A marquee in Furrowfields in Chatteris was the venue for a day of celebrations marking the culmination of a year of work on a special project to mark the town’s history.
Chatteris in Myth and Memory: Art Through Storytelling was curated by Market Place - a Creative People and Places programme funded by Arts Council England.
Over 200 people from Chatteris were involved in the project which ran from December 2016 to April 2017 and it all culminated in the production of a book which was launched at the celebration day last Thursday (June 22).
During the daytime children from Glebelands Academy and Kingsfield Primary schools enjoyed storytelling sessions in the morning, and over 100 residents then joined for the evening to celebrate the book launch of “Chatteris in Myth and Memory: Art Through Storytelling”.
Polly Howat, local storyteller, said: “I am so proud of the writers and their excellent reading. We have all learned so many new skills which we are turning to our advantage.”
During the first half of the day 20Twenty Productions, an community arts organisation from March worked with an artistic collective from Bury St Edmunds to turn the tent in Farrowfileds into a “Forgotten Bookshop” creating their own 3D pop up book sculptures.
They also enjoyed a visit from Joseph Coelho, who enraptured his audience with his hilarious and gruesome performance of “Fairytales Gone Bad”, about Zombie-rella and her vampire prince.
This performance was part of the “Once Upon a Festival” brought to Chatteris by Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds.
Polly Howat then told the tale of Bride Pies – as grisly now as it was when told to the young Charles Dickens by his sinister nurse.
The children also enjoyed a creative and collaborative poetry writing session from Joseph Coelho.
The evening was launched by Polly, who together with the authors of stories from the book read out their works.
This was followed by the signing of the “Chatteris in Myth and Memory: Art Through Storytelling” book by the authors and Ric Savage, local artist who illustrated the book.
Everyone was then treated to a chilling and stunning performance of Hookey Man by students from Cromwell Community College, who had worked alongside “Tangled Feet” theatre company over the last few weeks to put this together.
Young musicians from Cromwell Community College who had worked with local songwriter Bondy impressed the audience with an original composition and a rewriting of a classic with ‘Fenland Roads’.
Bondy then closed the evening with a set of original songs inspired by the local landscape,
If you missed the Celebration Day, don’t worry, you can still buy the book and find out all about the project. Chatteris in Myth and Memory book is available to buy at £10 from Richard Savage at Savage Studios, South Park Street.
Contact Richard Savage at ric@swage.net or call 01354 692698 for more details.
It will also be available to purchase from Chatteris Museum shortly.
A spokesman for Market Place said: “We would like to thank everyone involved in setting up the celebration day, and everyone who helped out during the events.
“We would also like to thank Polly Howat and Chatteris U3A Creative Writing Group for creating the stories, all the artists involved in the project including Kathryn Hearn, Kaitlin Ferguson, Rikki Outtis, and Richard Savage for running community workshop, and all participants of the workshops, who created amazing artworks”.
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