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Hello 2020 at The Stove Network!

2019 was an incredible year for us at The Stove – we had the opportunity to work with an amazing host of people and groups, and to share a wide range of events and projects, both in-house and led by other organisations and artists.
Our programme for 2020 is starting to fill up fast and we’re gearing up for another jam-packed year of art, community and creativity at 100 High Street, aiming to encourage, gather, educate and inspire. We thought we’d share a few projects that we’re looking forward to in the coming year – so get those diaries oot!
 

National Theatre of Scotland: Just Start Here

Next month, we’re delighted to be working with National Theatre of Scotland to bring you a two-day festival of brand new work from a wide range of Scottish artists. ‘Just Start Here’ features bold new work and will take over shop-fronts, working men’s clubs and the streets of Dumfries this February.
Throughout the day, intimate performances and provocative talks will take place in between a bite to eat and time to mull ideas over. The evening will see live music performances, engaging conversation and a chance to experience something unique.
The lineup includes Nic Green, Behavin’, Two Destination Language, Ashanti Sharda, Stuart Macpherson, Emma Dove & Pete Smith, Stewart Laing, Mele Broomes, SUE ZUKI plus much more to be announced! To keep up to date please visit the National Theatre of Scotland Facebook or website by clicking here.
 

Dumfries Music Conference: The Plaza

Inspired by initiatives set up throughout the country, DMC launched ‘The Plaza’ at their seventh annual conference back in October. The Plaza is a roving music venue, dedicated to the takeover of the under-utilised, the abandoned, the ruinous and the unusual.

The first Plaza took place at Soul Soup on Irish Street, with live performances from Quiche, Megan Airlie, Prussia Snailham and the Lutras, with the second Plaza taking place just before Christmas at the Secret Gallery on Friars Vennel. A special Christmas themed evening with live performances from Kate Kyle, Steven Thomas and Callum Easter.
With plans for a Plaza event every second month, the DMC team are gearing up for a year of scoping out the hidden music venues of Dumfries and providing a platform for bands to showcase their talent in a unique space. Keep up to date with the latest Plaza info on the DMC Facebook here or visit their website by clicking here.
  

Lowland

It’s now over two years since the Lowland project began with its first writer-in-residence, Stuart Paterson whose work with the Stove generated a mass of over 500 written postcard responses from poetry, short fiction, illustration and observations of life in a town in the midst of a transition. The project, first conceived as a means by which local people and visitors could contribute to a new contemporary portrait of Dumfries, has now since quietly developed with a core team of emerging writers and theatre-makers, contributing, devising and workshopping in the heart of the High Street. Now, entering into the rehearsal stages for its debut production in late March. For more information on the Lowland project and to find out how you might like to take part please email [email protected]

The Stove Café: Community Table

The Stove Café is the social heart of our network and, following a refurbishment last year, we’re looking forward to an exciting year of events and projects in the café and working with our community on a more regular basis. The Stove Café team are currently putting plans in place for a regular ‘Community Table’ where community groups and organisations can make use of the café space for regular meet ups, discussions or informal gatherings in a comfortable space with a hot drink and delicious food from local producers.

Nithraid 2020

Save the date – Nithraid is back! Dumfries’ annual River Festival returns to the Mill Green on Saturday 22ndAugust to celebrate our beloved River Nith with our community and partners. Nithraid is the biggest event in the Stove calendar, and with our eighth one approaching this year we’re looking at our biggest one yet – including opportunities to work with organisations, artist commissions, local food, live music performances, art installations and so much more!

For Nithraid 2020, we are looking forward to welcoming Dorothy Lawrenson to the team as our poet-in-residence. Dorothy will be researching the River Nith and its role in the life of the local community. The resulting work will be a collection of poems and podcasts, with each one concentrating on a specific aspect of the river.
Make sure you keep up to date with all our Nithraid news over on the Nithraid Facebook page here.
 

Embers – Igniting Culturally-led Regeneration across Dumfries and Galloway

Last year we had conversations with and gathered information from 21 groups and organisations from across Dumfries and Galloway with additional feedback and input from regional and national support bodies and agencies. We wanted to find out directly from groups and organisations working successfully as part of their communities more about the strengths and challenges of their work and build a picture of effective creative place making in Dumfries and Galloway and its impact for our places.

We are excited to share what has emerged from our consultation work and help build a case for a holistic approach to community focused enterprise and economic wellbeing, with the Embers going live at the end of February.

