Design Projects — HEIDI LUKER

BALANCE - Keneish Dance - Costume Designer

Choreographer - Keisha Grant

Lighting - Jason Addison

BALANCE is a contemporary dance performance on a national tour that explores cell regeneration within the body. Research and development was carried out in collaboration with Darius Koester, cell biologist at Warwick University.

My designs are based on the movement of Neutrophils, immune system cells that fight imbalances and work with the main senses of smell, sight, touch and hearing. In the dance they wriggle out of the first layer of costume, depicting bone marrow tissue, and flow and fan as they set to work.

To obtain the feel of bone marrow I experimented with heat manipulation.

Funded by Arts Council England.

Commissioners: Laban Guildhall International, Think Tank Museum, Warwick University - Resonate Festival

Here There and Everywhere - Designer. Contact Dance Company, Shropshire Inclusive Dance

Costume and Set Designer

Choreographer - Siobhan Hayes

Here There Everywhere follows a band of travellers with their music machine on wheels, perform, rest, express their hopes, dreams and fears and latest theories, always coming back together to continue their journey.

The piece is available to be commissioned for outdoor events and festivals. first performed at the Shropshire Food Festival and SiD’s Midsummer Celebration at The Hive, Shrewsbury.

Costume for dancer in a wheelchair with gauntlets to protect her arm from the wheels.

Forest of Dreams - Sculptural Costume Design. Choreographer Payal Ramchandani

National Tour - Kala Sangam, Bradford. The Lowry, Manchester. MAC, Birmingham. Dance City in Newcastle and Seaton Delaval Hall and Climate Action Day, Northumberland. Capstone Theatre, Liverpool.

Forest of Dreams is a classical Kuchipudi/Bharatnatyam/Contemporary dance production which explores the effect of deforestation on tribal people living on the shores of the Brahmaputra River.

The costume for Aranyani, The Goddess of Forests is inspired by the fragility of a dried leaf.

The top for Brahmaputra, The Angry River, reflects the belief of the indigenous people, the Mising - To be Mising is to be made and unmade by the river. It shows the folded, layers and waves of water. Calm but with the ability to express anger and fury through flooding.

Forest of Dreams, Aranyani, Goddess of the Forest.jpg

Forest of Dreams, Aranyani, Goddess of the Forest. side.jpg

Experimental sample looking at the veins of a dead leaf.

Initial inspiration for the design.

Angry river costume

Cloud costume

African Sanctus - CBSO, Symphony Hall. Keneish Dance. Costume and Set Designer

African Sanctus - Symphony Hall Birmingham and CBSO

Costume and Set Design and Making

Choreography - Keisha Grant

Sheffield Octagon Centre. With the Sheffield Oratorio Chorus and Soloist Gweneth-Ann Rand

Costume Design and Making

African Sanctus female costume design.jpg

African Sanctus male costume design drawing.jpg

Like a Thorn in My Side - VIGOUR, Keneish Dance. Sculptural Artist and Costume Designer

'Like a Thorn in my Side' - Sculptural Installation Designer/maker and Costume Designer/Maker

Keneish Dance. 'VIGOUR' National Tour. (Contemporary/African)

Choreographer Keisha Grant.

Venues included. MIMA (Installation in Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art), mac (Midlands Art Centre), Birmingham, ARC, (Stockton on Tees), Theatre Severn and Rich Mix, London.

Lighting Design Edmund Sutton

Performance Photography Irvin Lewis

https://keneish.wordpress.com/vigour/

I was commissioned by Keneish Dance to make an interactive sculpture which was to be the starting point for the choreography. Like a Thorn in My Side was to explore the emotional and physical journeys and challenges that women face such as giving birth and West African cultural spirituality and dance. To be bold, sacred, ritualistic, simple with an element of surprise and interactive.

The first ideas for the sculpture came from a combination of the title, “It’s like a thorn in my side”, which I envisaged as a large, curved thorn, that could stand upright or appear to curl across the floor, twisting out from a central hollow shape like a tornado or force of nature, and images from African dance, Spirituality or Animism (a term developed to describe African religion, referring to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings or embody a life-principal and power), of which the common theme is the gathering of energy and creativity from the sky, such as lightening, along with a connection to the earth and the power of female fertility.

This gave me a sense of reaching upwards from within the centre of the sculpture and pulling outwards through the long length of cloth, that was an extension of the sculpture. I later realised the length of cloth was like an umbilical cord after birth with the hollow section of the sculpture becoming the womb, in which the dancers would hide, curled up and appear from later.

