Photography by David Snowden & Gemma Smith
Stomping Ground
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What Did Stomping Ground Achieve?
Stomping Ground consisted of 6 projects across Devon and Cornwall. These projects engaged 15 schools, 2 colleges, 2 universities, 28 artists delivering community activities, 8 local South West dance, theatre and media companies and 6 guest youth and community groups and 1473 participants in dance, music, film, theatre and photography. These created multiple interwoven communities of practice in Cornwall, Devon and Plymouth.
We would like to thank everyone who took part in the projects and supported the ambitious and rewarding desire to bring creative people together and celebrate our wonderful outdoor spaces!!
The multitude of avenues that this research and development has led to is promising. The ambition was for SpinDrift to connect their community participation, education and research branches by intertwining them in each project. This has has been achieved and is continuing to develop with new work and research commissions in Exeter, Norway, Portugal, Cornwall and Plymouth. The action research has caught the interest and support of many organisations and academics. Commissions from the success of Stomping Ground are developing quickly and we will be focussing on three successful outcomes of Stomping Ground
-- Forming the Stomping Ground Enterprise which will be based in St Austell, to create an annual Community Performance Project with schools, colleges, heritage sites and community groups.
- Developing accessible and interactive activities and educational packs that desseminate Suzie West's academic research with community and school partnership projects.
- Training and supporting local artists to work in schools and supporting organisations and heritage centres by developing educational provision.
Check out our full report below or watch our documentary on The Soul Birds
Stomping Ground consisted of 6 projects across Devon and Cornwall. These projects engaged 15 schools, 2 colleges, 2 universities, 28 artists delivering community activities, 8 local South West dance, theatre and media companies and 6 guest youth and community groups and 1473 participants in dance, music, film, theatre and photography. These created multiple interwoven communities of practice in Cornwall, Devon and Plymouth.
We would like to thank everyone who took part in the projects and supported the ambitious and rewarding desire to bring creative people together and celebrate our wonderful outdoor spaces!!
The multitude of avenues that this research and development has led to is promising. The ambition was for SpinDrift to connect their community participation, education and research branches by intertwining them in each project. This has has been achieved and is continuing to develop with new work and research commissions in Exeter, Norway, Portugal, Cornwall and Plymouth. The action research has caught the interest and support of many organisations and academics. Commissions from the success of Stomping Ground are developing quickly and we will be focussing on three successful outcomes of Stomping Ground
-- Forming the Stomping Ground Enterprise which will be based in St Austell, to create an annual Community Performance Project with schools, colleges, heritage sites and community groups.
- Developing accessible and interactive activities and educational packs that desseminate Suzie West's academic research with community and school partnership projects.
- Training and supporting local artists to work in schools and supporting organisations and heritage centres by developing educational provision.
Check out our full report below or watch our documentary on The Soul Birds
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The Soul BirdsIn May and June '17, SpinDrift partnered up with Cornwall College and Farflung Dance Theatre, co- authored a Dance Theatre promenade performance with over 100 cast members at Pinetum Gardens. The project and director Suzie West set out to bring the dancing community of St Austell together and begin an annual tradition as a new enterprise called Stomping Ground: annual cross arts performance in a local space that brought a rich mix of people together to collaborate towards a shared vision.
The Soul Birds was inspired by a permanent art installation in the beautiful Pinetum Gardens, celebrating the children philosophy book The Soul Bird. As the many groups of dancers began to co-author the work, the themes of love, memories, souls and secrets emerged to embellish the gardens with poetry, music and dance. Suzie West directed the project but ensured that the choreography was owned by the entire cast and worked closely with Farflung dancers, SpinDrift performers Daisy Harrison, Miranda Howard, lecturers Jess Leonard and Sarah Matthews and performance artists Emily Faulkner, Nathan Marshall and Rob Mennear to weave narrative and movement vocabulary together. Suzie West directed the cast of over 100 from 6years old to 70 performed a matinee and evening show in June to huge audiences including families, visitors to the gardens, local Memory Cafe participants and St Austell locals. Inside OutSpinDrift were commissioned by the Plymouth Pheonix Chorale,
and Plymouth Fringe Festival to cultivate a series of performance opportunities for local dancers and schools in public spaces. This began with Suzie West delivering workshops with PSCA to produce a 30's inspired piece to be danced to the Chorale's singers at both Tinside Lido and Royal William Yard in May. These young dancers were accompanied by SpinDrift Dance Collective's work Estimation, Ladies of Landfill, EYDC and local improvisors to take their dance work Outside to the public. The dancers peppered the Barbcian, Hoe, Royal William Yard and Town Centre with performances and also raised money for charity. The pieces were brought to public that would not have seen dance in the theatre and we gave up counting how many people stopped and watched... at least 500!! Inside Out, Outside Skin closed with a performance in The Royal William Yard in an old warehouse. We are obsessed with old bookings and think this might be a focus next year for the Fringe Festival. We returned to Plymouth in June for another collaborative performance with Plymouth Pheonix Chorale, this time with Eggbuckland Community College. The young dancers performed to the live choir and jazz quintet and waved around the full tables of the Picnic Proms in the amazing Plymouth Guildhall. SpinDrift performed improvised pieces to the Chilcott Tryptich with apprentices from Callington Community College. 
