A promotional film produced for Avalanche Arts, a community arts organisation based in East Cleveland, that showcases some of the workshops put on for women and children in dance music and visual arts during 1990 and 1991. Title: A voluntary community arts organisation in Cleveland has been working with women and children through a creative training programme supported by Northern Arts, Langbaugh Borough Council and Teesside Development Corporation. The following video documents the dance,...

A promotional film produced for Avalanche Arts, a community arts organisation based in East Cleveland, that showcases some of the workshops put on for women and children in dance music and visual arts during 1990 and 1991. Title: A voluntary community arts organisation in Cleveland has been working with women and children through a creative training programme supported by Northern Arts, Langbaugh Borough Council and Teesside Development Corporation. The following video documents the dance, music and visual arts workshops organised through VILLAGE ARTS 1990 – 1991 Avalanche Arts Inside Loftus Town Hall a group of women in various costumes and masks give a performance to an audience seated around the sides of the room. The women create a rhythmic beat using plastic drums and wooden claves. Title: Avalanche Arts Performance Loftus Town Hall Cleveland January 1991 The performance continues with the participants singing and dancing around a sculpture set up in the middle of the floor. Title: Earth Fire Air Water Space With the sound of the women still banging their drums, a large sculpture made with chicken wire in the corner of a room. Title: To create sculpture A woman dressed in a facemask beats her plastic drum. Title: To design printed fabric Another woman wearing a different mask change to a third costumed woman seated on a nearby bench beating a plastic drum. Title: To communicate through music A woman standing at a table producing another mask, in another part of the room a second woman works to produce a costume from strips of plastic. Around the room other women working on different crafts. Title: To make masks and costumes A dress rehearsal for the performance taking place inside Loftus Town Hall with work going on in the background on the staging of the event. Title: Confidence to participate and perform in a multi-media event has been gained through a long-term training programme flexible in individual needs. The weekly workshops were held in various venues in the villages of East Cleveland To music the women perform a dance and movement routine about the object in the middle of the floor. Title: Expression through dance and movement became possible in group established over a period of time. Cleveland’s Dance Development Project offered a dancer to work with Village Arts in liaison with Langbaurgh Borough Council The performance continues and ends with all the women laying on the floor. Title: AVALANCHE ARTS continues to attract involvement from other individuals as each event introduces different skills and develops resources AUGUST 1991 – the group worked with Cleveland Theatre Company in the outdoor production of A Midsummers Night’s Dream OCTOBER 1991 – a performance of Attic Attack was devised for an event with Skelton Adult Training Centre The programme of weekly workshops continued with the group learning from each other as well as visiting artists MUSIC SESSION with Alex Herbert and members of STAR QUALITY STEEL BAND…. Two black men perform on steel pan drums, around the room women are shown how to play several percussion instruments made from household objects. A woman accompanies one of the men on the steel pan drums, two other women are shown how to play they drums. A series of still images showing a female photographer taking pictures of another woman in a small studio space. A second woman in a different costume has her photograph taken changes to another room where a third woman appears wearing a fur coat and face paint who laughs along with the other women around her. A fourth woman wearing a set of inverted antlers on her head has her photograph taken while speaking with the woman behind the camera. She returns to the costume room and changers her outfit. As she has her photograph taken again in the new outfit, she talks about why she is here. A woman with Down Syndrome has her photograph taken beside a large teddy bear, she speaks with the camerawoman about her family. The film ends with all the women featured walking through Loftus in their outfits. End title: Sal Buckler, Jane Cuthbert, Fran Duncan, Linda Forrest, Sandra Himsworth, Helen Howard, Lorna Moone, Cath Nicholls, Angela Noble, Denny O’Brien, Jozefa Rogocki, Lesley Taylor, Jean Vincent, Marilyn Vodden, Sue Ward, Margaret Williams