Excerpts from VIGOUR

Excerpts from 'Like a Thorn in My Side', 'All Seeing' and 'Tit 4 Tat' in VIGOUR National Tour. Keneish Dance

The sculpture was exhibited as an installation in the viewing gallery in MIMA, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art. The public were invited to ask questions after the performances.

Live performance in the public viewing gallery of MIMA (Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art).

Installation in MIMA

I researched the beliefs of various regions of Africa and found that in Ghana, Akham believes the Earth is a female deity and fertility is worshipped. North Sudan’s Arum lifeforce is the Sky God who is creator. Further research of Congo’s beliefs revealed a resemblance between the shape of the sculpture I had drawn at the beginning, with the length of cloth and the Ngulu Execution blades from Congo. Sacrificial rituals were frequently carried out for their ancestors who they believed lived in the sky. A tree in a forest clearing would be pulled over and secured to a long rope which was tied to the neck of the person to be sacrificed. This assured that the head would be flung into the forest at the time of decapitation by the tribes Ngulu Blade. They believed the chosen person remained aware for some time and as a result, the deceased’s final sensual experience or memory was of flying through the sky to meet their ancestors. Creating a link between life and death.

Finished sculpture in workshop

Construction requirements of the sculpture was for it to be strong and able to carry weight of all five dancers in all positions, light enough to lift with two people for transportation and easy to move on stage and to be free standing.

Internal metal frame of sculpture.

With the collaboration of metal worker, David Hazel, we bent the metal, cut and welded the inner metal frame, adapting the process to accommodate changes to the choreography and improve the strength and balance of the structure.

Sculpture frame with 'skin' of hessian.

The frame was covered with a supporting layer of webbing and hessian upon which industrially cut out sections of foam sheeting were glued, to protect the dancers and stage floor from the metal. The sculpture was then covered with muslin and PVA glue to seal the foam and provide a surface to apply acrylic paint. The surface painting resembled dry African earth and ceramic pots.

'Like a thorn in my side' - Keneish Dance.jpg

VIGOUR Tour - Keneish Dance. Costume Design

Costume Design/Making for VIGOUR National Tour:

All Seeing, Tit 4 Tat and Like a Thorn in My Side.

Venues included. MIMA (Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art), mac (Midlands Art Centre), Birmingham, ARC, (Stockton on Tees), Theatre Severn and Rich Mix, London.

All Seeing - VIGOUR National Tour

Costume Design/Making - Heidi Luker

Choreography - Keisha Grant

The choreography was inspired by an African stone carving of an owl and Keisha wanted to reflect elements of owls and their feathers. I was also fascinated by the intrinsic way owls used their eyes and I decided to make this the focus of my design.

The costumes are mirrors of each other so that there are sometimes moments when there are two eyes looking at you and there is always one eye facing the audience.

All Seeing - VIGOUR National Tour

Costumes needed to be suitable for rigorous movement and ensure the two dancers felt confident that they could remaining safely covered and not be too conscious of their costumes.

I built the costumes in sculptural sections, made from Lycra and foam wadding, sewn onto leotards and hand painted. I looked at female Japanese Fashion Designer called Rei Kawakubo from the 1980’s who had used cut out felt shapes to form 3D wearable shapes and this gave me my direction. All sections were created individually using hand and machine sewing to sculpt the lines and shapes of the feathers and move independently, adding another element to the dance.

Both dancers said they were the most comfortable costumes they had ever worn.

All Seeing - VIGOUR National Tour

original drawing of costume with brown.jpg

Tit 4 Tat - VIGOUR National Tour.

Costume Design - Heidi Luker

Choreography - Keisha Grant

The dance piece was a representation of how we deal with conflict and communication. The dancers are wearing everyday clothes so that it's easier to relate to the situation, especially for young women.

http://keneish.wordpress.com/vigour/

Like a Thorn in My Side - VIGOUR National Tour

Costume Design and Making - Heidi Luker

Choreography - Keisha Grant

The costumes were inspired by the colour of African earth.

Ambergate Wireworks - The Part They Played Project. Immersive Sculptural Installation

Ambergate Wireworks- The Part They Played, is a site-specific collaborative R & D art project, for which I received funding from Arts Council England and National Lottery Funding, (Creative People and Cultural Communities funding) and a co-production with Derby Museum of Making.

