One Year On…
Dear Gathering Friends,
Nearly one year ago I joined Improbable in the role of ‘Strategic Lead for The Gathering’. A novel title for a company made up of the best improvisers around, who know that above all else you can’t be too attached to a plan. In fact I strongly suspect that the title made our co-Artistic Director Phelim wince the first few times we used it, which (sorry Phelim) made me giggle.
Well as our Associate Director Matilda has written, here, we do have a plan. To make a home for ourselves, and for you, and to do our best to pass on everything extraordinary we have learned and practiced. Anybody who had the recent good fortune to see Perfect Show for Rachel, and experience the power of improvisation to give creative and personal agency where it’s historically been denied, will understand the necessity and thrill of that drive to ‘pass it on’. But I could say that about all Improbable’s shows.
And of course we’re unfolding that plan Improbably. In Open Space. With clues and invitations and stories and shared meals. As Lee, our co-Artistic Director says: It doesn’t feel like a story about a building. It feels like a story about relationships.
And what relationships are growing? Well, ours with you - our community - above all else. You’ve joined us for Open Space conversations, summer workshops, R&D days and Celebration Meals. You’ve sent us ideas about mycelium structures and 3D scans of the Oast House. One of you came to a potluck dinner on an overnight coach from Belgium, crammed into a seat too small for your very long legs, with a huge artisan vegan quiche on your knees. You stayed, you talked, you shared your quiche then went home that same night on another too-small overnight coach.
The Gathering Community
We’ve been joined on the journey by a team of lawyers, experts in the areas of construction, real estate and planning law, all working for us pro-bono, thanks to their firm Taylor Wessing and the organisation Lawyers Volunteering for the Arts. Yes, if you run an arts charity in the UK, LVA might help you too - have a look.
We’ve connected with the history of Bore Place, and found that the roots of the artistic story we’re part of are deep and broad. Visionaries Susan Benn and Nicky Singer - who pointed us to Bore Place - ran hundreds of residential, interdisciplinary ‘labs’ onsite from 1989, convening thousands of artists, commissioners, funders, teachers, scientists and architects to take risks and ‘be more themselves’. We’re connecting with Clore Cultural Leadership Fellows whom, like myself, spent four of the best weeks of our lives there on residencies, conscious of being braver, kinder, cleverer there than we are elsewhere. We now spending the rest of our lives working to bring the spirit of ourselves at Bore Place into the rest of the world. No wonder the place thrums with resonance.
We’re getting to know our neighbours in Kent - connecting with Creative Folkestone, Tunbridge Wells Puppetry Festival, Hever Festival, The Gulbenkian Arts Centre, the Creative Kent Board and many independent theatremakers and artists. You’ll hear more about our local work soon.
And of course there’s Bore Place. Our new official address. If you want to write to us, you can do so at: Bore Place, Bore Place Road, Chiddingstone, Edenbrdge, Kent TN8 7AR.
Since the start of this year we’ve been working there regularly. We’ve been taking walks, sharing lunch and ideas with Bore Place staff and partners, meeting local councillors, learning about the ecology, stroking slow worms, and listening to stories about abandoned puppet theatres and haunted rocking chairs.
Bluebells at Bore Place
And through being there in the land, watching the snow fall and the bluebells grow, noticing how we and others feel to be part of it, we’re changing. Of course. How could we not? We’re in conversation and in relationship with the land in a way we never have been before, and we love it. It feels right as we think together about the best way to face the challenges of the future. Improbable’s practice of improvisation and Open Space supports transformational stories to emerge, and these connect us to our sense of agency, possibility and meaning in our lives. Bore Place’s regenerative practices inspire people to reconnect to each other and to the earth. Both are about creating more hopeful stories for the future - and developing the practices that can bring those stories to life. The Gathering wasn’t about land and nature before we entered into relationship with Bore Place; now it’s hard for me to separate the two.
The next few months will be exciting - we’re gathering a group of advisors, testing fundraising options, learning about other creation centres in the UK and abroad, and working on planning permission. We’re hosting a second Summer Academy and a first research residency. Together with Bore Place we’re working on the transition from ‘R&D’ to plans for fundraising and building work.
I recently visited Jenifer Wates, one of the founders of Bore Place in the 1970s. I asked her how she had made it happen. How had she transformed an idea into the successful, established charity we see today, making impact on countless individuals as well as the field of regeneration? Her answer: we were joined by the right people. If you’re reading this, you are the right people to help us make this happen, and you probably know others who are too. So please, spread the word and keep in touch. Because actually, our strategy, the long term plan for building and sustaining the Gathering, relies on one thing above all else: people.
So, almost exactly one year ago today I started working with Improbable. Exactly one year ago today, we learned about the death of Nicky Singer, the brilliant Nicky who ran the Performing Arts Labs, and introduced us to Bore Place via Matilda. On that day, though we didn’t know it was that day, we made a short film about our hopes for The Gathering at the Bore Place, and today, we’re sharing it with you.
We’ve stayed in touch with Nicky’s family and are working in her honour and memory, as well as in honour of all those who have taught, guided and connected us. Nicky’s sister, Jackie, has written a book of heartbreakingly beautiful poems about her. If you’d like to buy a copy please click here:
https://www.thehummingbirdlodge.com/product/loom-poems-of-love-and-loss/
Thank you all for being on the journey with us in the past year. I hope to see you at Bore Place soon.
Rachel
