Tag: performance

Free dance performances and workshops in Gainsborough this May

A series of playful, imaginative and moving dance performances and workshops, from multi award-winning choreographer Katie Green, come to Gainsborough in May 2019.

The Imagination Museum: Mayflower 400, Made By Katie Green (Photography Owen Benson Visuals; Performers Sarah Blanc, Megan Griffiths, Lucy Starkey)

The Imagination Museum: Mayflower 400 is about determination and the extraordinary things that it makes ordinary people do, and is part of a three-year project leading up to the 2020 anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower. Many of the passengers on board the Mayflower were from this area.

Saturday 11 May

Gainsborough United Reformed Church, Church Street, Gainsborough DN21 2JR

Performances at 11am and 2pm

In association with West Lindsey’s Churches Festival
Free to attend, but donations welcome, no tickets needed – just turn up on the day

Saturday 25 May

Gainsborough Old Hall, Parnell Street, DN21 2NB

Performances at 11.30am and 2pm

Standard entry charge applies 11am-5pm, no additional event charge

“Awesome. Grinned from ear to ear all the way through.” – Audience member

Free performances (40 minutes) will be repeated throughout the day.

PLUS: Join us for a free tea/coffee and a chat and dance/craft activities for children after all our performances.

In The Imagination Museum: Mayflower 400, 3 eccentric tour guides will lead you on a journey through history, using movement, text and music to explore what it was really like for many of the passengers from this area who travelled from England to America aboard the Mayflower in 1620.

Lincolnshire-born choreographer Katie Green says: “I am thrilled to be returning to Lincolnshire to respond to such a significant event in the area’s history. This is the very beginning of our Imagination Museum: Mayflower 400 project which starts this year in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire and will travel via Hampshire to Plymouth in October 2020, in line with the journey that people from this area took 400 years ago.”

To find out more about how you can get involved in The Imagination Museum: Mayflower 400 project, contact katie@imaginationmuseum.co.uk and see www.imaginationmuseum.co.uk.

The Imagination Museum: Mayflower 400 project is produced by Made By Katie Green, supported financially using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England as part of the Strategic Touring programme, Hampshire Cultural Trust, The Box, West Lindsey District Council, Plymouth City, Nottinghamshire County and Bassetlaw District Councils and Surf the Wave, and also delivered in partnership with the Pilgrim Roots Regional Partnership, Transported, The Point, Plymouth Dance and Plymouth Culture.

From 2019 – 2020, the project will tour to more than 20 venues across the Midlands and South West of England, including museums, heritage sites, schools, community centres and churches. Each performance will be different, drawing on workshops with the local community at each venue to develop the core dance piece, and providing opportunities for community groups to perform alongside professional dancers. The project will see 5,500 people get involved in innovative dance and heritage events within their local community.

Follow the project using the following:

Made By Katie Green is a contemporary dance company developing new ways of responding to historical artefacts and heritage sites through dance. Working collaboratively with a range of artists, we create stories that bring our shared past to life in new ways, and engage a broad audience, including those who are new to dance.

For more information about the company’s work visit: www.madebykatiegreen.co.uk

For more information about the national Mayflower 400 commemoration, please visit: www.mayflower400uk.org

New Imagination Museum website launched

Dance company Made By Katie Green is pleased to announce the launch of ‘The Imagination Museum’ website, a platform showcasing new ways of moving in museums.

The new ‘Imagination Museum’ website at www.imaginationmuseum.co.uk will:

  • document the journey of Made By Katie Green’s performance work of the same name
  • provide a new online hub for information about using dance to respond creatively to museum sites, collections, themes and ideas.

Created with Lincoln-based designers Root Studio, with support from Arts Council England’s Strategic Touring programme, visitors will be able to use the website to find out more about future performances of The Imagination Museum, a danced history tour performed by 3 eccentric tour guides. To date, The Imagination Museum has been adapted for more than 30 museums and heritage sites across the UK and seen by more than 6000 people.