Link to video on YouTube, (containing spoken memories of ex-workers and documentation of both mine and collaborative artist, Lise Bennetts wire sculptural drawings):

Ambergate Wireworks - The Part They Played

As sculptural artist, Community Arts Practitioner and Project Coordinator, I worked in collaboration with local artist and arts practitioner, Lise Bennett, to research and explore the industrial and social heritage of the Ambergate Wireworks (Manchester company, Richard Johnson and Nephew Ltd) in Derbyshire.

The wire produced at the Ambergate Wireworks has had a long reaching effect on revolutionising the world in tele-communications, submarine cables and pipelines, such as (PLUTO), barbed wire/weapons and defence, farming and engineering.

Using black iron wire, we have in our own styles, created a series of small individual 3D wire drawings of major world events that used the wire from the Ambergate Wireworks, Richard Johnson & Nephew Ltd. Our different approaches to interpretation have resulted in a balance of content and style. Wire drawings by Lise can be seen in the link below.

Link to media coverage:

:https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/news/local-news/gallery/remarkable-influence-ambergate-wireworks-fashion-7572898

Immersive Sculptural Installation and Film

My sculptural wire drawings, shown, look at the impact of Richard and Johnsons wire on specific landscapes and moments in time, along with the legacy left on our lives, in communication, energy, warfare and freedom of movement. Some are a response to stories told to me by those who worked there, as I recorded interviews with ex-workers and families and form a soundscape edited by audio producer Dimple Patel and sound designer Drew Baumohl.

I immersed myself in the linear nature of wire as I drew, exploring its malleability and ability to increase its strength, by winding together multiple lengths of curved wire. Lise made all the miniature lengths of barbed wire in the installation. Each piece developed into 3D circular landscapes, designed to be viewed from all angles, as they tell their own story. When lit with a direct light source, the shadows of the wire drawings can be enlarged to create moving shadows. I discovered that by shining a mobile phone torch around a suspended wire drawing, the shadows take you on a virtual journey in space. I named each piece using song titles that reflected their state of being.

The soundscape has been integrated into the installation, creating a sense of time and place. A film by local film maker, Gavin Repton, (see YouTube link above) also been made which captures the location through old photographs along with shadows and movement of the wire drawings within the installation and incorporates the soundscape, highlighting the poignant spoken memories. The installation was exhibited in Ambergate in the community hall and as a First Friday event in Derby Museum of Making along with the premier of the film and photos of the wireworks loaned by members of the local community.

In 2023, I was invited by Wirksworth Arts Festival to exhibit my half of the installation as a solo artist along with the soundscape of interviews.

Community Cohesion

Improving community cohesion in Ambergate is one of the main aims of the project after two serious floods in the past four years caused the closure of its main community hall. The impact of the flooding is why Lise Bennett and I worked in partnership with Derbyshire Wildlife Trust who joined our school sessions at Crich Carr Primary and Ambergate Primary and supported our outside wire sculpting sessions, informing the participants of the trees growing in the ancient Shining Cliff Woods and the importance of anti-flood measures using planting. They also helped to create a group artwork of wire branches with leaves, Branching Out, made from wire leaves sculpted by participants at all Ambergate events, including the annual carnival and National Open Gardens days. The title refers to branching out into the community and the importance of individual contributions to the project. The work will be installed in the Whistle Stop Cafe at their education centre, in the old station house at Matlock Bath Train Station, Derbyshire, ideal for visitors to the area.

Ambergate has also been culturally and socially lacking since the closure of the wireworks, with few community venues and poor, expensive public transport. We aimed to engage young teenagers and older people, especially important after Lockdown. To ensure that older women felt comfortable coming out in the evening, we made some of the sessions, intergenerational so that female family members could enjoy an art activity together and get to know other women in the community. Many of them hadn’t taken part in a creative activity since school but they all had a go and said it was relaxing and made socialising easier because their attention was on the wire sculpting.

“Fascinating exhibition and amazing artwork. I especially enjoyed coming along to one of the workshops and having a go myself and meeting new people from the community. Thank you .”

Over an eight-month period, we delivered a series of themed wire sculpting workshops, that explored the industrial heritage of the wireworks, as a co-production at the Derby Museum of Making where participants could find inspiration in their fascinating Assemblage Collection, from objects made with wire. this culminated with being part of their Assemble Festival.

Please see more examples from sessions on the Workshop Page. (Menu)

"Right Here, Right Now"

In the 1960’s, Richard Johnson & Nephew Ltd developed Strand wire, one of it’s uses was in the building of nuclear reactors, including Sellafield Nuclear Plant with its legacy of contamination from nuclear leaks. It also developed and produced over 60% of the steel-cored conductors for the National Grid. This piece reflects my response to global warming and the current energy crises, with desk fans desperately trying to find sockets and rows of pound signs sitting like crows on the wires, watching and waiting for prey.

