Kindred Theatre
Kindred Theatre presents
Stories, Memories & Moments - An Audio Exhibition
For Autumn 2018 we're creating a Digital Audio Exhibition of life memories to tour with our theatre production of Dickens' 'The Haunted Man'.
These 'audio pictures' will be the product of workshops held this spring. We brought together young people (below 20) and older people (over 60) to share their individual stories inspired by personal objects and experiences from their lives.
The generations have never been so disconnected, and the world of the young may seem to have little in common with the world of the old. But despite having very different stories, the sentiments and feelings behind them have a huge amount in common.
Our storytelling workshops are designed to get different generations talking and sharing. We targeted areas of low engagement and high isolation for the elderly in places such as Oldham, rural Cheshire, Cockermouth, Barnards Castle and South Northamptonshire aiming to build a legacy of friendship and shared experience, in a welcoming, friendly environment - with lots of cake!
The stories told have been recorded, and will be placed on to MP3 players that will tour village halls and art centres in Autumn. This window into real people's histories will complement our theatre production of Dickens' ghost story 'The Haunted Man', a tale about memory and connecting over the generations. The full collection will also be on our website and also made available to the clubs and groups who have shared them with us, forming a growing and lasting archive.
We're currently fundraising to create a truly dynamic exhibition that will continue to grow and form a lasting legacy.
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/Kindred-Audio-Exhibition
We need to purchase 10 MP3 and Hygienic Headphone kits and create a dynamic exhibition stand to support the stories.
We have received funding from Arts Council England, and we need to match the award with other fund raising efforts -
thats why we are crowd funding for the Stories, Memories & Moments Audio Exhibition.
Please help us bring these unique stories to a wide audience and give them a lasting legacy.
For a full history of the project, please see the 'About' section below.
Stories, Memories & Moments -Spring 2018
was
A social event for the talkative, the curious and the downright nosey, sharing memories and discovering stories across the generations
With free tea, coffee and cake!
Stories, Memories and Moments is an opportunity for people, young and old, to discover each other’s true stories. In our relaxed cafe environment, come & experience simple, exciting, everyday, beautiful stories; participate in various social activities using objects, smells and sounds, or just sit and listen. If you have an object, a piece of music, or a photograph, that reminds you of a particular moment, please bring it along and we’ll make time to hear some of those stories.
What inspires us all may be very different but this get-together lets us see what we all have in common.
Stories, Memories & Moments is the first part of Kindred Theatre’s work for 2018: An extension of our 'What's your Story' evenings, the events are not about performing but about real people, young and old, sharing experiences and getting to learn things about one another in an informal atmosphere. Stories from these get-togethers will be recorded to create an audio exhibition that will tour to village halls and small communities in autumn to accompany our adaptation of Dickens’ Christmas ghost story The Haunted Man.
For more information about the history of the project and the events themselves please see below.
2018 Event Schedule
5th May - Oldham Library *
14th May - Winsford *
20th May - Tilston*
6th June - The Witham, Barnards Castle
9th June - Ambition for Ageing, Failsworth *
12th June - Kirkgate Arts Centre
18th June - School of Life, Northampton *
Stories, Memories & Moments - An Audio Exhibition
For Autumn 2018 we're creating a Digital Audio Exhibition of life memories to tour with our theatre production of Dickens' 'The Haunted Man'.
These 'audio pictures' will be the product of workshops held this spring. We brought together young people (below 20) and older people (over 60) to share their individual stories inspired by personal objects and experiences from their lives.
The generations have never been so disconnected, and the world of the young may seem to have little in common with the world of the old. But despite having very different stories, the sentiments and feelings behind them have a huge amount in common.
Our storytelling workshops are designed to get different generations talking and sharing. We targeted areas of low engagement and high isolation for the elderly in places such as Oldham, rural Cheshire, Cockermouth, Barnards Castle and South Northamptonshire aiming to build a legacy of friendship and shared experience, in a welcoming, friendly environment - with lots of cake!
The stories told have been recorded, and will be placed on to MP3 players that will tour village halls and art centres in Autumn. This window into real people's histories will complement our theatre production of Dickens' ghost story 'The Haunted Man', a tale about memory and connecting over the generations. The full collection will also be on our website and also made available to the clubs and groups who have shared them with us, forming a growing and lasting archive.
We're currently fundraising to create a truly dynamic exhibition that will continue to grow and form a lasting legacy.
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/Kindred-Audio-Exhibition
We need to purchase 10 MP3 and Hygienic Headphone kits and create a dynamic exhibition stand to support the stories.
We have received funding from Arts Council England, and we need to match the award with other fund raising efforts -
thats why we are crowd funding for the Stories, Memories & Moments Audio Exhibition.
Please help us bring these unique stories to a wide audience and give them a lasting legacy.
For a full history of the project, please see the 'About' section below.
Stories, Memories & Moments -Spring 2018
was
A social event for the talkative, the curious and the downright nosey, sharing memories and discovering stories across the generations
With free tea, coffee and cake!
