Category Archives: Arts

An article by HerStory cast member Jonathan Eckersley Am I dreaming? Or am I really singing in an opera? Yes, an opera! The relationship between me and this most grandiose of the performing arts has always been polite but cool and distant. This despite my grandmother taking me as a boy to see the LittleContinue reading “Writing Home”

On 22.10.2019 the company came together for a group evaluation of the scratch performance of HerStory: The Catchpole Chronicles that had taken place in August. We watched video footage of the performance, ate some scones, drank tea and spilled our thoughts, good and bad. All voices and viewpoints were heard, from the creative team, theContinue reading “HerStory – evaluating our scratch performance”

Nicola Wydenbach 20th August 2019 had been looming in my diary. Although rehearsals had started, the piece, HerStory: The Catchpole Chronicles was still being composed by CoLab composer Amy Mallett. I had had seen some of the work but not all. I had been to some of the rehearsals but not every single one. IContinue reading “HerStory: a conductor’s perspective”

As part of our relationship with Snape Maltings during this stage of the project, we agreed to host a sharing of the work in progress. These sharing platforms at Snape have taken many different formats, so we knew we could make it useful to our process and where we were at. We knew it wouldContinue reading “HerStory: audience feedback”

Yes, this may look like a pretty wild party, but is in fact an action shot of our first London workshop for HerStory: The Catchpole Chronicles. Around 20 people joined us for a day’s singing, dancing and devising at the Vestry Hall, St Gabriel’s Hall, in Pimlico. We were working on musical and movement ideasContinue reading “Pour another drink…”

Nicola Wydenbach Parkinson’s is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects predominately dopamine-producing neurons in a specific area of the brain called substantia nigra. There are many ways that the conditions manifests from shaking, problems with gait, difficulty with swallow, depression, limb rigidity, low volume in the speaking voice and slowness of movement. Singing has been provenContinue reading “Why singing & Parkinson’s?”

Danielle Teale To devise dance, your most important resource is the dancers in front of you This is a shared perspective that myself and fellow dance artist and collaborator Sarah Lewis feel is at the heart of our making process. It is also at the centre of our exploration as CARVE coLAB. The four ofContinue reading “Co-creation & Democracy”

What a relief it is when you find you actually get on with and feel excited and inspired by a whole creative team! The four of us hadn’t been in a room together before Monday, but our paths kept crossing over the past 4 years, and with an ambitious idea to create an opera-ballet withContinue reading “CARVE coLAB – what unites us”

What did it feel like to be performing an opera (albeit a work in progress) in the Peter Pears Recital Room at Snape Maltings? A huge thanks to all of our cast for sharing some of their thoughts about their experience of the project. What were the successes? “Becoming a cohesive group, all supporting eachContinue reading “HerStory – our company voice”