Photo by Tony Fisher

Photo by Tony Fisher

"Going Underground"

They developed and supplied the dreadnaught suspension wires for the Niagara Railway Suspension Bridge built in 1855, the worlds first railway suspension bridge. Halfway across the bridge was the final stage in the journey for people escaping slavery, from the Southern States of America over to Canada. Many used the secret ‘railway’ network, known as the Underground Railroad. One of it’s most renowned ‘conductors’ was Harriet Tubman, previously a slave on a plantation who escaped by herself and returned on numerous occasions to rescue and lead others to freedom. The staff of the nearby Cataract Hotel on the US side of Niagara, helped hundreds of black servants of Southern families holidaying in the hotel. They would take the servants into the kitchens and out of the backdoor to make the journey to Canada by crossing over the bridge.

Solo installation and soundscape at Wirksworth Arts Festival in the Moot Hall

Photo by Tony Fisher

Solo installation at Wirksworth Arts Festival - visitors playing with shadows

"When The Empire Calls"

Richard Johnson & Nephew were the first British company to be sold the US patent for barbed wire. In 1899, they were commissioned to produce over 3,000 (out of 4.500) miles of barbed wire fencing for the Boer War in South Africa (1899-1902) to create a boundary between the British Army and Boer guerrilla fighters, limiting their movement. The barbed wire fencing was also used to protect the 8,000 garrisoned block houses, specially built to provide shelter and lookout points for the British Army, some of whom were overseeing refugee camps for Boer women and children, caught up in the fighting.

When it became clear that the Boer army had no intention of backing down, the British Army turned the refugee camps into fenced internment camps. African tribal villages near the block houses were also surrounded by barbed wire and inhabitants were forced to work as labourers in work camps but were not permitted to feed or help the Boer families. Up to 28,000 women and children held in the camps, died from cholera and starvation. 22,000 of them were children.

"Seven Seconds"

Their wire was used to make the simple wire pin in World War One hand grenades and is still used today in warfare. After the pin is removed there is roughly seven seconds until it explodes. I chose this title because it is the title of a song about the first moments of birth.

"Rolling in the Deep"

During World War Two, Richard and Johnson were commissioned by the war office to manufacture wire for many wartime items as part of the war effort; from weapons, surgical and first aid equipment, stretchers, parachutes, helmets and boots and the wire for the Merlin engine, used in most of the wartime airplane engines, such as Spitfires. They also made wire for grommets which were used in the making of anti-submarine/torpedo wire netting otherwise known as Sea Wall Protection for coastline areas to protect Britain from invasion, and attack. The nets, made from large metal rings were suspended from floating bollards in the sea and designed to stop submarines. Many were abandoned on beaches and in areas such as Cornwall, are now being used as a means of preventing soil erosion from rising sea levels.

Creating shadow with a mobile torch app

Making WW2 anti-torpedo/submarine coastal netting that used grommets made at Ambergate Wireworks..

First Friday evening event at Derby Museum of Making

The film was projected onto the main wall of the Civic Hall.

First Friday premier of the film.

First Friday Event

Activity tables were set out with wire, pliers and templates for people to have a go at wire sculpting.

First Friday event at Derby Museum of Making

To create a darkened space with white walls, the installation was set-up in a gazebo with work suspended on acrylic discs so they could be seen from all angles, to make moving 3D shadows, like landscapes against the soundscape.

Assemble Festival Derby Museum of Making

A mini exhibition of our work was set up in white cubes on the workshop table.

Work in progress as I used repeated lines to create forms.

Experiments with light and shadows

Intergenerational Women Only Wire Workshops at St. Anne's Community Hall

A branch of "Branching Out"

All participants in Ambergate were invited to contribute to the project by making a wire leaf for a group art work. Branching Out refers to the act of branching out into the community.

Proud makers of one wire branch at a women only workshop

Making wire leaves for Branching Out and conversation, tea & cakes at the first open exhibition at St. Anne's Community Hall as part of the National Open Gardens weekend.

Two of the river themed group artworks by Crich Carr Primary School

Mini Exhibition at Ambergate Primary School as part of the day

We used folding white cubes to create instant pop-up exhibitions.

Wire parachutist leaving the building at Derby Museum of Making!

