Jack Drum Arts Summer School Success
Jack Drum Arts have just wrapped up our week-long annual Summer School that saw a host of young performers and musicians aged 8 – 25 come together in the beautiful grounds of Auckland Castle to work alongside professional and emerging artists, and castle staff, to research, develop and perform a piece of drama with music.
We’ve just wrapped up our week-long annual Summer School that saw a host of young performers and musicians aged 8 – 25 come together in the beautiful grounds of Auckland Castle to work alongside professional and emerging artists, and castle staff, to research, develop and perform a piece of drama with music. Alongside this every young person undertook some element of Arts Award accreditation. This year’s project was funded by Youth Music and 3 Towns Area Action Partnership.
The week followed a model that we have used previously with our Youth Music programme –
- A research and development period undertaken by lead Jack Drum Arts staff with support fro Auckland Castle
- The identification of 3 aspects of local legend or interest that we can be inspired by
- Development of 1 craft activity
- Sourcing of costumes / props
- Brainstorming music ideas to present to the young people
This year we relied less heavily on events that happened at Auckland castle itself and chose 2 works of fiction that are set there or in the surrounding area, as well as looking at the rich footballing history of the area.
‘The Legend of Scotland’ is a short story by Lewis Carroll, set in the Scotland Room of Auckland Castle. It tells the story of the fictional Lady Gaunless and her quest for the perfect portrait. It’s a lovely work of fantasy and contains lyrics for 2 songs that the young participants devised music for. The young people really took ownership of this, creating an unusual melody for the piece, arranging the song, and choreographing a dance.
‘Pollard and the Brawn’ is a poem by Paddy Burton written for JDA’s youth programme over 10 years ago. It is based on a local legend that sees Pollard, a young Knight, battle a great wild boar in a failed attempt to win Auckland Castle from Prince Bishop Pudsey. Written by an experienced music and theatre practitioner, it has plenty of scope for music in the outdoor street theatre style. The young people worked with young music leaders to create a score, hilarious foley, and soundscape for the action.
The young people all came together to devise a giant slow-motion football match with percussion accompaniment.
The week culminated in 2 matinee performances in the deer park of the castle to family, friends, and supporters, to great success.
Last year we had a lot of young ‘participant volunteers’ who attended elements of our wider Youth Music programme. This year we were able to provide further creative volunteering with the support of Durham County Council’s DurhamWorks Youth Employment Initiative. The delivery utilised and recognised their participatory music leadership skills, and we really couldn’t have done it without them.
It was a great opportunity for us to work alongside Auckland Castle once again, and has been strategically fruitful in terms of recruitment for our Music and Performance groups that re-launch in September.
Considering the Summer School followed on directly from our 3-week maracatu residency, the staff came away from the Summer School very happy, very happy, but very, very, very tired.