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November: New Beginnings & Fond Memories at 100 High Street 

November’s here! For all its drizzly driecht, soggy leaves and howling breeze, it’s all go for a month of dance and exhibition, climate chats and birthday celebrations! 

But first…you might have heard about COP26. 

Yes, the glitterati of global politics will be arriving in Glasgow, in all their blue blazered, shooder-pads and pouting. Not to mention the news crews and protestors, police vans and placards, it all feels a little bit nerve-wracking. (Yes, just what we need from this year, another thing to worry about!).

So while the whole wide world tumbles on to George Square and Kelvingrove, we want to ask; what does all this mean for us down here?

A Doonhamer’s Guide to the End of the World

Creative Spaces are hosting a series of conversations, workshops and creative activities for people under 30 to share, collaborate and make their ideas heard in the big climate conversation. Working with Historic Environment Scotland the programme explores climate through story and myth, unearthing our local history to see what lessons can be learned from our past to guide the future we’ve yet to take.

FIND OUT MORE HERE

Alongside this, Reel To Real, the Stove Cafe’s monthly film night, will be screening two films exploring climate, loss, distance and relocation, from Africa to Ireland. Our Reel To Real film nights include some scrumptious pre-movie scran courtesy of stew-maestro Marcus, from 5PM through till 6:30!

THANK YOU FOR THE RAIN, 3RD NOVEMBER
I NEVER CRY, 12TH NOVEMBER

But that’s not all…

Atlas Pandemica: Maps to A Kinder World

First beginning in June of 2019, Atlas Pandemica: Maps to a Kinder World is a compendium of 10 projects led by Dumfries & Galloway based creative people exploring different themes highlighted by life during the COVID pandemic, working directly with people in the region, it focussed on the impacts and learning from the community’s experience of the evolving pandemic. 

The project is now drawing to a conclusion, aside from the many outputs each of the commissioned artists have shared, a collection of 10 maps, based on each of the project’s findings will be unveiled as part of ‘After the Pandemic’, Glasgow’s creative and cultural fringe at COP26. For more information on the project please visit www.atlaspandemica.org

Are ye dancin? We’re askin!

Join us on Saturday 6th November for an intimate evening of dance performance and conversation as DG Dance celebrate the end of their first season touring pop up dance across Dumfries and Galloway.

Martin McKeown, taken as part of Sanquhar Arts Festival.

The evening will include a performance of Matthew Hawkin’s Triple Echo, sharing excerpts from new screendance research with Emma Dove inspired by Emma Jayne Park’s touring performance And Now We Unravel, Again, and a performance of Louise Ahl’s newly premiered work heartbeats, fresh air, gestures, time. 

This will be followed by an open conversation with lead artist Emma Jayne Park, and company dancers Claire Pencak, Jorja Follina and Malcolm Sutherland.

DG DANCE, END OF SEASON CELEBRATION

The following week, we’ll be showcasing the final UK screening of Penny Chivas’s ‘Burnt Out‘ this year, followed by an opportunity to discuss the work with the artist.

Brian Hartley

With original music by Paul Michael Henry, interwoven with the delicately detailed lighting design of David Bowes, this is an autobiographical dance-theatre work from the daughter of an environmental geochemist, bringing together fact and personal account. ‘Burnt Out’ is at once an intimate personal story and a universal meditation on our changing climate.

BURN OUT, SATURDAY 13TH NOVEMBER

Water you up to? 

The Dumfries Fountain Project: Research & Studio Work 

A pop-up exhibition at The Smithy, 113-115 High Street, hosted by artist Alex Allan. Allan has been working with the Dumfries Fountain Project coordinated by the Stove Network, exploring, and designing a proposal for a permanent piece of public art to be situated by the Dumfries Fountain to complement the historic landmark.

You are invited to consider the research gathered during their time in Dumfries, experiment and play with ideas and materials from the studio and contribute your own thoughts to the work. What would you like from a new piece of public art in the centre of the town? This is a unique chance to hear from the artist themselves and learn more about this timely and fascinating project. Come on in!

FIND OUT MORE HERE

Dumfries Fountain Project: Film and Soundtrack Premiere

The Smithy, 113-115 High Street
Saturday, 13 th November 5-7pm

Join us for a celebratory evening marking the conclusion of our two Holywood Trust commissioned artist projects, with a sharing of the short documentary film created by filmmaker Patrick Rooney, and film soundtrack by musician and composer Jenna Macrory.

After the screening we’ll be hearing from our two commissioned artists about their experiences with the project. Light refreshments provided. There is limited capacity available for the event so please sign up via Eventbrite to let us know if you would like to attend.

BOOK YOUR PLACE HERE

It’s our birthday and we’ll print if we want to…

Can you believe we’re 10 years old? Seems like just yesterday, the Stove were chalk painting flagstones and launching a coo into the Nith (not an actual coo, don’t fret). 