Light bulb moment during a workshop at the Derby Museum of Making

Wire butterfly

One participant made this at one of our women’s sessions and hadn’t made anything creative for years, made this colourful butterfly for her garden. She brought it in for the exhibition at St. Anne’s during the National Open Gardens Day.

One of the brilliant wire objects created during the communication session at Derby Museum of Making.

Through the Windows Installation Artist & Community Arts Practitioner- Strutt's North Mill Museum

THE CRAFT PROJECT Coordinator, Installation Artist and Community Artist

Community Engagement and Creative Heritage Education Project, that went on to win the Derbyshire Heritage, Reaching New Audiences Award.

Strutt's North Mill in Belper has recently closed (September 2022), due to lack of funding. It was a small independent accredited museum and an integral part of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site. As the Project Coordinator/Artist for The Craft Project, I devised heritage related craft workshops and public participatory art activities to actively engage new audiences and embed the museum within the local community.

As part of The Craft Project I designed and organised an art installation, 'Though the Windows' to open during the Derwent Valley Mills Discovery Weekend. The installation, that has been a permanent and popular exhibit in the museum, explored the hundreds of windows in the mill and also the photo archive of mill workers from the past. I was fascinated by the idea that the only contact many workers had with the outside world during a twelve hour day was though the windows. I wondered what would their thoughts have been and how many times in the day did they have the chance to look out of a window.

Participants cut out chosen figures from photocopied images and sewed (or glued) them directly onto sheets of muslin block printed with window frames to replicate the façade of the North Mill. The installation is a permanent installation in the North Mill Museum.

To create the 'windows' I worked with local junior schools and organisations who support the socially isolated such as Derbyshire Age UK and the British Red Cross and Accessible Belper and Memory Lanes. Many of their groups are run as reminiscing/story sessions and the workshops sparked lively conversations and memories about friends and family who had worked in the North Mill. This was captured by BBC Radio Derby at one of the celebratory events.

Many of the same cut out figures were used repeatedly by the dementia group participants and I realised that this was creating a visual pattern that reflected their thought and memory patterns.

With the children who took part, it was the story behind the figures that interested and many were shocked to realise that they were of a similar age.

Community Craft Workshops

Block Printing workshops using heritage inspired images, upcycling using mill objects and sewing projects were carried out on open days, major festivals and with Scouts and Guides.

School Craft Workshops consisting of block printing using museum imagery which was then turned into written account of being a mill worker and wall hangings made from hessian and hung in the museum during the exhibition. Part of the activity was collecting the small bits of hessian from the edges and tying them into knot and sewn onto individual squares. This was to help the pupils what it felt like for mill children to be mending cotton thread all day. They also all worked with the photo images, producing windows for ‘Through the Windows’. As well as never visiting North Mill, many boys had never sewn, so at Kilburn Primary this was their first experience with hand stitching. They applied themselves really well and concentrated for long periods.

Through the Windows exhibition, looking up 2.jpg

End of project celebration with some of Memory Lanes Social Groups and BBC Radio Derby.

One of the group textile works created by local schools

DandeLion - LEVEL Contemporary Arts Centre (Learning Disabled). Sculptural Installation Artist

In-house Dance and Performance Company (Learning Disabled)

Choreographer and Director - Katie Ward

Music - Jack Wright

Site Specific performance/sculptural installation at the LEVEL Contemporary Arts Centre, Derbyshire for the learning disabled in-house performance company.

I collaborated closely with Katie Ward on design and movement in DandeLion, a devised multi-media theatre dance piece based on the personal recorded and acted childhood memories of Spiral members which was performed in promenade throughout the building.

The dandelion plant was chosen for the theme because of the strong resilience of it's seeds to land and ability to grow in difficult, harsh terrains, rather like the members of Spiral. The 'Lion' reflects their fierce unity as a group or 'lions pack'.

blowing seeds projections, dandelion.jpg

SKY at LEVEL, Contemporary Arts Centre. Costume Design / Visual Artist

Choreographer - Katie Ward

Spiral is the resident dance/performance company with LEVEL, an internationally renowned contemporary arts centre for the learning disabled.

Venues - LEVEL Centre, Bakewell Day of Dance (street performances) and Wirksworth Arts Festival at The Star Disc and street performances.

Working collaboratively with Choreographer, Katie Ward by taking part in rehearsals, SKY captures the ever changing formations of the sky through sculptural flowing movements using multi-functional cloaks with hand sewn textures, that also become the set.

This outside performance was part of the Wirksworth Arts Festival at the Star Disc, Wirksworth.