Stories, Memories and Moments is an opportunity for people, young and old, to discover each other’s true stories. In our relaxed cafe environment, come & experience simple, exciting, everyday, beautiful stories; participate in various social activities using objects, smells and sounds, or just sit and listen. If you have an object, a piece of music, or a photograph, that reminds you of a particular moment, please bring it along and we’ll make time to hear some of those stories.
What inspires us all may be very different but this get-together lets us see what we all have in common.
Stories, Memories & Moments is the first part of Kindred Theatre’s work for 2018: An extension of our 'What's your Story' evenings, the events are not about performing but about real people, young and old, sharing experiences and getting to learn things about one another in an informal atmosphere. Stories from these get-togethers will be recorded to create an audio exhibition that will tour to village halls and small communities in autumn to accompany our adaptation of Dickens’ Christmas ghost story The Haunted Man.
For more information about the history of the project and the events themselves please see below.
2018 Event Schedule
5th May - Oldham Library *
14th May - Winsford *
20th May - Tilston*
6th June - The Witham, Barnards Castle
9th June - Ambition for Ageing, Failsworth *
12th June - Kirkgate Arts Centre
18th June - School of Life, Northampton *
About Stories, Memories & Moments
Why?
The issue of an ever-increasing ageing society, with the accompanying challenges of intergenerational disconnect and health problems associated with memory impairment, have led us as a theatre company to explore ways to use our skills as storytellers to help bring about increased communication and mental well-being as part of our outreach and audience engagement work.
Inspired by Manchester’s policy of making itself the foremost age-friendly city (Kindred Theatre is a Manchester based company), the Five ways to Well-Being recommendations from the New Economics Foundation and the amazing work done on Life Story by those who work with people experiencing dementia and memory problems, we have put together this workshop.
This workshop covers four of the factors in the Five Way to Well-Being, connecting, taking notice, learning and giving. The fifth is being active.The Five Ways to Well-Being philosophy is supported by such organisations as Mind, The NHS and The Children’s Society. Our workshop and techniques have been developed and honed with the assistance of the Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust Dementia Team. Kindred Theatre wishes to explore and share this way towards well-being through an enjoyable and relaxed intergenerational storytelling experience.
How it works
The workshop has been designed to be fun and fully participatory. We will explore the differences between memories and story, and how one can become the other, and looks at practical ways to encourage one another to tell stories. There is also an opportunity to hear the stories that participants may have brought along or those that the workshop has inspired them to share.
In the publicity for the event we ask that those who wish to contribute bring with them a prompt. This prompt can be anything from a handkerchief or piece of jewellery, a photograph of an event or a building, or a CD of a piece of music, birdsong, the wind* etc. Absolutely anything. Using these prompts participants will share the memory it generates and the real story connected to it.
Not everyone is comfortable sharing their stories; that’s ok. Stories exist as much for the listener as the teller and we positively encourage people to come along to drink tea, socialise and listen to other people’s lives. However, the workshop encourages contributions from anyone who wishes to, however, small that may be.
- It is a social storytelling event with contrasting ages groups.
- It takes place in a cafe style environment with complimentary tea, coffee and cake.
- It is a place where participants learn to tell and explore each other’s stories.
- It is a place where stories are shared - funny, sad, thoughtful, absurd, crazy - all true and all told by those attending.
- It’s where stories are inspired by memories prompted by objects, music or sounds or scents.
- It is a place to gather stories to form part of an Audio Exhibition to support our Autumn 2018 tour of The Haunted Man (See below)
- It is an opportunity for preconceptions to be dropped and connections made.
Why?
The issue of an ever-increasing ageing society, with the accompanying challenges of intergenerational disconnect and health problems associated with memory impairment, have led us as a theatre company to explore ways to use our skills as storytellers to help bring about increased communication and mental well-being as part of our outreach and audience engagement work.
Inspired by Manchester’s policy of making itself the foremost age-friendly city (Kindred Theatre is a Manchester based company), the Five ways to Well-Being recommendations from the New Economics Foundation and the amazing work done on Life Story by those who work with people experiencing dementia and memory problems, we have put together this workshop.
This workshop covers four of the factors in the Five Way to Well-Being, connecting, taking notice, learning and giving. The fifth is being active.The Five Ways to Well-Being philosophy is supported by such organisations as Mind, The NHS and The Children’s Society. Our workshop and techniques have been developed and honed with the assistance of the Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust Dementia Team. Kindred Theatre wishes to explore and share this way towards well-being through an enjoyable and relaxed intergenerational storytelling experience.
How it works
The workshop has been designed to be fun and fully participatory. We will explore the differences between memories and story, and how one can become the other, and looks at practical ways to encourage one another to tell stories. There is also an opportunity to hear the stories that participants may have brought along or those that the workshop has inspired them to share.
In the publicity for the event we ask that those who wish to contribute bring with them a prompt. This prompt can be anything from a handkerchief or piece of jewellery, a photograph of an event or a building, or a CD of a piece of music, birdsong, the wind* etc. Absolutely anything. Using these prompts participants will share the memory it generates and the real story connected to it.
Not everyone is comfortable sharing their stories; that’s ok. Stories exist as much for the listener as the teller and we positively encourage people to come along to drink tea, socialise and listen to other people’s lives. However, the workshop encourages contributions from anyone who wishes to, however, small that may be.
