This December, the weekend of 8th and 9th December programmes an exhilarating pair of concerts exploring witches, wizards, storms and spirits by the University Chorus, Symphony Orchestra, String Sinfonia and Concert Band. The concerts are accompanied by an ancillary exhibition by the Kent-based art collective, Earthbound Women, exploring similar themes.
From Monday 31st October to Sunday 10th December, visitors to the Colyer-Fergusson gallery will be able to view a fascinating collection, entitled The Mysytery of the Elements, for which two Earthbound Women, Ruth McDonald and Kristiina Sandoe, and guest Lucy Marks will be exhibiting paintings and prints that relates to the dramatic programme of music exploring mythology, folklore and the world of witches.
The artwork combines dramatic images of storm, drama at sea and wild skies with contrasting periods of calm reflection, aiming to push the boundaries of Landscape Art investigating what it means in relation to abstraction and representation, with a range of media from painting to mixed media, printmaking and collage.
Earthbound Women are bound by a passion for clay, earth, form and landscape. The painting, drawing and printmaking coming to the exhibition is a record of dreams, annotations, observations, aspirations as a series of artistic responses to life and landscape in the region.
The exhibition is free to view during the hours Colyer-Fergusson is open. Find out more about Earthbound Women here; and see the concerts on our What’s On page here. It promises to be quite a spectacle…
Moonbeam Theatre are a non-profit company who create multi-sensory theatre for children with profound and multiple learning disabilities and special educational needs. We’ve been a graduate theatre company at the University of Kent since 2020 and have been facilitating workshops and shows ever since. We’ve had a busy year this year, taking our show DIVE on tour. DIVE is a multi-sensory under-the-sea adventure which encourages our participants to get involved in exploring the ocean setting of the performance. We’ve visited over 50 SEN schools, charities and community groups and this summer made our Edinburgh Fringe Festival debut.
Being a part of EdFringe was a real bucket list achievement, and having sold out shows was amazing! The reviews we’ve received from all our audiences have been incredible and we are already planning our next show, which is all about The Garden, to tour for 2024. As a University of Kent music department alumna, I am very pleased to say I even play my clarinet in the show! [Well done, Maddie: keep playing!]
But even more exciting is that we have just released the DIVE soundtrack on Spotify; as a company we wanted to make sure our audiences had access to the music so they could continue to experience DIVE in their own spaces or simply keep listening to the relaxing sounds of our ocean setting. To create the music we worked with our music producer, Adam Pattrick, who helped us put all our ideas together. The tracks were created to be ambient and calming, but watch out for the The Chatty Clam’s Hideout as that’s the exception!