Drama+In+The+Dale

toc =Drama In The Dale= **Home page**: http://dramadale.co.uk
 * Main Country of Operation:** UK
 * Other Countries of Operation:** N/A
 * Contact:** Steve Thompson

=Overview =

This is a short project starting October 1st 2011 and concluding at the end of March 2012. I have begun work on this project working closely with Jack Drum Arts in County Durham.

The Weardale community play project is inspired by the true story of ‘The Battle of Stanhope’, a lead-miners uprising immortalised in the local song “The Bonny Moorhen”. Working with an award-winning playwright and members of the community we are working to create a large-scale production of "The Bonny Moorhen" to be performed at the end of March 2012. The dates for the play are now set at 22, 23 and 24th March 2012 and will take place in a large barn in Stanhope. There are some comparisons between the protesters camped outside St Pauls and the situation in 1819. Archive material found by the project in the County Durham Records Office on a visit revealed amazing letters from Col Beaumont and Lord Darlington and an actual battle plan!

Wednesday December 7th will be the 193rd anniversary of the actual Battle of Stanhope and we may be arranging a riot to commemorate this. Watch this space

My part in this project is to provide a digital element. I have attended all steering panel meetings as a member and in early October ran some initial community workshops which I blogged here []. I also developed a website for the project at [] which runs in Google Apps. This was originally a production tool for the event with event and workshop calendar, and event countdown, document uploads and audio files to learn vocal parts. However it now serves a dual purpose and is also the event website with news updates etc from other members of the team.

I'll be running some more workshops to do digital maps, wikis, podcasts etc exploring the history surrounding the riot. I'll also be involved in some family learning workshops in Primary Schools to develop a Soap Opera based around the Folk song "Four Pence a Day"

Drama in the Dale is supported by the Adult & Community Learning Fund (ACLF) through the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) with provisional funding from Weardale Area Action Partnership. My part in it (Steve Thompson) is funded by (UK) AHRC "Connected Communities"

=Updates= **These will be written "blog like" in reverse chronological order.** = = =Update 19th January=

It was desirous that Wolsingham Comprehensive School be brought on board. As we're talking about older students up to sixth formers I came up with the idea of a newspaper as it might have appeared in 1818. I developed a mechanism to do this on the site so that stories can be blogged online 1818 style (Black and White with line drawings) but also a broadsheet could be printed to be sold at the event. The local newspapers may be involved in this. http://jackdrum.co.uk/1818/

In general there is a terrific Community Informatics exercise happening with this project. The website is a typical website but it is also a tool for the production and people are engaging with it on this level. The musical directors have uploaded scores, lyrics and rehearsal audio files and musicians and singers are downloading them. The script and other production materials are uploaded too. I also set up a groupspaces email list for the group and this is being used extremely effectively for communications between various groups such as the steering panel, the creatives group and other participants.

=Update 18th January= As an additional component to the project I added a Digital Mapping elelement. This came about at Hamsterley Primary School when we were shooting episode 4 of the soap opera. There I remaide the acquaintance of Damian Hassan who I had known from Hunwick primary where I had run a project several years previously. Damian made reference to some digital mapping we had done and so I promised to set something up provided he would make sure he brought some parents in as it is an important part of the adult learning component of the project.

On the day we had five people (pictured) who all produced a story referenced to a map. This was largely practice content but now that we've started we can start to add map references relating to the area, the time (1818) and lead mining.

The digital map can be found here: http://jackdrum.co.uk/dramadaleimages/map/

=Update 17th January= The first episode of the soap opera went live. To make a bit of a splash we laid on a reception at the school where the first episode was produced, Witton Le Wear Primary. Before an invited audience of parents and all the pupils at the school we watched the trailer and at exactly 3pm we watched the actual episode (below). All the schools have a problem with YouTube so we had to mock this up. At the event we also had Councillor Dennis Morgan and Mrs Morgan, Chair of Durham County Council and his wife

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=Update 10th January 2012=

At 3 pm on 10th January the trailer of the "$ Pence a Day" soap opera went live. This marked the start of a 7 episode mini series produced with 7 Weardale Shools, students, teachers and parents.

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=Update 8th January 2012=

There was an open session at St Thomas's Hall in Stanhope. We had bell ringing, set design, photography and auditions were held for the cast. I did not audition claiming I was too high a calibre actor to have to do so. I was joking but I found later that I had been given the part of the Judge. I have never acted before. There was another activity filming individuals acting out the part of Napoleonic soldiers which were then turned into white silhouettes and combined for projection at the event. This is hard to describe but I think it will look great at the event. The photographer shot people in costume against a white screen which makes them look great on a web page (see left) These pictures can be found [|here]. We also recorded a brass quintet performing "4 Pence A Day" for use in episode 3 of the soap opera.

