HerStory

HerStory is an opera film featuring the creative talents of 85 people living with Parkinson’s.  The piece incorporates music, libretto, choreography and visual art co-created with members of the UK Parkinson’s community in a series of projects that began back in 2019. In the words of our original cast, the aim of the piece was ‘to show the world what people with Parkinson’s can do.’

With support from Arts Council England, working with partners Britten Pears Arts, English National Opera, Trinity Laban and MuMo Creative, a film of the opera was made for launch on World Parkinson’s Day 2023.

The film was first screened to live public audiences at the 2023 Aldeburgh Festival, then made its film festival debut in the Together! Disability Film Festival in London in December 2023. It also received an honourable mention from the Champion Film Salon International Film Festival 2023, and was selected for the Arte Non Stop Festival held in Argentina in October 2024.

CLICK HERE FOR PROGRAMME NOTES

Ev’ry Turn of the Tide, a short film featuring the dance duet from HerStory was selected for the Breaking Down Barriers 2024 film festival in Moscow from a total of 741 films submitted from 80 countries.

Throughout 2019 we worked with 20 members of the Parkinson’s community in Suffolk and London to co-create a new operatic work. The piece was first showcased in a workshop performance with a small cast at Snape Maltings in August 2019, and as a result the company was invited to further develop the work with an expanded cast for a public sharing at London’s Royal Opera House in 2020.

In 2020 alas our Royal Opera House plans were scuppered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, we continued to meet virtually with members of the Parkinson’s community from across the UK in three lockdown projects that explored themes from the opera.

To create the film, specialist Parkinson’s practitioners led singing, dance and art workshops in Suffolk, London, Sussex, Oxford and online enabling around 120 participants to learn repertoire from HerStory, and/or create visual art for animation. Throughout autumn 2022 our film-making team visited each region to film and record sections of the opera.

In Suffolk, supported by Britten Pears Arts, we recorded & filmed members of the East Suffolk Skylarks at the Kiln in Snape Maltings, with vocal leaders Rob Gildon & Steph Wakeman as well as movement director Sarah Lewis. We were fortunate to have the support of both Trinity Laban & English National Opera to film our London-based cast under the expert supervision of project director Nicola Wydenbach & dance artist Maria da Luz Ghoumrassi. In Oxford we worked with the lovely MuMo group filming at Oxford Town Hall courtroom & dance sections at Wesley Memorial Hall with artists Nia Williams, Louisa Dalton & Roosa Leimu-Brown.

Finally, in Sussex we worked with two singing groups run by singing leader Debra Skeen; the Tremorlos and Cuckoos, to film the opera’s drinking song in the dining room of The Dorset pub in Lewes. Performers sported nautical stripes and even brought along a collection of their own tankards.

In July 2023, Project Director Nicola Wydenbach and Artistic Director Amy Mallett shared learning from 4 years of HerStory projects at the 6th World Parkinson’s Congress.

HerStory is inspired by the extraordinary exploits of historical Suffolk heroine, Margaret Catchpole.  Margaret achieved notoriety when she stole a horse and rode it from Ipswich to London. She was imprisoned but later escaped, recaptured and eventually sentenced to transportation to Australia in 1801. We know about her story largely due to the letters she continued to exchange with her former employer, Mrs Cobbold, back in England.

You can find out more about Margaret’s story, including historical documents and letters, via the links below:

BBC Myths & Legends

State Library, New South Wales

Sydney Living Museums

TROVE – National Library of Australia

“It’s given me confidence and reduced isolation. It’s given me new friendships.  It’s given me something to look forward to. It’s given me happiness and a sense of something achieved. It’s made me feel a little bit special in the fact that we all have something to give creatively.”

Participant