  The young people involved began working with Benn Turton on the theme of ‘Wellbeing & Nature’ in intergenerational workshops in February half term and Easter holidays.  Those holiday workshop generated more than 20 different story ideas and began to weave them into one narrative.  Benn returned to evening sessions in Fairfield and Gamesley to flesh out the script and get feedback from new young people who have joined the project since Easter.  The group also spent evening sessions starting the music and songs with Gareth Carbery and Rizzy Stephenson, learning dance moves with Trixi Bold, making taster animations with Mark Turton and designing the poster with Andrea Joseph.

In the August Summer School they meet members from across the High Peak and put it all together into one stunning show.  If you’ve ever wondered how a cat-dragon is born, or where the source of all life springs, take a look at the pics, and watch this space for video coming soon! 

Another audience member (aged 3 1/2) said “Wow!”

Youth programme manager, Sophie Mackreth said “we love offering a wide range of arts to young people who are at the start of their creative journeys in life – the Summer School is designed to be inclusive of disabilities, neurodiversity and family resources, that’s why all our projects are free at the point of access.  As a result the audience will hear the voice and creativity of the next generation unlike anything they’ve seen before!”

After the show a parent said “Just wanted to say thankyou to all organisers and volunteers, my daughter had a great time and we were so pleased how she spoke like she did!”

Young participant, Jess said “I’ve come because you get to do loads of stuff you haven’t done before”, and Zoe agrees “yes, it’s having new experiences”.  Another participant, Orissa, who has done the project for 3 years says “It’s fun, with my friends and I enjoy the dancing – Everyone should watch because we’ve put hard work into it.  The show is intriguing!  So have a look and find out more!”

 

Sophie says, “We’re so lucky to have long-term funding from Arts Council England and The National Foundation for Youth Music which both support multiple elements of the youth programme.  For the Tall Tales Summer School we also rely on local funder The Bingham Trust and the long term partnership of Buxton Community School whose staff welcome us enthusiastically each year”

 

It certainly was a night to remember!

 

It’s In our Nature – Save the Date for our Festival Showcase – Sunday 29th September.

This year, the work from Project eARTh and the youth programme, as well as the results from our intergenerational holiday workshops will all feature in our Showcase, as part of New Mills Festival at Spring Bank Arts. Expect to see the building full of felted landscapes, felted and papier maché animals, a flock of doves, local landscapes on the move in the ‘Cranky’, poems inspired by the 61 bus route, collograph prints, ‘Film Cuts Club’ films, projections and live performance.

 

On September 29th we will take over Spring Bank Arts for a Celebratory Showcase of ‘It’s In Our Nature’.  In our final intergenerational workshops in the Easter holidays, we painted a room full of signs to highlight places in the High Peak with artist Andrea Joseph; wrote short poems about every month of the year, to be included in our ‘Journal of the Year’ with poet Genevieve Carver; recorded the ‘Route 61’ poems with Mark Turton, so they can be listened to, as well as read in the book; and created the story for the Summer School Tall Tales with Benn Turton. The story  involves an evil circus, but to find out more you will need to join in creating it (if you are aged 8-18); see the live show in August; or come on Sept 29th to see live highlights and a film at the ‘Its’ In Our Nature Showcase’.  So watch this Space for exact timings and more details – and put it in your diary now.

Space to Explore – we have a zine for you!

We are proud to present our first piece of work from the Space to Explore project, a meeting point for neurodivergent people.  This Zine – “a Safe Space – to free your mind” came from workshops with autistic artist Charlie Collins, with Helen Robson leading on the theme of feeling safe. We want to display the zine around the High Peak and beyond, so if you have ideas for where it could go, get in touch!

 

The first term of the project worked with autistic artist, Charlie Collins who runs Derbyshire Zine Library and co-leads Milestone Studios in New Mills.  The theme, led by Helen, was ‘feeling safe’ and the environments and adjustments people need to feel safe.  There were group mind maps and each person designed a page to go into the group zine, ‘Safe Space – to free your mind’. We also had debates about language – for example some like to use the term ‘neuro-spicey’ and others find it uncomfortable or disrespectful.