“Fantastic, changed the way I thought museums could be made exciting, playful, vibrant and inclusive. Animated historical facts through high quality art”

– The Imagination Museum audience member

IM M400 Owen Benson Visuals; dancers Sarah Blanc, Megan Griffiths, Lucy Starkey
The Imagination Museum: Mayflower 400 (Owen Benson Visuals; dancers Sarah Blanc, Megan Griffiths, Lucy Starkey)

Visitors to the website will also be able to find out more about other events happening using dance and movement in museums, read about the creative process involved in this work, explore case studies and helpful resources and join the Imagination Museum consortium. Members of this consortium will be able to share their own events, news, resources and opportunities, and have access to annual meetings at which they will be able to share ideas with artists and museums.

Director Katie Green says: “We’ve been involved in a lot of discussion around creative practice using dance and movement in museums and heritage sites over the past 6 years, and have come to realise that there is a desire from artists and museums for a place to bring together information about this kind of work. We hope to be able to use the new website as a place where we can open up our own process but also invite others to share examples of the great work they are doing. Hopefully the site and Imagination Museum consortium will make it a bit easier for artists and museums interested in collaborating to find each other.”

Join the consortium to help create a shared Imagination Museum space full of danced responses to museums, galleries and heritage sites. Visit www.imaginationmuseum.co.uk/consortium or contact katie@imaginationmuseum.co.uk.

The Imagination Museum project is produced by Made By Katie Green, supported financially using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England as part of the Strategic Touring programme.

The forthcoming Imagination Museum: Mayflower 400 project will respond specifically to the historic story of the Mayflower’s voyage from England to America in the lead up to the 2020 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower.

The Imagination Museum: Mayflower 400 project is also supported by Hampshire Cultural Trust, The Box, West Lindsey District Council, Plymouth, Nottinghamshire and Bassetlaw District Councils and the Surf the Wave programme, and also delivered in partnership with the Pilgrim Roots Regional Partnership, Transported, The Point, Plymouth Dance and Plymouth Culture.

Made By Katie Green is a contemporary dance company developing new ways of responding to historical artefacts and heritage sites through dance. Working collaboratively with a range of artists, they create stories that bring our shared past to life in new ways, and engage a broad audience, including those who are new to dance.

Retford’s Pilgrims Festival 2018

PILGRIMS FESTIVAL – November 2018

Bassetlaw Christian Heritage are hosting a range of events for this year’s Pilgrims Festival in Retford, Nottinghamshire.

Free lantern-making workshops

Free lantern-making workshops – make a lantern and join the parade in Retford on Tuesday 20 November.

Tuesday 30th October – 10am – 4pm, with artist Jessica Kemp at Retford Library
Friday 2nd November – 10am – 4pm, with artist Kirsty Champ at Bassetlaw Museum, Retford

Thanksgiving Dinner

Venue: Spencer’s on the Square, Retford
Thursday 15th November 6.30pm for 7pm
3 course dinner plus entertainment from Adam Schofield and Jessica Mary Brett (£29.95) Call 01777 800230 to book

Pilgrims Art Exhibition

Featuring art inspired by the Pilgrims Story

Venue: Babworth Parish Church, near Retford
Saturday 17th November 10am – 4pm with a talk by local historian Adrian Gray at 11am
Sunday 18th November 12pm – 4pm- see working embroiders and artist
Refreshments available

Parade & Performances

Retford — Tuesday 20th November
5.30pm: Parade from Carolgate to St Swithun’s Parish Church
6pm: St Swithun’s all age event, led by Rev Mark Cantrill, with the Elizabethan Academy, Katie Green’s Imagination Museum: Mayflower 400 and the Songbirds
7pm: the ‘400’ photograph, then refreshments for all in the Church