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Musings Project Updates

Glaciers in the Stove Cafe

FORTUNA | FOGGYDOG | CHILD’S | SOCKS | DENNISTOUN | ANT HILL | BYRD | LEONARDO | DECEPTION | CREVASSE | PINE ISLAND | POLAR TIMES | SHAMBLES | SHARK FIN | UTOPIA | ZEPHYR | ROSE VALLEY | MYKLEBUSTBREEN | KUTIAH LUNGMA | KING OSCAR | SUN | SALMON | SILVERTHRONE | RADIANT | CHAOS | CROWFOOT | FOX | GREY | HELHEIM

There are 178,000* glaciers currently around the world. How many of them can you name?

People name things for lots of reasons; to claim ownership, to map, to locate, to commemorate or congratulate, to know or mark a time, or a place or a landscape.

In the naming of things we gain familiarity. It is easier to image a glacier called Foggydog, than one without a name.

If we can’t name them, how will we miss them when they are gone?

At the moment, 10% of land area on Earth is covered with glacial ice, including glaicers, ice camps and ice sheets. Glacial ice store about 69% of the world’s fresh water, if all land ice melted, sea level would rise by approximately. 70 metres worldwide.

Glacial ice often appears blue when it becomes very dense. Years of compression gradually make the ice denser over time, forcing out the tine air pockets between crystals.

Since the early 20th Century, glaciers around the world have been retreating at unprecedented rates. Many are retreating so rapidly that they may vanish within a matter of decades. Glaciers are considered among the most sensitive indicators of climate change as they are so affected by long term climatic change such as precipitation, mean temperature and cloud cover.

In the Stove cafe as part of our Christmas decorations, we have christened over 80 of our festive baubles ceremoniously after some of our favourite glacier names, alongside the co-ordinates so you can look them up yourself. Pop in for a closer look.

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Musings News

The Stove: Dark Time

During the month of November, we will be taking some time to reflect on where, who and what The Stove is to our region. We’ve stripped back our monthly programme of events in order to take some time to think about the past year and what we can deliver for and with the community going forward into 2020. 

Over the past year, we’ve delivered an average of three events per week, launched new festivals and public art, galvanised our local music scene, celebrated four years of our monthly open mic night, Brave New Words, re-imagined our annual River Festival, Nithraid, and worked with a wide range of communities, partners, organisations and artists to celebrate a town in a transitional phase of it’s history. 

During November, we’re asking our members to join in on the conversation on social media as we pause to reflect on the past 12 months. Although we will not be hosting as many events as we normally do, The Stove Cafe will remain open as normal, and we will be engaging in conversations on our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages.

We haver had a truly incredible 2019, all of which has only been possible through the continued support of you – our audiences, our members, our community and our partners.

There are still events happening throughout the month of November for you to get involved in too – please see our events page for more information.

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News

DMC returns for 2019!

Dumfries Music Conference (DMC) is set to return to the town on 17-19 October, with their SEVENTH annual conference featuring an exciting mix of film, discussion, live music, art and workshops.

This year, DMC presents its most ambitious programme to date, featuring national and internationally renowned musicians, innovative live events and radical venue takeovers across four venues. It includes Scottish Album of the Year Award winner, Kathryn Joseph, who plays The Brigend Theatre on Friday 18 October.

This year’s conference programme has shaped up to be one of the most rounded and possibly most engaging to date. Most of the sessions and events are free to attend, so everyone is encouraged to take advantage and get involved. Everyone is welcome!

On Thursday 17 October, DMC hosts screening of ‘Beats’ at the Robert Burns Centre, a Scottish coming-of-age drama set during the summer of 1994 as two friends encounter illegal parties and rave culture for the first time. Shot entirely in black and white, the film is directed by Black Mirror director Brian Welsh and features a killer soundtrack from Keith McIvor (JD Twitch of Optimo).The evening then moves to The Stove Network where a collective of Dumfries and Galloway and Cumbria based MCs and DJs will battle between the borders in ‘South/West/Sound/Clash’. Expect bar spitting, beat thumping, lyrical assaults.

DMC Sessions will fill the Stove Café on the afternoons of Friday 18 and Saturday 19 with live music from an array of regional musical acts. Also on Friday, Glasgow-based music publishers, 23rd Precinct, host a Songwriting Masterclass with professional songwriters and musicians Scarlett Randle, Lee McGilvray (Flew the Arrow) and Mark McGowan in The Stove’s Room 2.

