Youth and Community Arts for the High Peak
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The artwork, poetry and prose in this calendar were created by Project eARTh participants with artists Emma and Duncan Pass, who led 5 workshops in collograph printing and creative writing, inspired by a love of nature.
Click here to see the Calendar!
Or contact us directly!
We are celebrating our second nomination for the Children and Young People Now Awards in the Arts and Culture category. First nominated in 2017 for our popular Film Cuts Club, this time the national awards have recognised our whole youth programme, which includes working in local high schools and early years settings, out of school performing arts and holiday clubs where young people devise original material.
Sophie says “most of our young participants don’t have access to working in the arts elsewhere in their lives and some involved in our programmes have been with us for years. It’s outstanding to be able to watch them face challenges in their lives and grow as creative participants into young artists.”
In the last year we have worked with over 200 young people from Buxton, Chapel en le Frith, Bradwell, New Mills and Glossop. They have written stories and songs, made films, devised drama and dance and produced our 6th annual youth show, ‘Come Here, Stratosphere!’ which was performed at Glossop’s Victoria Hall in August. Participants have gained 34 Arts Award qualifications from entry level to level 2 and many older participants have gone on to choosing arts subjects post 16 and taking opportunities available in Manchester. For example, two members of the Film Cuts Club won places on the BFI Film Academy at Home in Manchester this autumn.
We are very proud of our nomination. It is fantastic that small charities like ours are considered alongside high profile household names and a nomination could be instrumental in winning future funding bids – which means more activity for young people in the High Peak!
High Peak Community Arts celebrated its 40th Anniversary this year and depends on support by a range of funders including the County and Borough councils, and by local people through the Friends of High Peak Community Arts. Anyone who wants to join the Friends or gift Friendship for Christmas can find details on www.highpeakarts.org.
The Youth Programme is supported largely by The National Foundation for Youth Music, Arts Council England, the Music Education Hub and the Bingham Trust amongst others.
The sixth annual youth show from our Tall Tales programme brought us not your usual space adventure as part of High Peak Community Arts’ 40th anniversary celebrations! There were Cosmic tales for all the family, with live music, drama, dance and stella projections!
We had added a seconded showing at 6pm and sold out both shows so a cast of 27 young people played to two full houses at Victoria Hall in Glossop. Come Here, Stratosphere! followed the fortunes of a TV Crew from the hit show ‘Limitless Travel’ as they broadcast from across the universe, meeting Space Horses, and unlucky cruise ship on planet Earth and encountered Aries, Gemini and Leo.
They discovered that the universe was being sucked through a black hole, and were arrested by SIRA (The Specialist Interplanetary Regulation Authority). On the prison planet they pulled together as a team and finally starting listening to their Sound Technician, who worked out how to call the Space Horses to the rescue! And don’t worry, the Black Hole has now been plugged up by a mysterious stranger using his ship to manoeuvre a ginormous space rock!
Work started in April at the Young Writers’ Camp when nearly 30 young people from across the High Peak came together for a trip to Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre, inspired by the 50th anniversary of the lunar landings.
In the space of 4 days we had a dozen stories and an army of characters from across the universe. More young people joined the project from April to July, in workshops in Gamesley in Glossop and Fairfield in Buxton and signed up for our August summer school.
Now they have worked up their song writing and performance skills and spent 6 days in August creating the final show which includes music, drama, dance and film to be projected into the blacked-out semi-circle of Victoria Hall’s ground floor.
High Peak Community Arts couldn’t provide this fantastic range of youth programme without their range of funders; from a Derbyshire Youth Action Grant for the Young Writers’ Camp to National Foundation for Youth Music, Arts Council England, local Bingham Trust and Derbyshire Councillors’ Initiative Funds have all helped fund workshops on Gamesley and Fairfield and the 6 day summer school.
Thursday 15th August, 6pm and 7.30pm at Victoria Hall, Talbot Street, Glossop.
High Peak Community Arts is celebrating its fortieth anniversary in 2019 with its Forty Years On project, and we’re looking for a freelance archivist to lead on organising and cataloguing our exciting archive of art, music and drama projects.
Length of contract: Fixed-term, October 2019 – end of October 2020
Fee: 6 months’ full time equivalent (£12,600) to be worked over duration of project
Based: Derbyshire (New Mills and Matlock)
Based at High Lee Hall in New Mills and Derbyshire Record Office in Matlock, the role will organise the cataloguing of the material (in accordance with ISAD(G) and other appropriate standards) to create an archive at Derbyshire Record Office, create an online digital archive, and work with the Forty Years On project to select material for a film. The archivist appointed will also plan and lead training workshops for groups of staff, trustees, volunteers and artists at DRO.
High Peak Community Arts is an Equal Opportunities employer.
Further details available to download below. For an informal discussion about the role (or if you have trouble with the download), contact Susie Bennett on susie@highpeakarts.org or 01663 744516. Closing date for applications midnight on Monday 9th September. Interviews to be held on Wednesday 18th September in New Mills.
This post is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
2019 is High Peak Community Arts’ 40th Birthday!
Watch this space for our Events Calendar which will be full of events and activities to celebrate us being 40 years young!
There will be lots of opportunities for people to help us celebrate during the year…and it’s guaranteed that we will only ever be one event away from fun and cake!
This year the camp ran from 15th – 18th April and we launched our new theme of SPACE!!
23 Young people age 8+ came together from across our youth programme to spend 4 days focusing on generating ideas and stories to use throughout the year. On day 2 we had a trip to Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre, and worked for the rest of the week at Victoria Hall in Glossop (the former library).
Feel free to browse our Collection of material, and look out for the show coming up in August which will conjure it all into an all-singing, all-dancing performance with music, drama, projections and plenty of surprises!
Down load the Space Mania Booklet here.
Thank you for attending our final film screening from Film Cuts Club on 11th May 2019.
With news of a new application to BBC Children in Need only expected in June, this may have been the last screening of work from HPCA’s notorious Saturday club. Over the last 3 years nearly 100 young people with additional needs have taken part in at least 140 film making sessions, making short film from animated Animals to tech-obsessed Zombies. This year’s screening provided the usual mix of the surreal and the sublime, and invited the after school club from Chapel en le Frith to screen their latest ‘Chapel TV’ instalment as part of our celebration of the club.
Refreshments were served from 2.30pm, with screening from 3pm.
Thank you for joining us on Thursday 28th Feb to unveil the beautiful silk painted panels, inspired by the Charles Eamer Kempe stained glass windows in Spring Bank Arts Centre. These window and wall hangings were made by participants in Project eARTh ( Environmental arts and health) with artist Amanda Whewell. They will be displayed at Spring Bank Arts Centre, alongside a book of smaller silk painted pieces also inspired by the windows.
A huge thank you to White Stuff, Buxton who are doing an amazing job donating all the profits from their paper bags to High Peak Community Arts!
Previous activities have also included a second hand book sale, sweet sale, cake sale and ‘best in show’ pet photo competition!
The initiatives are part of White Stuff’s international campaign entitled “Live.Love.Local” which is all about giving back to the local charities that each White Stuff’s shop support.
Please do pop in to the Buxton shop and support the great work the staff are doing to support us.
