Let's Create
29/12/22 10:49 Filed in: HfCHall for Cornwall
We are working in Cornwall, our culture and heritage, with our landscape our constant source of inspiration for our creatives and, naturally, us as the charity Hall for Cornwall. In launching your new Cornwall Playhouse, we were blessed with friendships who’ve stood by our side, whether an artist, a funder, a local partner at Falmouth University or a national partner such as the Royal Shakespeare Company. In coming out of the pandemic, like everyone else, we're reassessing what we must do to be brave in this new world. Our opportunities take stock of Arts Council England's National Portfolio Organisations announcements and Cornwall; culture is now housed within Cornwall Council's portfolio of Neighbourhoods.
To set the scene, for the last decade, growth in what we do was away from our main stage is artists' development for over 400 practitioners within the southwest region. This work's housed within our Talent Development Department; more intensively, we've engaged eighteen individuals and companies in our Associates Artists scheme. We've been on hand to support creatively and realise artists' ambitions. Our influence was a catalyst for bringing products to life. In addition to creative mentoring, we offer expertise in accounting, marketing, production and technical work. Our gift was to get shows off the page in Cornwall or beyond to develop creative practices in our new workspaces for our nation's creative industries infrastructure.
Choosing highlights of this work for this article is difficult, but two do stand out. The first is a play called Hireth. It's our Cornish word that translates as our longing to be home. The Welsh use a similar word [word] describing an aching you have for your homeland. In 2018, we collaborated with Palores Productions and o-region, the Cornish companies that make work grounded in our Celtic culture and heritage through films and the spoken word. The performance marked the centenary of the end of World War 1 in St Just's Grade-II listed Miners' Chapel in St Just-in-Pen, where the next stop is Land's End. The town was the centre of the Cornish tin mining industry; the town's past is reflected like the streets of granite cottages. When the British Army arrives with an unexpected offer, the hero and his friends swap the dirty, dark, and dangerous tunnels of Geevor for the deadly underground war zone beneath the Western front. The production told the untold story of Cornwall's forgotten war heroes with their extraordinary impact on the First World War. Amongst disused engine houses dominating the landscape, the high street buzzed as southwest audiences travelled to hear this community's story from the farthest town from London.
Over the years, we've collaborated with Carleen Anderson, the Brit Award and Mercury Prize nominee, with six acclaimed solo albums. Over this last decade, she's worked for the Royal Opera House, taking Isolde's role in reworking by the eminent jazz musician Julian Joseph and choirmaster for Prom 54: Duke Ellington's Sacred Music at the Royal Albert Hall. We first worked with Carleen on her stage piece Cage Street Memorial; It was a personal telling of the ages that span over a century of global politics and family life within the toxicity during the Civil Rights era. On 6 November, we co-produced the world premiere of MELIOR Opus Griot. Carleen conceived, composed, wrote, and performed the piece; the performance includes the incredible digital MIMU Gloves, a sound source developed by a Grammy winner Imogen Heap, matching computerised audio with MELIOR's alternative Universe. Her shining vision is for the piece to be an uplifting blend of jazz, soul, electronic and classical music bound together in an operatic spectacle for our times. The futuristic opera is set in the ocean-floor society of MELIOR. The plot intertwines real-life events with time-travel imaginations. It seamlessly fuses human musicianship with digital soundscapes to unravel a captivating tale in which mermaids and land-dwellers pursue earthly harmony in the face of wicked predators. On the night, she was joined by world-renowned vocalists China Moses and Terri Walker, award-winning saxophonist Camilla George, a chamber quartet, and a company of Cornish professional and community performers who will dance and sing with a refugee choir.
Hireth and MELIOR Opus Griot were distinctive and a part of our growth to be who we've become. The first celebrated a proud sense of place; the second used innovative technology at the forefront of artists' development. Returning to reflect on National Portfolio decisions, some of our resident companies have now joined as Arts Council England clients. We proudly look at our last decade's work, which has paid off in sector development. With the seismic shock of the pandemic, the escalating energy costs, and increasing inflation in our economy, we can no longer continue to supply services at the levels we once did. As you've read in this publication, we're a charity that's received help from substantial investment to rebuild our new home. To be brave in this new world, we as a charity must re-group.
We have a priority for our charity, which is firmly rooted in Cornwall. Our population is one of the most economically disadvantaged within the union of our four nations. The next phase of our company's development can create programmes to drive foot strategies where it engages the broadest possible social and economic dataset of our Cornish population. We'll reticently retreat from our intensive development work from the resources available. Instead, we'll work holistically to develop our creative industries workspaces, where Creative England, Pride and Black Voices Cornwall have already taken up residency. We're committing to creating a comprehensive work programme, using our new venue as the bedrock to tell tales from the stage, our foyers and public spaces. In these difficult economic times, the green shoots of growth we've seen are funding programmes from the Shared Prosperity Funds to reignite our Paul Hamlyn Community Club ticket scheme for disadvantaged groups who can't afford to go to the theatre. Our building has constantly evolved over its 175-year history, and with our next three years with our 2nd Edition Business plan, we're here to make our venue rock with productions from the stage, heritage walks and podcasts in our public spaces, and with a new set of partners, create a unique and vibrant cultural Cornish programme.
Our new work programme will be called Husa; in our own Cornish words, it means your new Cornwall Playhouse is a place to be enchanted or somewhere you can take me home to dream with us.