Community Arts in the High Peak
Big relief here at HPCA – all 19 of our Arts Awarders passed their Explore and Bronze certificates!! Well done all! The moderator said: “What a super project'” and “Some lovely and rewarding journeys…” Look forward to getting your certificates in a few weeks!
The third year of Tall Tales has unsettled audiences in Buxton’s Poole’s Cavern with a journey into Poole’s Cavern they won’t forget…
Young performers from Glossop and Buxton welcomed the audience to their book launch, only for proceedings to be interrupted by the book’s contents disappearing back into the cave where it came from! Luckily the assembled public were willing to help find the characters and get the book back on sale. Setting out in four search parties they entered the cave to find the Water Goddess, the Fire Goddess, ghosts, bats, Roman soldiers and a Bronze Age man and at the very foot a medium trying to communicate (badly) with the former inhabitants of the cave.
When they met NoName they found someone forced into the limelight and shrinking from the crowds attracted to the book launch. He was so uncertain of his place in the world he couldn’t take part, taking all the characters with him. But along the way the audience had found letters which seemed to hold a clue, and together they worked out his name. Back at the visitors’ centre everyone called for Norman and he returned to take up his new identity. With all the characters gathered around him he found that “True friends will always be there for you!”
A cast of 22 performed to a sell out audience, with people coming from across the High Peak… And here is a first peek at what it looked like:
The young people from Glossop and Buxton created the show during a 6 day Summer School. Now in its third year, Tall Tales is High Peak Community Arts’ performing arts programme for young people across the district. Each year the project starts in April with evening creative sessions in Gamesley and Fairfield. People can come along to try new skills in musical instruments, vocals, writing or music production, and they sign up for the August Summer School.
In the first two years of the project we worked from published books to create the show. In 2014 audiences saw Blue John, from the book by Berlie Doherty, and in 2015 we staged 100% Wolf by Jayne Lyons. But now the young members of the project have demanded they create their own story, and so we launched the Young Writers’ Camp in April 2016, where young people from all our projects and others from Manchester came together to be inspired at Poole’s Cavern. They created characters and stories to fill our Young Writers’ Camp Collection, ‘Mind Your Head’. Tall Tales has been working with these ideas ever since and now they have been able to set their show back in the caves that inspired it!
This year Tall Tales has been funded by Arts Council England, the Derbyshire Music Education Hub, Derbyshire County Council and Buxton Festival. For more information contact Sophie at High Peak Community Arts on 01663 744516 or sophie@highpeakarts.org
Free event. All welcome to Project eARTh’s Unveiling of:
* 5 collages of the Hope Valley – Edale, Hope, Bamford, Hathersage and Grrindleford
* Posters – Visit The Peak District by Train’ featuring all 5 collage images, to encourage train use into the Hope Valley
*Di bond prints of each collage to be diplayed at each station.
There will be a photographic exhibiton of the project and how the collages were made, and refreshments.
After the Unveiling at the Moorland Centre, we will vist Edale Station to see the site of one of th di-bond prints.
Participants worked with artist Caro Inglis on this project.
Project eARTh is funded by The Big Lottery Fund.
The posters and di- bond images are being printed courtesy of The High Peak and Hope Valley Community Rail Partnership.
We will be appearing at the Royal Festival Hall on 5 February at the first ever National Arts in Health Conference and Showcase for Health Decision Makers. Leading speakers include Jeremy Hunt, the Secretary of State for Health, Sir Malcolm Grant, chair of NHS England, and Professor Kevin Fenton, Director of Health and Wellbeing for Public Health England. We are of one of 23 selected by innovative charity Aesop to demonstrate at the Royal Festival Hall the effectiveness of arts interventions in healthcare that could save the NHS and local authorities money, while improving the health and wellbeing of participants.
We will be talking about Project eARTh.
High Peak Community Arts will also feature on a new online ‘dating site’ to match health commissioners with arts organisations aesopmarketplace,org, to be launched at the RFH.
The complete programme is here
You can book tickets here here
More information: ae-sop.org, email: info@ae-sop.org
Twitter @AesopHealth #AesopRFH.
We have launched Seasons of Goodwill for our Christmas / New Year appeal – available to buy now on Bandcamp:
And watch the video:
Listen to Project eARTh’s newly created song – working with Singer / Songwriter, Claire Mooney.
