Songs of Sea and Stone programme
We have a new show to tour, following beautiful sharings with local audiences at Sandy Hill Arts Corfe Castle and with R&D from Sanctuary Lighthouse Poole/ funded by Arts Council England.
“Phenomenal performances”
“we didn’t know what to expect – we were blown away”
“magical and memorable”
“I want to see the show again to take it all in, utterly brilliant”
Songs of Sea and Stone
An atmospheric show with film, live words and music
Songs of Sea and Stone (1.5 hour programme with break and artist Q+A)
Quarry Paths + Distant Voices (35 mins approx) is a new show in site response to the Purbeck stone landscape and stories weaving layers of ghost voices that track ancient routes of stone, quarries and clay mining in Purbeck alongside stories of quarries and the stone industry from Portland.
This new programme starts with a presentation of Seiners (25 mins) commissioned by SoundUk celebrating traditional mackerel seine fishing and families on Chesil beach.
Two versions of the show are offered:
with Emily Burridge virtuoso cellist & composer
with musician and composer Julie Macara
films by Adrian Cooper and Anson Hartford (Common Ground)
and with director & consultant Laura Burrow
Using archives, site response and collaborative research Dorset Songs of Stone: Quarry Paths + Distant Voices follows stone on its journey across millennia from quarries, and quarrymen and stone masons in their physical and stoic routines as well as the industry’s long standing tradition that connects identity of the local land memory to its people. The stone industry shapes Purbeck and Portland landscapes and people.
Real conversations, archives, listening walks and memory talks form inspiration for this series of sketches that remember and celebrate local communities, families and link everyday life along the quarried coast to sense of place and collective memory. Here multiple voices and music drift along hidden ancient paths through the valley and ridgeways to highlight more than human agency and suggest a complex ecology of deep memory held in dimensions of stone.
Please contact for enquiries: blackvenpress@gmail.com
Photos: Viv Horne
Thanks to our partners and friends at Sandy Hill Arts who supported us to make this happen and to the teams at Langton Matravers Stone Museum, Swanage Library, Planet Purbeck and Burngate Stone Centre.