Friday evening will see one of Scotland’s most talked about and celebrated musical artists, Kathryn Joseph, arrive for her first headline show in Dumfries & Galloway with a special performance at the unique and intimate Brigend Theatre, with support from Zoë Bestel.Saturday 19th includes an exciting Musicians Market come to The Oven on Dumfries High Street, with a record fair, local DJs and info stalls from some of Scottish music industry’s key organisations.

DMC also hosts a jam-packed schedule of panels and workshops on Saturday with a wide range of experts working in the music industry across Scotland, including Help Musicians, the Scottish Music Industry Association, Scottish Women Inventing Music and insight and information on marketing and promotion, Scottish Festivals, the SAY Award and self-care in the world of the music industry.

Saturday evening will culminate in the DMC 2019 Showcase gig in association with The Plaza – a new roving music venue concept, which encourages people to take over unusual spaces and fill them with music, art and performance. This year DMC is delighted to feature The Lutras, Quiche, Megan Airlie and Prussia Snailham, performing live at Soul Soup on Irish Street.

For more details, event times and tickets, visit the DMC Facebook page for more details: www.facebook.com/DumfriesMusicConference

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News

Nithraid 2019

2019 Nithraid will definitely be a year to remember for us at The Stove. After months of planning and a huge amount of hard work by our fabulous Nithraid team, the decision to pull our annual River Festival had to be made the day before the main event to keep everyone safe in the face of terrible weather, and a complete deluge of rain. However, we are SO grateful for everyone who arrived to pitch in and lend a hand for an unbelievable turn around.

We were able to bring elements of the festival into the town centre, including workshops with Creative Futures, Freelance Ranger, Battlestations and the Dumfries American Hunters Football Team. The Salty Coo Procession roamed the streets of Dumfries town centre and was led by Blueprint100.

In the 3 months leading up to this year’s Nithraid, the Blueprint100 team worked with various local community groups and organisations to create banners and flags to used in the procession celebrating the people of Dumfries with their ‘powerful communities’ theme.

The live music took place in the Stove Cafe with fantastic performances from Freya Cloy, Ra, Eddie and Isla of Tiderays, Corrie Russell and Kate Kyle. Nithlight provided a beautiful close to the day on the Mill Green once the river had died down.The Friday evening provided a night to remember too0 – with an amazing array of local performers turning out to participate in the Big Nithraid Warm-Up Brave New Words, followed by a ceilidh from Reidhle which had every person in the room up dancing all night long.

This would not have been possible without so much hard work – thank you to everyone over the weekend who was able to lend a hand, and who came along to our event regardless – to all those in the procession, and who took part in the events, who re-arranged workshops and pitches to join us on the High Street – thank you!

There was a lovely atmosphere, and the sun even made a few brief appearances.Thank you to everyone for their support during Nithraid –  it has been a joyful and affirming reminder of why we all put the hours in to make these events happen – even in the face of very challenging conditions.

Categories
Musings News

Brave New Words Celebrates Four Years on the High Street!

This Friday sees the return of Brave New Words to The Stove for a special evening celebrating the fourth anniversary of the monthly event for new words spoken, sung, signed, shot or silenced. Since 2015, the open mic night has offered a platform to the town to celebrate diversity and challenge stigmas and stereotypes through spoken word, poetry, music and film.

Since our first Brave New Words four years ago, we’ve seen a new kind of scene flourish in the region. New poets, performers, musicians and writers from all walks of life coming together to support one another as well as a hunger for new work from local people. It’s really been an amazing journey.

Brave New Words plays a vital role in The Stove Network’s mission to bring vibrancy to evenings in the Town Centre, offering support to those willing to make a positive and impactful change in their home town and beyond. Since it began in 2015, Brave New Words has voyaged to festivals, created multi-disciplinary installations and uncovered an incredible amount of talent in the heart of Dumfries.

Over the years, Brave New Words has hosted some of the biggest names in the spoken word scene and as the project moves forward into 2020, there are a host exciting collaborations with national organisations, local initiatives and remarkable writers across Scotland.

This Friday’s Brave New Words tackles the theme of ‘Rebellion’ and will be a night full of surprises. Everyone is welcome to come along, and those wishing to participate should arrive prompt for 7pm to sign up to perform.

BE BRAVE!