ARCHIVES - 2003

The month was dominated by the completion of the Hamlet Project. Alan Govan's hard work with the Marching Band came to fruition with their appearance, along with TRASH'd, at Traquair House Fair, in the Scottish Borders, on the 2 nd and 3 rd . Their tie-dyed suits looked great, thanks to Jenny Miller's hard work, as they marched through the fair and into the courtyard in front of the house. The drama players did a mock version of Hamlet (in 7 minutes) to convince everyone that Hamlet was really a comedy suitable to present to King James, so avoiding getting their heads cut off. The Jedburgh singers, Unstruck Orchestra, and Michael Freeman's new Junk percussion group showed off part of their contribution to the Opera, but TRASH'd definitely stole the show.

Bill, Finlay, Marianne, Neil and Jenny all worked as part of the Maltings Summer School, which was dedicated to produce music, dance, drama and art for the Hamlet Project. The young people were brilliant to work with. Our favourites among the other artists were music/drama worker Wendy Payn and music/dance worker Joanne Burn. Hamlet was quite the most ambitious production we've been involved in so far, with adults and children, choirs, actors, soloists, dancers, music from tuned and un-tuned percussion, and pre-recorded music, even a piece for Border pipes. The reviews were a bit mixed on the final performance on the 16 th but, again, the performance groups from TRASH as well as the dance pieces, came out well. We've been invited back to do a special version of Romeo and Juliet next year. Details are under wraps for the moment.

Workshops are taking place every week at The Katherine Elliot Centre, Hawick and the Lanark Lodge, Duns. Both are special needs centres with a wide range of clients. Bill Muir is leading the work here, working solo at the KEC and, latterly, with volunteer Michael Smith, at the LL. Bill reports a very active and enjoyable atmosphere at each centre.

He has a group of about 9 at the Lanark Lodge plus staff with whom he has been working over a number of months. Progress within the group has varied, depending in part on the severity of individual problems, and of course innate sense of rhythm. Even the most severely handicapped, in terms of communication, has made progress, playing one of the basic exercises - drumming top, edge and side of drum in turn. This may sound like no sort of achievement at all but, bearing in mind that C-g has no verbal communication skills beyond shouts of emotion; it is a strong indication that communication is taking place. At the other end of the spectrum Li and Tr have strong playing skills and, in Li's case a strong desire to lead the group in basic volume conducting sessions. It is a wonderful group to work with, as Michael has discovered, and a great sense of fun .

The Katherine Elliot Centre has developed in a very different direction. Starting as an informal drumming group with a very wide range of abilities and handicaps, probably too wide, too informal in structure, and with too much of a drop in ethos, it has now developed into one to one, or very small group, sessions. JD is working on a ghost story using sound effects with the aim of recording the final result. This is allowing work to be concentrated, not just on the finding of appropriate sounds to make and record, but on the structure of the piece, the order of the work, and all the choices available.
JG has been taking the tutor role leading Bill (a merry dance - ed) through a mix of drumming and voice actions. It's difficult to precisely describe the nature of this question and response activity but Bill believes this piece of work is as important as anything we have done.

Bill worked with the Friday Group, young teenagers all of whom have some degree of hearing difficulty, for a full day. It's nearly a year since the last event and, of course everyone has grown and changed. The pleasure the group has in their get togethers is contagious. Everyone has made great strides in their playing skills. N, who is profoundly deaf, was clearly much more part of the group, and this impressed both Ros, the local teacher with links to the group, and Bill. All the young people played a rhythm to camera.

'Thank you for all your hard work today. I do realise that your day was a good deal longer than ours with packing and unpacking the van. However, I am absolutely convinced that the kids had a great day and I was thrilled at the way they had improved since last year! I have a memory of N 2 years ago, just going ape with the drumsticks with no concern for what anyone else was doing! Well done, you.' - RosBill has started a new strand of NOF Out of School Club work at St Boswells and Melrose. For secondary age children, split into 2 sessions based on age, the work will take place over a five week period. So far the groups have been very responsive. With the younger group in Melrose we have been able to build in ome tap dance because two of the girls are into that. After a session we had a nine minute piece (carefully timed). The senior group at Melrose includes only one non musician, and she used to play, and two of the group are drummers. The three hour sessions are demanding and we are looking at increasing support through volunteers.

The Special needs work at KEC and Lanark Lodge has started up after an Easter break. Just before the break Bill and James D finished the first part of the Ghost Story recording. They are working on some additions to the story. At Lanark Lodge, just before the break, CG did an interesting thing. He has no speech, making his wants known by such means as tugging helpers sleeves. He has had a habit of shoving drum sticks through the plug holes on the top of the drums. So the staff have taken to turning the barrels upside down. CG, out of the blue, on the last session before Easter, started turning his barrel the right way up. Their was the most tremendous roar of supportive applause and laughter from the group. Think about this. Someone with no language, so no obvious way of outsiders having much if any idea of his mental processes, clearly working out a solution to a problem. It was one of those inspirational moments. Michael, a new volunteer, and Tracy, a senior member of Lanark Lodge's staff were over the moon.

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