10 Year Celebrations 

Join the Stove as we celebrate our 10th Birthday! We’ll be turning the Stove Cafe into a t-shirt printing factory where you can print your own 10th Anniversary t-shirt, and the cafe will be open with a special menu (yes, there will be cake!).

LET US KNOW IF YOU’RE COMING

Hang on, theres maire!

B-B-B-Brave New Words

Our monthly open mic night for fresh words spoken, sung, shot, signed or silenced returns. This month’s theme is: ENCOUNTERS

GET YOUR TICKETS HERE

U18 Acoustic Cafe returns

Our pals Dave Bass and the magnificent Dumfries Music Collective, fresh off the heels from their stellar 2021 conference are finally back to takeover the Stove Cafe with the U18 Acoustic Cafe.  Featuring a line-up of fresh voices from the region, the afternoon is open to all to enjoy. More info coming soon! 

Doughlicious

D’ough! Doughlicious are back in the building! Share ideas and recipes whilst breaking bread with like-minded folks. Featuring practical workshops exploring techniques and style, for those that kneed that extra bit of help and radical recipes for aficionados, from chapati to brioche! 

Women Signwriters Assemble! 

Dumfries Women’s Signwriting Squad are back again with the wee monthly meet-up. This session, open to beginners of all levels, will teach you the basics of signwriting. A popular event so sign up to guarantee your spot!

BOOK YOUR SPOT HERE

In Other News…

Dark Time!

It’s not as gloom as it sounds, we promise. Dark Time is our yearly switch off, where we re-group as a team, drink too much coffee and chat all things Stove. From planning 2022, pouring over our members feedback (thanks by the way) and reflecting on a year unlike any other.

As we draw some breath from the run of festivals and projects, from wild geese to multiverses, we’re making time to ask some important questions. From who uses the Stove, to what we can offer our community and what themes might take us forward into the new year. We divide our conversations into three areas, which include:

Are you interested in Dark Time? Let us know by emailing [email protected]. 

…Phew! And breathe…

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Opportunities

Dumfries Fountain Project: Opportunities

The Stove Network is delighted to share some new commission opportunities to work as part of The Dumfries Fountain Restoration Project, a collaborative project between The Stove Network and Dumfries and Galloway Council.

We have three current opportunities:

  • Dumfries Fountain Public Art Commission
  • Young Filmmaker Commission
  • Young Musician or Composer Commission

These three opportunities have been created as part of the engagement phase of the project, which looks to work with local people to share the history of the fountain and Dumfries’ Water Story, and support interaction with the second phase of the project, which will include the complete refurbishment of the Fountain. Commissioned artists will work alongside and be supported by our Engagement Lead on the project, and The Stove’s Public Art Lead.

Public Art Commission

The Stove seeks to commission an experienced artist, designer or maker to design a permanent artwork to accompany the restoration of the Dumfries Fountain.

The commission is for the delivery of a fully costed and complete design for a permanent artwork to be developed alongside a creative community engagement project in the ‘water story of Dumfries.’ Further details and how to apply:

Public Art Commission

Young Filmmaker Commission

The Stove seeks to commission an emerging young filmmaker to document Stage One of the Dumfries Fountain Restoration Project.

We are looking for someone to document the programme of engagement, tell the story of the fountain and create a digital legacy for the project. Further details and how to apply:

Young Filmmaker Commission

Young Musician/Composer Commission

The Stove Network seeks to commission an emerging young musician or composer to create an original soundtrack composition for film as part of The Dumfries Fountain Restoration Project.

We are looking for someone to work collaboratively with our documentary filmmaker to create an accompanying soundtrack for their film documenting the history and restoration of Dumfries’ Fountain. Further details and how to apply:

Young Musician/composer Commission

Our two emerging commission opportunities have been supported and funded by The Holywood Trust, a charitable organisation which aims to help young people in Dumfries and Galloway.

Deadline for Applications: Sunday, 13th June 2021

For further information about this opportunity, or to ask us specific questions about this project please email [email protected].

Categories
Musings

Five Years of Bravery

It was 2015. A year in from the Scottish independence referendum, when stickers faded pale on lampposts and flags fluttered limply in the breeze, or un-tethered, clung to high fences like a loose pair of nickers. It was as though some basic law of thermodynamics failed to take place. As if that fiery energy ought to have moved on. Heated up some other vessel or agitated another movement. Instead, it lingered in the air, resigned itself to the bar stools and blogs for the time being. And most people just got on with their lives, some relieved, some numb and others, angry as ever.

