Participatory Arts Event Fri Feb 10
Posted on | January 19, 2012 | No Comments
B Arts is helping organise Direction of Travel, the first event organised by the West Midlands Participatory Arts Form. The aim of the day is to provide opportunities for conversation and activity. The focus of the day is to look at what are some of the key issues facing us as practioners in community and participatory arts. These relate to both our professional individual practice and the present drivers in the current policy and funding context. We also aim to gather more information for our website as WMPAF ( be ready to be asked to bring information on the day) and to find out more about what we all want from a regional network. The event is fee and food and refreshment is provided. To find out more and to have the chance to register for the event please follow the link below. Please only sign up if you really intend to come. Numbers strictly limited.
Take Part in Take This Waltz
Posted on | January 13, 2012 | No Comments
We are looking for faces – do you have one?
We want to film your face talking directly to camera. You will then become part of our next performance TAKE THIS WALTZ.
Please get touch and book a filming slot with us today. You can choose Friday 13th /20th/ 27th January.
We are filming at B arts, Barracks Rd, Newcastle under Lyme between 2 and 5pm.
We are filming between 2pm-5pm. It will only take up 20-30 minutes of your time but we need to schedule your time so please make sure you’ve booked before arriving. Call Deborah on 01782 717326 or email deborah.nicklin@b-arts.org.uk.
Photo by Roxy Shaw
Pop-Up Bakery at the Roebuck Centre this Saturday
Posted on | December 15, 2011 | No Comments
We’re very excited to be running a fresh bread stall as part of the Pop-Up Christmas Emporium at the Roebuck Centre, High Street, Newcastle-under-Lyme this Saturday (17th) from 10am-4pm. There will be Sourdough loaves, Christmas fruit loaf, Fat Cakes, Lardy bread and much more. All made fresh on the day without a trace of additives.
Do come along, we’ve even had special aprons made, and there are lots of other stalls selling last-minute Christmas gifts. The Pop-Up Bakery is part of the Baking Bread project, and you can find recipes and video demos on the project blog here.
Baking Bread
Posted on | November 29, 2011 | No Comments
We are in the middle of a lovely project baking bread, sharing recipes and learning how bread is a part of many different cultures. The Baking Bread project runs from now until spring 2012, and we will be working in a number of community venues around Stoke-on-Trent. We will be posting recipes, video demos and lots of photos of baked goods to get you inspired onto the baking bread project blog which you can get here. Several of us have already had a go at the rye flour starter and French Rustic loaf and pronounced it very tasty indeed.
Harvest – more reactions
Posted on | November 11, 2011 | No Comments
We continue to get fantastic feedback on Harvest. One writer in particular wrote a letter so moving and articulate we had to post a snippet. You can read the rest here
Growing up in a rural market town, spending late summer days cycling along country lanes to pick blackberries and gather wheat gleanings from the field verges to prepare the harvest display, I’ve often struggled with harvest celebrated in the urban place; the tins of potatoes and packet soups, let alone the setting, never seem quite right or authentic.
That was until last weekend, when I attended probably the most harvest-y festival I’ve ever experienced – let me describe… a damp Saturday evening approaching, across the darkness of the city-centre park, a large marquee softly glowing in the grassy dip under the trees; paper lanterns lining the pathway up to the entrance. After receiving a cheerful welcome and paying my £5 ticket price I was shown inside to a seat at one of four large tables set diagonally in each corner and covered in hand-decorated white cloths. Along one side of the tent sat a row of musicians, opposite them a cluster of singers and in the middle of the central space a large rustic table.
Our hosts welcomed us and explained that we were in for an evening of entertainment, theatre, story-telling, music, some dancing and delicious food – presented and served in a ‘ragged Arcadia’. Living up to the promise, the first taste we had was of slices of moist spiced-pears presented on large, thick, hand-moulded terracotta platters, which we were informed had been made in a pottery workshop that week; home-baked wholemeal bread with crunchy crust and bowls of vinegar and oil accompanied the pears. Then the theatre began….