"The breadth of engagement that occurred across disciplines and geographic locations through the ‘Wild’ and ‘Sight for Sore Eyes’ strands of the project was excellent. I was struck by the level of engagement and support the project had from your collaborators and the wider community. Their enthusiasm really has made all the difference, and I was happy to read that the new relationships SpinDrift developed with some of these organisations has lead to discussions around potential future projects- fantastic!"
Emma Leaper, FEAST |
Midsummer
With the support of Sterts Theatre, Lois Taylor and The National Trust SpinDrift spent the midsummer weekend co creating a piece inspired by the memories and sensations of midsummer. The dancers from Callington Community College and Liskeard School worked with Becky Miles, Lucy Freeman, Suzie West and apprentices Caitlin Moore and Ellie Petherick Davies at Sterts Theatre. We played, explored, planned and rehearsed together to prepare for a weekend of performances and Photoshoots at Cotehele House and Gardens and Sterts Midsummer Youth Dance Platform.
The young dancers are excited about performing with SpinDrift again in the Autumn as they design their own site specific performances in their local area. 
Site For Sore EyesWith support from FEAST, Arts Council England , Hall for Cornwall and Heritage venues, SpinDrift have been collaborating with a range of secondary schools, youth groups and local dance communities to develop creative responses to local sites. The focus of this project was to share viewpoints, celebrate plural perspectives and set up a sand pit of new ideas in heritage sites.
This December there were two projects: Forever Eve: Was a combined dance theatre production by All Boys Dance, Hall for Cornwall Youth Dance Company and SpinDrift, bringing old Cornish folk stories and history of Penlee House back to life with a Steam Punk twist. Inspired by black and white achieve photographs,, lantern walks, Celtic gods and the Dickensian tale of The Christmas Carol, The young dancers worked with Suzie West and Rob Mennear to develop a promenade performance. Clay Walks: Is the beginning of a co-autorship between Cornwall College, SpinDrift, Wheal Martyn, Treviglas School and Continuum Dance. As an initial exploration of the site we invited our collaborators to beautiful old mine, to share ideas, ignite adventure and creativity. The day included storytelling and dance workshops for the 40 students, guided walks around the site and a promenade performance of scratch pieces commissioned by SpinDrift. These included Kali by Kay Crook, Daughter by Emily Woodman and White River by Becca Moss, Suzie West and Sophie Northmore. We have held a Clay Walks CPD Session in February for all teachers, practitioners and collaborators. This included a training session with Sally Knight and tome to explore the outdoor spaces, developing themes, concepts and a melting pot of ideas to pass not to the groups engaging in the project. If you would like to take part in our summer community production, please take a look at the flyer below, and get in touch with suziespindrift@yahoo.co.uk.
Wild
Students from Mounts Bay Academy and three local primary schools developed their own Adventure Learning activities by investigating local outdoor spaces such as The Minack, St Michaels Mounts, Newlyn Gallery, The Telegraph Museum, Poirthcurno and Penzance Promenade. With storytellers, scientists, dancers, historians and gallery tour guides the students explored landscape through many lenses and fund their own perspective through a creative and scientific process. This project has increased the visibility of SpinDrift as an education specialist and with noteworthy action research. The Wild project concreted Suzie West’s current MA in Creative Education as it was a case study for Exeter Universities report as well as the international team in Germany flying over to film the project as it concluded with performances at MBA and Newlyn Gallery. The thorough data collated on this project reveals that the multiple identities and a cross disciplinary languages increased as the students undertook their own investigations of the various sites. The creative outcomes varied from poetry, art work, music and dance and their scientific findings were given equal value to their creative explorations of play, risk and immersion. These behaviours have been concluded as vital for students to explore and develop a new empowered identity that can manage new landscapes and have the confidence to interpret it their own way. Take a look at the students report on the Mounts Bay Website... mountsbay.org/wild-project/ | ||