Writers Sarah Indigo and Eryl Sheilds concocted Brave New Words as a space to confront some of that undirected energy left from the referendum. We worked with them on structuring the day, talking with schools, community groups and others to come along and work it all out through a series of writing workshops, discussions and debates. That evening, we hosted the first Brave New Words Slam, an evening of spoken word, performance and beat-style poetry, reminiscent of the back alley bars of Brooklyn circa 1960 lit up the High Street. Well, not maybe not quite like that. But in my head, everything feels a bit like that. The poets played a blinder. From the ages of 14 to 80, it felt like something pretty special had happened.

A year later, we lost Sarah too soon. A light went out in the spoken word community in Scotland, with tributes pouring in from the central belt to the Galloway coast. Her work broke stigmas, challenged the status quo and energized everyone she came into contact with. Each birthday since then is not only a celebration of words spoken, sung, shot, signed or silenced. It’s a tribute to our founder and visionary.

This year, as it stands, is so unlike all the others. We’re not able to meet. And whilst we’re all weary of the rolling lockdowns, the dead air of pubs without music, the face masks, the rumbling anxiety of purchasing a pint of milk from the supermarket. It seems that now it’s more important than ever to celebrate as we once did and to share our thoughts, feelings, creativity and power with each other is so vital in making sense of the world around us. Beyond the peeling vinyl stickers of the town centre and the tequila-scented hand gel.

Just as in 2015, there’s an energy now that lingers in the air. What it is we can’t be as certain of what it is as then, but it comes out in the quieter moments of our lives. That’s when stories are written, songs are sung and creativity thrives.

Brave New Words is not possible without people. Literally. I’ve tried. More than a couple of empty mic nights confirm this. It’s the space to take a chance, often when you never you thought you had it in you. And each month, it’s completely different from the last. From epic poems on elderly cats, to Kate Bush inspired fluorescent neon dancing, 10 minute silences and rabble rousing political speeches.

So join us as we celebrate everything Brave this September. I mean, what else is there to do?!

Be Brave.

Categories
Musings News

Solway to Svalbard: In Conversation with Stuart Macpherson

Coming up this Friday, 28th February as part of National Theatre Scotland’s Just Start Here festival in Dumfries will be the next development of Solway to Svalbard, an creative project led by composer and musician Stuart Macpherson, in collaboration with filmmaker Emma Dove and sound recordist Pete Smith.

Following a successful starter residency supported by NTS, and a recent trip to Svalbard on the trail of the barnacle geese – the project has continued to grow and develop, so we are so excited to find out more about how the work has been developing! Ahead of Friday, Stuart tells us more about the project:

How did it all begin?

Well… funnily enough it all started off with a commissioning opportunity through the Stove Network for one of their members to create a piece of work responding to the brief of Migrating Birds, to coincide with the opening of Kathy Hinde’s Luminous Birds installation that was coming to Dumfries.
At the time there was another Stove project exploring Dumfries’ ties to Norway and I thought I’d explore the avian link between Norway and Scotland.  I knew the barnacle geese that came to the Solway each year had something to do with Norway but didn’t realise that was just their spring staging point and they in fact came from Svalbard. Pretty impressive… there’s also loads of really cool mythology surrounding the geese which is fascinating.
Anyway, the resulting piece that I created was “Flight” – a migratory soundscape incorporating field recordings and free triggered samples.  Pretty early on in the process of making that piece I started to think about where they stop on their journey and the idea of exploring those environments.  I really liked the idea of incorporating visuals and some proper field recordings.  Also, I guess I had grown a bit of a fondness for the geese through working on “Flight” and felt that I wasn’t quite finished with them yet!

Its important to me that I make work that has a relevance to where I am and with what is around me.

I also wanted to work on this project with other artists that have ties to the region, Emma and Pete were an obvious choice, I love both their work, they’re really good at what they do and in fact both had been involved in some level with “Flight” too.

What about geese particularly sparked your inspiration?

Initially the folklore surrounding the barnacle geese was the bit that got me hooked, the idea that folk actually thought they hatched from barnacles on bits of driftwood… totally brilliant!  But I guess very quickly there was an admiration that grew for them, it is amazing what they do – the distances they travel each year.  They evoke a lot and represent all sorts of different things to different folk, all the while they’re just being a cool wee goose flying between here and the high arctic trying to eat the best grass when it grows and raise a family… I like that.

I believe you’ve visited Svalbard twice now, along with your key collaborator Emma Dove to record the geese as well as the natural surroundings. How has this affected the work?

I’ve actually only visited Svalbard once… and that was with key collaborators Emma Dove and Pete Smith.  We also have spent a fair amount of time at Caerlaverock filming and recording the geese and last April/May I spent a month on a wee island in Northern Norway (just in the arctic circle) where the geese spring stage on their way north.
So yeah, a lot of this project has been about filming and recording the environments that the geese pass but also about talking to people and what place means to them.  It was particularly important for the three of us to make it to Svalbard as that has really put things into context, to be able to explore the furthest extents of the flyway and get a perspective from both ends.