Music at Worksop Priory

Monday 19th November 7pm for 7.30pm
International Harpist Leah Stuttard
£10 entry incl. mince pies & mulled wine

Friday 23rd November 7pm for 7.30pm
Doncaster Waites: Music from the Pilgrims’ streets
£10 entry incl. mince pies & mulled wine

Supported by funding from, and delivered with the support of:

  • Arts Council England
  • Bassetlaw Christian Heritage network
  • Bassetlaw Museum
  • Diocese of Southwell & Nottingham, Church of England
  • Elizabethan Academy
  • Made by Katie Green
  • Retford Business Forum
  • Retford Civic Society
  • Retford Library (Inspire)
  • Retford Lions
  • Retford Rotary
  • Spencer’s on the Square
  • TLS

Gainsborough’s Illuminate 2018

Gainsborough’s Pilgrims Illuminate event this November

Pilgrim Roots Commemoration Receives Arts Council Funding.

Thanks to a grant from Arts Council England, Gainsborough will host its second Illuminate event on 21st November.

West Lindsey District Council have been awarded £15,000 for a second commemorative event to mark the heritage of the Separatists and Pilgrims, some of whom sailed on the Mayflower to America nearly 400 years ago, continuing the countdown to 2020’s anniversary.

Cllr Sheila Bibb, Chairman of the Prosperous Communities Committee at the council said: “We are delighted to be able to continue to have a town centre lantern parade here in Gainsborough again this year, and look forward to new and exciting developments for our arts-led Illuminate heritage project.

“There will be the opportunity for all to take part, with free lantern-making workshops in the coming weeks for members of the public to join and create their own lanterns with the chance to come and join the parade through the town centre.”

Workshops are also taking place in schools in the area with professional artists who specialise in willow art, lanterns and festivals. Training sessions for the leaders of uniformed groups are also planned, so that more people can take part in the making and parading. This year’s theme is ‘Pilgrim Children’.

Free public workshops will take place at the following locations and times in Gainsborough:

  • At the X-Church Expo on Wednesday 24 October from 10am-2pm
  • Trinity Arts Centre on Thursday 25 October from 9.30am-12.30pm
  • The United Reformed Church on Saturday 10 November from 10am-4pm
  • Connexions Community Hub on Saturday 17 November from 10am-4pm.

The event will begin for participants with registration at the United Reformed Church from 5.30pm before a performance involving new dance project ‘The Imagination Museum: Mayflower 400’ at 6pm. A lantern parade through town will follow from 6.30pm, gathering in the grounds of All Saints Parish Church on Wednesday 21st November.

The parade will stop at Gainsborough Old Hall, before moving to the Market Place and finally ending in Marshall’s Yard.

A combination of performances, music, lanterns and artist commissions will create an exciting event for this year’s Illuminate in Gainsborough, which is also supported by Gainsborough Town Council and Bassetlaw Christian Heritage.

As part of the national Mayflower 400 partnership, Illuminate events will be happening across the country during the third week of November, coinciding with Thanksgiving in America.  Places as far apart as Plymouth, Dartmouth, Southwark and Southampton will each stage Illuminate events.

Retford’s parade will be on Tuesday 20 November as part of Bassetlaw Christian Heritage’s ‘Pilgrims Festival’, and Boston – also connected to the Pilgrims’ story – host their parade on Thursday 29 November. It is through collaborative working with Transported in Boston alongside Arts Council England funding that this year’s parade has been made possible. This year will also see an Illuminate event in the Pilgrim village of Scrooby, led by Bassetlaw District Council.

Find out more about Gainsborough’s Pilgrim heritage and West Lindsey’s partnership in the official Mayflower 400 project at www.mayflower400uk.org and www.pilgrimroots.org.

For the latest news on West Lindsey District Council visit: www.west-lindsey.gov.uk

Or follow us @WestLindseyDC or find us on www.facebook.com/westlindseydistrictcouncil

Photo credits: Electric Egg