Saturday 4th November 4-6 pm at The Lab, Haverfordwest
Old Ocky Whites Department Store, Riverside Market, Haverfordwest.
Everyone welcome, suitable for children, free admission

This will be the first public screening of the new video installation Gather / Casglu by Ruth Jones with a soundtrack created by electronic composer by Andy Wheddon. Jones’s film work is characterised by rhythmic editing, and long slow shots that draw the viewer into a contemplation of place, patterns and presence.

The film has been created from landscape imagery shot in Pembrokeshire combined with footage from the Holy Hiatus and Joon Dance collaborative project Gather / Casglu in April 2017 – a series of outdoor site-specific dance workshops exploring place and the movement of people and animals through the Pembrokeshire landscape led by professional dancers Zosia Jo, Sally Smithson, Gareth Chambers and Louiseanne Wong.

Also showing will be the documentary film about how the dance and movement project evolved and the responses of those who took part. This was a truly multi-generational event in Solva, Newgale and Haverfordwest with participants from ages 4 – 79.

(images above: stills from Gather / Casglu filming by Ruth Jones and Sharron Harris)

Workshop and Performance dates: Tuesday 11^th, Wednesday 12^th and Thursday 13^th April 2017 1.30-5 pm

Locations: Solva, Newgale and Haverfordwest

Cost for all three workshops: Full Price £40, Concessions £35 (low income/students/OAP’s), Family groups £30 per person

Dyddiadau Gweithdy a Pherfformiad: Dydd Mawrth 11, Dydd Mercher 12 a Dydd Iau 13 Ebrill 2017 1.30-5 pm

Lleoliadau: Solfach, Niwgwl a Hwlffordd

Y gost ar gyfer y tri gweithdy: Pris Llawn £40, Gostyngiadau £35 (incwm isel/myfyrwyr/pensiynwyr), Grwpiau teuluol £30 y pen

Gather is a collaborative Holy Hiatus project with Solva based dancer/choreographer Zosia Jo, director of Joon Dance, who will be working with professional dancers Sally Smithson and Gareth Chambers to create three on site dance workshops and informal performances for local people. We will be exploring the themes of “gather and flock” focusing on the interrelated, movement of humans and animals through landscape, for example, the way that cattle would have moved en masse along the drover’s roads, the murmurations of starlings, shoals of fish and schools of dolphins as well as the numerous ways that people gather or move together. Focusing less on individual performance, the dances will be choreographed to focus on how we move together as one. We will be celebrating through movement the relationships between humans, animals and the land in rural west Wales, deepening and highlighting our communal connection to the places we inhabit.

Workshops will take place over three consecutive days in the three locations from 1.30-4.30 pm with an informal public performance from 4.30-5 pm each day. You will learn some unique movement techniques and new choreography developed by Zosia, Sally and Gareth. At the end of each workshop, the group will offer an informal performance on site, sharing what you have learnt that day with friends, family, local people and passers by.

The workshops are open to anyone of any age interested in exploring movement in an inclusive, fun and engaging way. No dancing experience is necessary! Family groups are encouraged, and under 8’s are welcome if accompanied and supervised by an adult at all times.

Joon Dance Company is dedicated to bringing professional dancers closer to communities. Zosia Jo believes that ‘everyone of any ability or age can learn to move in a satisfying way’.

Please let us know about any disabilities, additional needs or movement difficulties prior to booking and we will endeavour to accommodate you.

The dancers will be filmed and a video installation will be edited by Ruth Jones, featuring a soundtrack of new site-specific compositions by electronic composer Andy Wheddon, and presented to the public October 2017

Book here

This project is funded by The Arts Council of Wales and Pembrokeshire County Council Support of the Arts

Prosiect Holy Hiatus yw Casglu ar y cyd â’r ddawnswraig/coreograffydd o Solfach Zosia Jo, cyfarwyddwraig Joon Dance, a fydd yn gweithio gyda’r dawnswyr proffesiynol Sally Smithson a Gareth Chambers i greu tri gweithdy dawns a pherfformiadau anffurfiol ar y safle i bobl leol. Byddwn yn archwilio themâu “casglu a phraidd” gan ganolbwyntio ar symudiadau cydgysylltiedig bodau dynol ac anifeiliaid trwy dirwedd, er enghraifft, y ffordd y byddai gwartheg wedi symud gyda’i gilydd ar hyd ffyrdd y porthmyn, murmuron y drudwy, heigiau o bysgod ac ysgolion o ddolffiniaid yn ogystal â’r ffyrdd niferus y mae pobl yn ymgasglu neu’n cydsymud. Bydd y dawnsiau, sy’n canolbwyntio llai ar berfformiadau unigol, yn cael eu coreograffu i ganolbwyntio ar y ffordd rydym yn cydsymud fel un. Byddwn yn dathlu trwy symud y berthynas rhwng bodau dynol, anifeiliaid a’r tir yng ngorllewin Cymru wledig, gan ddyfnhau a thynnu sylw at ein cysylltiad cymunedol â’r lleoedd rydym yn byw ynddynt.