Web of Water - Sculptural Installation Lead Artist - Artcore and Derby Feste, Deda.

Venue - Deda, Derby Feste event and created throughout the summer at major midlands festivals such as Mela, Leicester and the Nottingham River Festival and Art in the Park, Derby and The Big Draw as part of Artcore’s Web of Water project. Funded by Heritage National Lottery and Arts Council England.

The Water Flowing installation was created through a series of public art participation workshops with Artcore and their Web of Water Project in which I explored the destructive force of flowing water and the way a space could be invaded by flooding. The public painted, wrote and printed their impressions and ideas about water and what it meant to them onto metres of organza fabric. Some of the people came from countries as far away as Syria and it felt as if they had left an imprint of their memories of water.

This was then sewn onto wire frames and made into individual sections of sculptural 'water' which could then be moved by viewers into infinite configurations of moving water. Throughout the day, the water installation slowly made its way across the stage, becoming sea side waves, waterfalls and pools through the eyes of the participants. Another sculpture hung in the stairway with ‘water’ flowing down the wall.

The hung 'Flowing Water' installations were included in their art exhibition for Web of Water at Deda, Derby.

Web of Water, Indian Festival, Leicester.jpg

Cinderella's Last Ball - Deda, 3D Derby Deaf Drama & Red Earth. Set and Costume Designer

3D Derby Deaf Drama- performed in BSL (British Sign Language)

Venue - Deda, Derby

Directed by Red Earth Theatre.

This was the last ever performance by 3D Derby Deaf Drama after fourteen years of performing the hugely popular BSL Pantomime . The set design acknowledges their achievements by writing quotes from their past productions onto the walls of the set. The set consisted of two 'fairy tale castles' on open storybook pages, which were moved by the cast to create different settings. The constructions were larger than life-size but the main door was only high enough for the King to walk through. There is a mixture of present day costumes with period to make references to traditional fairy tales as a well as modern lifestyles and aspirations.

"I Have A Dream" BSL (British Sign Language) sign song

Janeen Streeter performing in BSL (British Sign Language), 'I have a Dream' in Cinderella's Last Ball Panto at Deda, Derby. 3D Deaf Drama and directed by Red Earth Theatre.

Lullaby Sonic Cradle - Manasamitra. The Sage, Gateshead. Installation Designer

The Lullaby Sonic Cradle Tour with Manasamitra, a South Asian Artist led company.

I designed the interactive sculptural set for a family audience which was the background for a live musical exploration by Carnatic singer, Supriya Nagarajan, inspired by the songs Indian women sing to their babies whilst working in the fields and a soundscape by Duncan Chapman of outside sounds recorded from each venue location. The piece combines the live music and digitally created lighting projections on the stage floor, that ‘dance’ to the changing rhythms, pitches and volume of music.

My inspiration for the rocking moon/cradle and sculptural pink crescents came from the gentle rocking motions I remembered from singing lullabies to my own daughters and were designed to be touched by young members of the audience.

LULLABY SONIC CRADLE - The Sage, Gateshead..jpg

The London Mothers - Derwent Valley Mills Great Places Scheme. Writer, Director and Visual Designer

Produced by Beam and Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Sites as a creative part of the Great Places Scheme. In partnership with Derby University

Funded by the Arts Council England and National Heritage Lottery Fund.

At the beginning of Lockdown, I was commissioned to research and produce a performance on the heritage of UNESCO World Heritage Site, Willersley Castle, Cromford, Derbyshire. I wrote a short play, The London Mothers, that I’ve since extended and has been successfully produced by Fanciful Flock Theatre.

The play explores Willersley Castles recent role as a Salvation Army run maternity unit during WW2. I developed the script using my findings from a variety of different sources available during lockdown This included newspaper archives, responses from a social media call-out, phone interviews, emails with people born there, copies of mother’s letters and photos.. It was after interviewing an original midwife that the story came alive. Working closely with Drew Baumohl, on sound and visual design, we merged original photographs of the castle grounds with moving videos of locations to create back projections for each scene.

I developed my research material into an accessible verified online document for the Derwent Valley Mills Website- The London Mothers Research (included in the link below) along with a video recording of a live, multi-media performance in Derby Theatre Studio, (following the COVID two metre restrictions) in partnership with Derby University Theatre Arts and Acting departments is available on YouTube - The London Mothers either through Beam (with Q & A) or Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site.

Link to the DWMWHS below:

https://www.derwentvalleymills.org/discover/derwent-valley-mills-projects/current-projects/vital-valley-about/a-creative-future/thelondonmothers/