A big group of variously abled people walked a chunk of a Bournemouth Slow Way. As they went they invented and illustrated a very weird and wonderful story
This story is part of our Tales from a Slow Way series. Each Tales award includes a contribution to the organisation as well as a project fee to the creative. The contribution for this project went to Dazzarama Drama, who passed it on to Scope, the disability charity that this walk fundraised for.
“This was the plan. Our shared story will capture a moment in time – this group, this route, this day – inspiring others to experience their own moment and to see the creative potential in a simple walk.
We will all walk the Slow Way together. Along the way we will devise a story inspired by our surroundings (the river, trees, bridges, boats, the weather etc), by people we meet (eg dog walkers, children in the play park, kayakers, wild swimmers), and our diverse lived experience in the world as a group of variously abled individuals.
As we walk, improviser and storyteller Ben Lindsay-Clark will ask open questions which everyone is invited to answer. Their ideas become the building blocks of our shared story. The group will be led in immersive sound-scape and performance as the story unfolds.
Whilst walking we will collect interesting plant material en route (eg grasses, daisies, fallen leaves etc). At the end of our walk we will be led by artist Ilse Black in a cyanotype workshop, using the plant material to create sun-printed images of our walk. These timeless images are impactful and satisfying to create, and enable our group of learning disabled adults a different way in which to express their response to the walk and shared story.
Dazzarama Drama will benefit as a group by heightening and broadening their ambitions about the kind of projects they can achieve, rather than simply being limited by their usual ‘local hall’ rehearsal surroundings. Drama can come alive anywhere. Streets. Parks. Riverbanks. Their confidence and sense of bonding and camaraderie will be increased by sharing this journey together.
Treehouse Theatre and Ilse Black are based in Bournemouth. We are working with Dazzarama Drama, a local drama group for learning disabled adults, who are also based in Bournemouth. Our route is part of the Slow Way from Bournemouth to Christchurch, Bouchr two. We are walking approximately a mile of this Slow Way, which runs along the bank of the River Stour from Wick Ferry to Tuckton Tea Gardens.
We’ve chosen this section because it’s safe and wheelchair accessible for our group. The length of the section of the Slow Way that we’re walking is carefully judged as our group has physical limitations. We hope that highlighting this walk will inspire other people who also have access needs and want to walk somewhere close to nature.
Everyone gets a cyanotype zine and their own cyanotype to take home.
And this was how it went:
A little walk
Bringing together the story-making skills of Treehouse Theatre and the artistic practice of Ilse Black with the learning disabled community members of Dazzarama Drama, the trio worked together along a Slow Ways route to create a cyan-atopic inspired printed and digital zine.
We went for our story walk at the end of October, which was absolutely delightful. There were 29 of us (and a dog) a mixture of adults with learning difficulties who all attend Dazzarama Drama classes locally, plus their carers/family members, and our little creative team. The sun was even shining for most of it!
While the sun shines
We invented a story together based on what we saw, who we met along the river side path, and let our imaginations run free.
Our walk finished at Tuckton Tea Gardens where we used their big garden marquee for our cyanotype illustration workshop. We used Victorian sun printing techniques to make illustrations for the story, using leaves & grasses, twigs & flowers found on the walk, and simple paper cut-out silhouettes.
Once the illustrations were dry, they were given to the people who made them, to hang on their wall. We scanned them all first though, and used them to illustrate our zine which you can read here:
The zine was printed – we made 50 hard copies – enough to give one to every person who was there, and we posted one to David Attenborough too, who sent us a lovely reply! The remainder will go to the Tearooms, where people can read it over a coffee, and hopefully be inspired to have a walk on the creative side.
You can watch the making of Ducks versus Pirates here:
Ben Lindsey-Clark (Treehouse Theatre) works widely with the local disabled community, and is an experienced improviser, story teller and professional actor. He is skilled in weaving together unique devised stories and empowering audiences to discover their creativity.
Ilse Black is an artist and illustrator delivering community art workshops with the aim of enhancing engagement with the outdoors and nature. Ilse recently completed a year-long collaborative project with Step into Nature through Dorset AONB, where the artists’ collaboration, through delivery, devised new approaches to enabling creative engagement for a diverse audience.
In 2023 we launched ‘Tales from a Slow Way’, an annual community stories initiative that enabled us to commission creatives and community groups to work together to produce original stories and content situated around Slow Ways walking routes. Each award included a donation to the organisation as well as a project fee to the creative.
Together, the awarded projects map the sheer diversity of walkers across the UK and highlight the importance of forging new paths.This year’s ten awardees were supported with funding from the Pilgrim Trust. This project is in partnership with our friends, All the Elements and The Outsiders Project.
Click here to find out more about our Tales from a Slow Ways project! Why not sign up to walk and review Slow Ways. You can also find and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
