Arts Award success!

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!

Watch Blue John here!

It’s not the same as being there in the theatre, but if you missed the show here is the footage that captured it at Gamesley with stills from the performance at Buxton (courtesy of DMC Photographic).

Enjoy!

And we’re doing it all again this year. New story, same places, new and old participants – so if you want to join us get in touch!

Watch our Super Hero Film from New Mills Festival!

Every year we open our doors for New Mills Festival and this year it was 20th September, for character creation and a special story for the festival. We were showing films in the back room and the hoards came and created more than 30 characters to star in a super hero film like no other!

NEW MILLS FESTIVAL!

Our Summer Programme 2014

We had a summer programme full to bursting with different arts and creative activities to suit any interest!

Libraries

In Gamesley, Buxton and New Mills libraries we had free sessions in creative drawing with Paul Gent, junk percussion with Junk4Funk and digital animations with Andrea Pazos.

Festivals

At Buxton Festival Gordon McLellan was in the magical story telling yurt, more junk percussion at Inspire Festival in Glossop and animated Super Heroes at High Lee Hall for New Mills Festival.

On Super Hero Day we creating a ridiculous adventure with 13 super heroes you make not have heard of before:

Performances

Our Youth Music programme “Tall Tales” premiered it first show this summer; a brand new piece of musical theatre created by young people from Glossop and Buxton in a team of professional musicians and theatre makers.

5th August – 7.30pm at Geoffrey Allen Centre, Winster Mews, Gamesley – “Blue John” – a musical re-working of the story by Berlie Doherty, which follows the journey of a young boy from another world.

2nd September – 7.30pm at Buxton Pavilion Arts Centre, St John’s Road, Buxton – The second performance of “Blue John”.

Film Cuts Club

As part of Glossopdale N-Gage summer programme we took over the music room in the Hadfield site to create our tribute to Doctor Who (oh, and we turned into zombies in the science room…)

Watch this space for the final film…

We also worked with Happy Days club in Buxton for a film making taster day in August – as a starting point for more work with these young people and their families.

Mystery Histories

And finally in August we teamed up with Springbank Arts Centre to run three local history fun days – featuring the first High Peak Community Arts Time Machine. The design was created during work experience placements this year and having ironed out the teething problems, I have a feeling we’ll be seeing the time machine again!

Watch this space for a flavour of our conversations with the past!

Blue John at Pavilion Arts Centre, Buxton

dmc_high-peak-4 Following on from its brilliant success at Gamesley, Blue John had his second outing to the Pavilion Arts Centre, Buxton on 2nd September. The young performers loved the excitement of a professional venue and to top it all they played to none other than the author herself, Berlie Doherty. She said

“I’m really, really impressed. They’ve captured the elements of the story beautifully. The singing is lovely; the movements are lovely and I think it’s a wonderful production.”

[Show as slideshow]

Stop the Press!

High Peak Community Arts – new patron!

A New Mills arts organisation has a new patron, Dame Joan Bakewell.

High Peak Community Arts, based on St Mary’s Road, are delighted Baroness Bakewell is their new champion.

Dame Joan, who was born and educated in Stockport, is one of the country’s foremost journalists and broadcasters and was awarded a life peerage in 2010.

She said: “I am delighted to give High Peak Community Arts my support. Their work is so thoroughly worthwhile and their zeal for their projects exactly what is needed. I hope they go from strength to strength.”

The arts charity are celebrating their 35th year of working with those who have least access to arts and culture.

Current projects include Project eARTh (environmental arts and health for people experiencing mental distress) creating large ceramic pictures to be displayed at Dinting Railway Station in spring and Tall Tales, an opera based on Bertie Doherty’s story Blue John with young people from Fairfield in Buxton and Gamesley, in Glossop.

Direct link to this article, published in the Derbyshire Times is here.

Blue John premieres to critical acclaim!

On 5th August thirteen young people from Glossop and Buxton joined forces to perform the World Premiere of their interpretation of the popular children’s story by Berlie Doherty.

Here are some thoughts from the audience:

And here is the lovely piece on High Peak Radio, put together by Izaac Cole:

listen to ‘Blue John Interview (High Peak Radio)’ on Audioboo

Blue John second show 2nd September

Blue John is the first performance from our music and theatre project, Tall Tales. Funded by the Foundation for Youth Music, local young people have been working with professional musicians and singers since April and the final work will be performed in Glossop on 5^th August and Buxton on 2^nd September.

The story, Blue John, is taken from the original book by Berlie Doherty and follows the journey of a young boy and the decisions he faces as he goes through his life. In this brand-new version it is expressed through the theatre and music created by young people in weekly workshops happening in Gamesley, Glossop and Fairfield, Buxton. They have worked with composer and multi-instrumentalist, Andrew Smith; Sarah Atter, Flautist and percussionist; and Caro Churchill, digital and spoken-word musician. With the musicians there to help start off the creativity everyone has worked together to write original music for the final performance.

Andy Smith said:

“So far we’ve had an experimentation phase, trying lots of things and exploring the themes of the story and seeing what participants are interested in. The next phase is the Summer School, when we really hone in on perfecting this new piece – ready to perform!”

The groups from Buxton and Glossop will meet for the first time at a week long summer school. In this week there will be added input from operatic singer, Daisy Barker, theatre-maker, Paul Hine, and visual artist Katy McCall, and the new material will be shaped into the final show.

“The production is the only version of Blue John ever made and it is by young teens from the High Peak and it is a once in a lifetime opportunity to see the performance so it is highly recommended you should go and see it whilst you can.” Shane Hodgson, participant.

Performances will be:

5^th August, 7.30pm at the Geoffrey Allen Centre, Winster mews, Gamesley, SK13 0LU and

2^nd September, 7.30pm at Buxton Pavilion Arts Centre, St John’s Road, Buxton,SK17 6XN.

Tickets for both shows are £3 (£1 children and all concessions) with tickets available from Gamesley Community Café, Buxton Opera House (Box Office 01298 72190) and from High Peak Community Arts on 01663 744 516.

Click below to find out more about the Tall Tales project:

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Trail Tales on the Sett Valley Trail

Project eARTh and Hayfield Primary School invite you to their celebratory launch of Trail Tales! These solar powered audio benches are on the Sett Valley Trail and in Bluebell Wood, Hayfield and at the press of a button you can hear a tapestry of music and spoken word on the theme of nature, changing seasons and memories. Members of Project eARTh and year 3 of Hayfield Primary worked with musician Phil Girling to create these soundscapes which are also available on CD and on our Youtube Channel.

High Peak Community Arts have worked in partnership with Derbyshire County Council Countryside Service and the project was supported by Derbyshire Intergenerational Strategy.