Its been an interesting one as a project that started off with the geese has ended up with lots of chat about people, its been a very organic process.  We’ve learnt a lot from each other.

How’s it been working with the National Theatre of Scotland?

I’ve been really enjoying working with NTS on the project, they’ve been incredibly supportive, not just with the narrative development of the work but also with the technical/practical side of things and being able to help hold the production elements of the project… something that I personally find pretty overwhelming.
They’ve got a huge amount of experience and all this resource that we have been able to access, so its been a really great process for us.
We’ve been working closely with director/playwright Davie Anderson and he feels very much like part of the Solway to Svalbard team now, having that outside lens to look at a project has been a really helpful.  He’s been encouraging and supporting us to explore different ways of presenting the work… its definitely been a change from what we are used to within our own practices and at times a little daunting but actually it has been really refreshing and enjoyable and genuinely feel the work will be the better for it.
Its also been great to work up at Rockvilla, to have a bit of separation to properly focus on a project has been super helpful, not to mention that it’s a really cool space to work in.

What should we expect?

That’s a hard one as we’re still working that one out ourselves… I guess showing the work through Just Start Here allows us to properly test for the first time all the different elements of the work, that up until now we have been unable to.  As well as figuring out how to actually make this work we’ve been focusing a lot on the narrative of the project, and feel we’ve got to a really strong place with that.  There’s obviously elements that will be missing for this showing, but we’re hoping that folk will be able to get a good idea of what the finished work might be like.
For lots of different reasons this is a pretty complicated show, we’re combining multiple screens with surround sound design and live musicians as well as dialogue and other more theatrical elements.  So on that side of things it looks and sounds pretty cool… not the kind of thing you see very often… especially in a social club.

What are the future plans for the work?

What is great about Just Start Here is that it is an opportunity to test ideas and to see how folk respond to those ideas.  There will no doubt be things that need tweaked afterwards as well as other elements that we simply have not had time to get to yet.  We have a rough diamond here.

As I’ve said previously I’m really enjoying working with NTS on the project, so would like to continue that journey and see where we end up.  But the idea would be to create a touring work… it makes perfect sense to me that a work based on migration should travel itself.

Solway to Svalbard will be a part of Friday evenings Just Start Here festival, in Dumfries on Friday 28th February. Limited tickets are still available for the evening are £5 per person, and available online here

Categories
News

Just Start Here Arrives in Dumfries with National Theatre of Scotland

Just Start Here, the National Theatre of Scotland’s pop-up festival of Scottish artists and collaborative performance, returns for its third year in 2020. Taking place in Dumfries on 28 and 29 February, the festival will be presented in collaboration with high street venue and pioneering artistic community organisation The Stove Network.


The two-day festival will feature contributions and new work-in-progress theatre and performance from Dumfries-based Scottish talent, along with live music, discussions, food and drink, and creative happenings throughout the town.


Micro-festival Behavin’? will take over the streets of Dumfries, with artistic happenings in locations throughout the centre and beyond to invite audiences to peer beneath the belly of the town and experience a new kind of experiment with public space.
As well as pop-up performance out on the high street, Just Start Here will take over three spaces in the town: disused shop-front turned gallery space The Oven, local social and working men’s club The Railway Club, and Stove Network HQ The Stove. There will be pop-up performances of Lone Wolves, a new project from artist Katherina Radeva of multi-award-winning theatre company Two Destination Language, as well as a new solo work from award-winning choreographer and performer Mele Broomes.

Dumfriesshire-based musician Stuart Macpherson, filmmaker Emma Dove, and sound recordist Pete Smith present the latest iteration of their Solway to Svalbard project exploring the links between Dumfries and Galloway and the High Arctic.


Just Start Here will also see contributions from artists and groups such as Ashanti Harris, Sue Zuki, //BUZZCUT//, as well as live music performances, provocative talks, discussions and debates led by Nic Green and Stewart Laing on the arts’ relationship to place and community, and how artists can successfully navigate the “gig economy” of the sector.

Just Start Here is a playground for Scottish artists: a space to share and generate ideas, art and provocations, and to spark new collaborations across art-forms as well as offering a curated and supported platform for bold, vital work to find its feet in front of an audience. The festival was first staged in Glasgow in January 2018, and last year took place in Aberdeen in partnership with Citymoves.

Just Start Here is part of Engine Room, the National Theatre of Scotland’s nation-wide programme of artistic development opportunities. Engine Room aims to bring artists together to develop skills, networks and create new work at the greatest reach of their imaginations and ambitions.Engine Room and Just Start Here are supported by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. Join the conversation: #JustStartHere

Check out the the full line-up below, and click HERE to view the full programme.

Categories
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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