Bydd y gweithdai’n cael eu cynnal dros dridiau yn olynol yn y tri lleoliad o 1.30-4.30pm gyda pherfformiad cyhoeddus anffurfiol o 4.30-5pm bob dydd. Byddwch yn dysgu rhai technegau symud unigryw a choreograffi newydd a ddatblygwyd gan Zosia, Sally a Gareth. Ar ddiwedd pob gweithdy, bydd y grŵp yn cynnig perfformiad anffurfiol ar y safle, gan rannu’r hyn a ddysgwyd gennych y diwrnod hwnnw gyda ffrindiau, teulu, pobl leol a phobl sy’n mynd heibio.

Mae’r gweithdai’n agored i unrhyw un o bob oedran sydd â diddordeb mewn archwilio symudiadau mewn ffordd gynhwysol, hwyl a difyr. Nid oes angen profiad o ddawnsio! Anogir grwpiau teuluol, mae croeso i blant dan 8 oed os oes ganddynt gwmni a goruchwyliaeth oedolyn bob amser.

Mae’r Joon Dance Company yn ymroi i ddod â dawnswyr proffesiynol yn agosach at gymunedau. Cred Zosia Jo y gall ‘pawb o unrhyw allu neu oedran ddysgu symud mewn ffordd foddhaol’.

Rhowch wybod i ni am unrhyw anableddau,anghenion ychwanegol neu anawsterau symud cyn cadw lle a byddwn yn gwneud ein gorau i ddarparu ar eich cyfer.

Bydd y dawnswyr yn cael eu ffilmio a gosodiad fideo’n cael ei olygu gan Ruth Jones, sy’n cynnwys trac sain o gyfansoddiadau newydd penodol i’r safle gan y cyfansoddwr electronig Andy Wheddon, a’i gyflwyno i’r cyhoedd ym mis Hydref 2017

Cadwch le fan hyn

Partus (birth) is a collaboration between visual artist Ruth Jones and electronic composer Andy Wheddon that takes as a starting point a CTG scan of a medicalised labour and birth. The 10ft long paper trace contains ultrasound recordings of a number of bodily rhythms that faithfully record the labour, such as the mother’s contractions and blood pressure and the baby’s heart rate. Partus reinterprets and enacts the trace as sound, mediating between mourning the medical-technological intervention in labour and  reclaiming the human experience.

A fifteen minute documentary film about the making of Partus is now available for viewing.

View 3 minute Trailer

Stephen Jenkinson will be back to west Wales between 17th and 21st May 2017 for the first of his UK Orphan Wisdom School sessions in Llanrhian, Pembrokeshire. This event is run by Orphan Wisdom, please direct all enquiries to Nathalie Roy nathalie@orphanwisdom.com

Details about the May 2017 session can be found here http://orphanwisdom.com/event/orphan-wisdom-school-new-overseas-class-come-from-away-1-4/

Performance: Saturday 12th December, 7-9 pm Small World Theatre

Workshop with Jules Heaven Sunday 13th December 10 am – 1 pm, Small World Theatre

Tickets £10 / £7.50 Book

Partus (birth) is a collaboration between visual artist Ruth Jones and electronic composer Andy Wheddon that takes as a starting point a CTG scan of a medicalised labour and birth. The 10ft long paper trace contains ultrasound recordings of a number of bodily rhythms that faithfully record the labour, such as the mother’s contractions and blood pressure and the baby’s heart rate. Partus reinterprets and enacts the trace as sound, mediating between mourning the medical-technological intervention in labour and  reclaiming the human experience. Partus will echo the altered experience of time that being in labour induces, linking the project to Jones’ on going exploration of liminal or threshold states. The performance will combine electronic samples and the live voices of improvisational singers Maggie Nicols and Emily Laurens, to take the audience on an immersive journey through the rhythmic primal beats of one of life’s great transitions – birth.

read more…

Following the overwhelming response to his previous visit in 2014, Stephen Jenkinson, founder of the Orphan Wisdom School is returning to the UK in 2015 for a number of events, including four dates with Holy Hiatus in Wales. Tickets are now available for purchase online.