The project aims to promote a joy of books with early years children and their families, who can sign up for sessions with professional artists. The artists have been asked to choose their favourite children’s book and develop fun, creative and open ended activities that animate the book further. 
Our first sessions will be running at Gamesley Early Excellence Centre in October, where artist Tony Hall will be making drawing robots with the families. Artist Katy McCall, who has a background in early years learning, will be bringing a range of unusual materials for children to play and experiment with. The session will be based on the book “Robots, Robots Everywhere” by Sue Fliess.
We are thrilled to be planning this early years work, supported by Awards for All from the Big Lottery and also the Clore Duffield Poetry and Literature Awards. All of the sessions will be designed to enable families and children to develop confidence in their creativity and nurture a love of books through playful and enjoyable activities.
This programme of workshops will be rolled out in New Mills, Fairfield and Gamesley between October 2015 and July 2016. For more information call Sophie on 01663 744 516, or email Katy McCall on katymccall@mac.com.
We did it!Thanks to all our supporters who got online and voted – we have been selected by White Stuff to be their charity partner for their new store in Buxton.
Everyone at High Peak Community Arts is thrilled to have been chosen and we are looking forward to meeting their staff and using the opportunity to raise our profile in Buxton.
Sophie, our Youth Arts manager, said “Almost half our programme is based in Buxton, but we don’t have a base there – so it will be great to become a bit more visible to the general public and shout about the benefits of taking part in the arts!”
Alison, our Arts & Wellbeing manager, said “This partnership has come a critical time for us, as we are still replacing the revenue grant that we used to get from Arts Council England. Working with White Stuff will bring us in-kind support of more volunteers, and funds to support the organisation as a whole – We can’t wait!”
For more information on White Stuff’s charitable foundation click here.
Project eARTh gets 5 years more funding!
High Peak Community Arts are delighted to announce they they have been awarded a 5 year grant of £365,255 from the Reaching Communities Fund of the Big Lottery to continue with their highly successful Project eARTh. The grant also includes £15,000 of a ‘Building Capabilities’ grant for the first year, for the organisation as a whole to review, develop and undertake any training needed to go forward .
Project eARTh (environmental arts and health) had a wonderful first 5 years with a whole host of participatory arts projects for people experiencing mental distress, with other physical impairments or long term conditions. In Project eARTh people get the chance to get out, meet other people, make friends, have fun, be creative, and work together to make art works for the community.
With participants from all over the High Peak, the project has created 33 artworks, many of which can be seen and enjoyed across the borough – including a ceramic human sundial in High Lee Park, New Mills, an aluminium archway in Granby Park Road, Fairfield, a Mosaic Trail in Gamesley Woodlands, felted wall hangings in Fairfield Community Centre and the Moorland Centre Edale, outdoor pizza ovens in Glossop and the Goyt Valley, a living willow arbour in Glossop, a living willow den and tunnel for Harpur Hill Children’s Centre, Ceramics at Dinting Railway Station, wooden sculptures at Poole’s cavern, a woven tapestry at Spring Bank Arts, a hand- made paper light for Blythe House Hospice, audio posts on the Sett Valley Trail and more! As well as our core participants, some projects have involved partnerships with community organisations and schools.
‘We look forward to starting a whole range of exciting new projects now’, said Alison Bowry, who co-ordinates the project. ‘And we welcome ideas for artworks – or sites to place them. If there is somewhere near you that you feel would welcome some artwork – indoors or outdoors – please get in touch. And if you feel your wellbeing would benefit from joining in, please get in touch too.’ The new project starts in mid- June, with groups in New Mills and Fairfield, and free transport for those that need it, including from Glossop for the New Mills group. Each session is led by a professional artist, with support from mental health workers, and volunteers. Attendance is free of charge.
Project eARTh is a partnership between High Peak Community Arts. High Peak Community Mental health Team, High Peak Mental Health Project and High Peak CVS.
We’ve just had our first moderation of the new Arts Award Explore level accreditation, with 26 young people from Chapel en le Frith and New Mills receiving the award!
Sophie Mackreth, our Arts Award Advisor, is trained in Discover and Explore levels and is using it in the Film Cuts Club and Tall Tales project.
This is a really good starter award for young people and works for those who are too young for the Bronze level, or if a project doesn’t clock up enough hours – It’s a lovely way to give young people recognition for putting in a lot of hard work during projects
We continue to use Bronze and Silver for our older or longer-term participants and we have a few of those in the pipeline – so watch this space!