=Update 7th December= I attended the re-enactment of the “Battle of Stanhope” on the actual day it took place and in the very same pub some 193 years ago. It was quite an experience. The fight scenes were very effective; clearly a lot of work had gone into this. My parents visited and I watched them recoil in fright as each sickening (fake) blow was struck. Unexpectedly I was called upon to play the pub landlord who, apparently emerged from his sick bed on the morning of December 7th 1818 only to receive a blow from a rifle butt for his troubles. This was one of the several extra scenes shot as a cutaway. It remains to be seen how effective my acting is. I took blows to the face and belly without any of the theatrical combat training the others had received. Rob was filming this event so I proposed to borrow the memory card to make the web stream clip I had advertised over the networks. However, during the course of the day it became clear that Robs card contained much valuable footage so I decided to make the best of some Flip cam shots I had. There was one overall scene that seemed to work particularly well and this was what I used. Back at my hotel room I did some quick edits. One point Tom (a poacher) blew a horn soundlessly. I remembered I had a piece of French Horn playing of a motif from 4 pence a day. This had been performed by Liz Gill of Weardale Primary School. I matched these two elements together by slowing down the footage of Toms action. My parents had come back to the hotel room and I sensed my father looking over my shoulder at this point. Later he called me and said “You’re a very clever man and I’m proud of you”. I published this clip to YouTube and embedded it on the “watch channel” of the Dramadale.co.uk website and then sent promotional messages around my networks. media type="custom" key="11788412" =Update 4th December=

I posted some messages to my network promoting this project and the Battle of Stanhope re-enactment to take place on the 193rd anniversary on December 7th. As a result I had an interesting conversation with Franz Nahrada, Director of GIVE research lab in Vienna. I was telling him about the Battle of Stanhope and he replied with this: > //The story sounds familiar to me. We had a similar case as, for the revitalisation of our village spirit, we re-enacted in 2009 the "Battle of Schwarzlackenau", the first battle (or rather skirmish) where Napoleons troups were defeated here in Jedlesee 1809. We made the story more realistic to show how "little people" were crashed in the feudz of the mighty, sought their own way of escaping and paid a high price. The play was written by Karl Danninger of "Schnittpunkt Jedlesee", the local cultural association I had founded here.// > How odd to think that lead mined in our community may have made bullets fired in Franz's. Certainly there is some connection and brings to mind that the making and the firing of bullets can cause harm at both ends of the equation. There are some synergies here that we are exploring. I now have a video of // "Battle of Schwarzlackenau" and we are hoping to add English subtitles in order to incorporate it into the Drama in the Dale project. //

=Update 2nd December= Before going to the final workshop at Frosterley I went to Killhope Mining Museum to get some background footage and stills. I knew the museum would be closed but I still hoped to get some shots. As it turned out although the museum was closed to visitors it was still accessible and there was lots of activity. I talked to a member of staff Maureen and she was really helpful and told me a lot about the experiences children would have had as miners and she loaned me some period tools. I took these tools to Frosterley and we used them in the wettest, muddiest film shot I have ever done. Now all 7 episodes are in the can.

=Update 30 November= I added yet another site for more functionality http://jackdrum.co.uk/dramadaleimages/ and all images from the workshops are hosted there. I used a horizontal menu bar to integrate the 3 sites and have them appear as one and this seems to be quite effective.

=Update 25th November=

I added yet another site to get some extra functionality. This site contains the images from the "4 pence a Day" workshops and can be found at [] I then set out to weave these 3 sites into one so that for the visitor it is just one rich experience.

=Update 24th November=

No parents were present at this session and it seems there was some confusion about what we were going to be doing. We opted for what seemed to be quite a simple shoot of the child miners marching off to work. This proved to be quite a complex shoot but it worked well.
 * St Johns Chapel **

4 parents were present. This was the smallest school with just 14 pupils. We recorded an effective first verse with the teacher Liz Gill playing French Horn. We shot what will be the closing scene of the child miners retiring for the night. The final scene looks likely to be quite a tear jerker if it all comes out right. As I was preparing to travel from St Johns Chapel to Wearhead I realised I had made a mistake that a local would not have made. I did not have sufficient petrol to travel to Weardale and then back down the Dale to the nearest garage in Stanhope. A solution was proposed that I would travel with the 3 Jack Drum guys in their car and then come back for my car and refuel on the way home. However, there was a flaw in this plan in that the fourth seat was taken up with a huge Calor Gas heater. I was told that when one makes a journey "Up The Dale" all other opportunities for communication, delivery etc must be taken. I've heard that phrase "up the dale" quite a few times now.
 * Wearhead. **

=Update 23rd November=

Only two parents at this session but the entire school of 24 children. In this session we built a mine set using gym mats and it was quite effective.
 * Hamsterley. **

**Stanhope**. At this session we had no parents. The children were quite knowledgeable of the subject and associated info. One child was the daughter of man who buil built the barn where the play will be performed. =** Update 22nd November **=

This morning I set up the site for the Vodcast. [] - I will integrate this with the main site but I needed some different functionality to deliver the Vodcast

We had 8 adults on this session. The piece we recorded was the poignant going off to work of the 10 year olds sometimes not to return for a whole week. Interesting note, one of the children was a daughter of a gamekeeper
 * Wolsingham Primary **

=Update 21st November=

The first of the November workshops took place at **Witton le Wear Primary School** and several more are planned over the week. The plan is to run workshops where with Jack Drum Arts tell the story of lead mining and the Battle of Stanhope. Then we look at a song “Four Pence a Day” which tells the story of the travails of a young person working down a lead mine. For these sessions we wish to produce a Vodcast which will be transmitted regularly in the New Year. These are intended to be “family learning” sessions and so adults are encouraged to come. In this session we had 20 children and 4 adults and so we shot 4 enactments of the story behind verse one of the song. The activity represents the awakening of a child at 5 am to go to work in the Lead Mine. The adults all took a hand in working on the technical aspects of this too.

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