Group member, Jessica laid out the back page and designed a spaceman logo from other people’s ideas.  Jessica and Helen, another member, made their own zines as well, using content from their special interest areas. The group zine will be printed to be able to share and display around the High Peak and beyond!

We also collected further ideas on artforms, and we are now working with filmmaker, Mark Turton in photography and digital editing, and booked Gordon McClellan for creative writing from June. We look forward to sharing more of their work!

 

13+ Youth Take Over at Illuminate Buxton

If you remember the call out in October for young people aged 13+ to take part in music workshops you’ll be pleased to know that the group stepped into the limelight at Illuminate Buxton on Saturday 24th February. Calling themselves “The Echoes”, they showed four original tracks written since the end of last year, and invited our younger musicians from last year’s Tall Tales summer school to join them for their own two tracks.

The audience said “Great to watch!  Well done!” and “It was brilliant!  Well done everyone!

Our partnership with Buxton Heritage Action Zone completed on 24th February with an outdoor stage featuring 6 local young bands, ahead of the Illuminate Buxton light show. Our group, calling themselves “The Echoes”, also helped coordinate the callout and programming of other local acts and worked with Buxton International Festival’s comms specialist, Harriet Grubb on a press release and marketing plan.

The young people involved spent five months attending workshops on how to produce their own music, alongside professional musicians such as Ríoghnach Connolly, BBC Folk Singer of the Year, producer Gareth Carberry and singer-songwriter Rhiannon Stephenson from indie-pop band LONG ISLAND. The initiative has been led by the Buxton Our Street Youth Panel, a group of young people who meet regularly to discuss what opportunities they’d like to see in the town and then work to make them happen. It was funded by Historic England, with their partners the National Heritage Lottery Fund and Arts Council England and is supported by High Peak Borough Council as part of Buxton’s High Street Heritage Action Zone project.

 

Toby, a member of The Echoes says ‘everyone involved has created songs with all their own instruments, their own ideas and everyone has their own unique role in the project’. When asked what to expect, he explained ‘there’s some big band, blues, hip hop, R&B-ish music, a variety of different sounds and feelings.  But the tracks all fit around a similar theme of overcoming obstacles and understanding yourself. Those were the kind of things we all had in common, and when we started writing about them, we felt they actually holds good life lessons for people of various ages.’ Another member, Hannah, who’s 14, explained why she got involved ‘I thought it sounded really interesting to work with people of a similar age to me to create music. It’s been really nice getting to know all these people that live around me.’ She says it’s been a positive experience ‘I’ve gained more confidence around people my age and I like creating music with other people because I know that they’ll support me and I can support them in that way.’ Toby agrees, saying ‘There’s a lot of creative freedom… because it’s just people around our age with similar interests and it’s really easy to just work with everyone and create something.’

Illuminate Buxton was definitely a night to remember, with original works made in Derbyshire – from the young bands, to the stunning light show later in the evening. The performers were thrilled to see the crowd turn out from Buxton and further afield. Toby said ‘it’s free live music, it’s original, with various new young rising bands involved” and Hannah adds ‘it’s just an experience for local people to come together to see how much talent our town has, and the different ways people can get involved in things.’

The bands performing were: Isaac Neilson, followed by Hillside Playback, The Echoes, Tall Tales, The Developers and finishing with Cheap Shades. Then at 6.30pm Illuminate Buxton kicked off at the other end of Spring Gardens.

It’s In Our Nature Holiday Workshops!

We have more workshops coming up in the Easter holidays for our adult and young participants to share. In afternoon workshops on Monday 8th, Thursday 11th and Friday 12th April we will start putting together the final material for our September showcase of all that we love about nature and the natural world. Working in poetry, illustration, sound recording and script writing, we will create work for a celebratory journal, leaflet, exhibition and the Tall Tales summer school.

Get in touch if you would like to know more!  Contact sophie@highpeakarts.org or alison@highpeakarts.org

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