Friday 6th November – An Introduction to Dying Wise – evening talk based on Stephen’s recently published book Die Wise at Bridges Community Centre, Monmouth

Saturday 7th November – Making Meaning of the Ending of Days – one day teaching at Bridges Community Centre, Monmouth

Friday 13th November – An Introduction to Dying Wise – evening talk based on Stephen’s recently published book Die Wise at Theatr Gwaun, Fishguard

Saturday 14th November – Making a Village Whole – Caring for the Living and Carrying the Dead – one day teaching at Trefacwn, Llanrhrian, Pembrokeshire

Go to Events to book tickets for 6th / 7th and 14th November or to Theatr Gwaun for talk on 13th November

Some comments from attendees from Stephen’s previous Holy Hiatus events:

“I was profoundly affected by the weekend, so much so that I brought my partner in halfway through Saturday. It’s hard to put into words how it left me, devastated maybe? Heart-broken but hooked. I can assure you any chance I can get to hear Stephen speak I will take like a shot”.

 

“A Stephen Jenkinson event is not a refuge for those seeking anodyne spiritual consolations and neatly worked systems. He expects that you pay him the respect of listening attentively to his message, and if you’re wise you will. What he has to tell us, is of the profoundest significance. He speaks hard-earned truths of the Soul that have been won through far reaching reflection, deep immersion in authentic living and long, long apprenticeship. They are inescapable, yet unwelcome in a world distracted by the techno-fantasies of limitlessness and psychically numbed by collective death denials, on an epic scale.

But fear not, the tone is of a heartfelt seriousness, not one of gloom. The style of the telling is nothing short of astonishing, masterful, riveting, and genuinely, genuinely Bardic and with an effect that I thirst to repeat…

I came away Joyful, resolved to live and to die well.”

 

“Stephen’s teachings devastated me and I didn’t know initially how to translate the new paradigm to my existing situation. It changed radically the way I work with clients as a counsellor. The event has given me a language by which to communicate what I have been feeling and sensing about our culture”

 

“I particularly value the way we were able to not be in our heads; I have experienced a good deal of meditation and teachings, retreats etc…Stephen seemed to be reaching directly into our hearts. Yes, some of that is painful – “harrowing”, I have a sense of everything being pregnant with death, it grows within us all, everything…I have a stronger sense that life and death are not separate”.

Friday 16th October, Theatr Gwaun, Fishguard 7 pm Screening of Seven Songs for a Long Life (formerly with the working title Singing Hospice) followed by Q & A with director Amy Hardie.

Seven Songs documents the lives of six day-care patients in Strathcarron Hospice, following them between home and hospice as they navigate their way through the end of a future that faces all of us….(read more)

Tickets £7.50 / £6 – Book online via Theatr Gwaun or phone 01348 873421

As part of the ongoing project The Quick and the Dead, exploring birth rites and death rites, Holy Hiatus will be presenting screenings and talks:

Saturday 19th September 7 pm Theatr Gwaun, Fishguard
Talk by Helen Knowles from the Birth Rites Collection and screening of the film Born directed by Andy Lawrence
Tickets £7.50 / £6 Purchase via Theatr Gwaun website or from the Box Office 01348 873421

As part of the project The Quick & the Dead, Holy Hiatus presents two workshop weekends in Wales with Stephen Jenkinson, teacher, author, storyteller, spiritual activist, farmer, ceremonialist and founder of the Orphan Wisdom School, Ottawa, Canada, a teaching house for the skills of deep living, good dying and crafting human culture.

“From a young age we see around us that grief is mostly an affliction, a misery that intrudes into the life we deserve, a rupture of the natural order of things. Here’s the revolution: What if grief is a skill, in the same way that love is a skill, something that must be learned and cultivated and taught? What if grief is the natural order of things, a way of loving life anyway? Grief and the love of life belong together. They are natural human skills that can be learned first by being on the receiving end and feeling worthy of them, later by practicing them when you run short of understanding. In a time like ours, grieving is a subversive act”.
(Stephen Jenkinson)

The Meaning of Death – Tredegar House, Newport, Gwent               

Saturday 21st – Sunday 22nd November 2014

Death – the Cradle of your love of Life – Small World Theatre, Cardigan

Saturday 29^th – Sunday 30^th November

Go to Workshops for more information and to Events to book tickets