Strong Manchester Women!

The Herizons group excelled themselves in a rousing performance inspired by strong women from Manchester’s history at Elizabeth Gaskell’s House last night!

From Peterloo activist Mary Fildes, to modern day anti-racism campaigner Louise Da-Cocodia, they took their audience on a lively journey through time with sketches and songs.

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The group have been working on the performance in weekly sessions since the beginning of March and were delighted to be able to share the stories they’d uncovered to an enthusiastic audience:

‘Fabulous performance – entertaining and informative, well done… When’s the next one?!’

‘I hope you continue to inspire others and carry on being powerful!’

‘Loved it all – the final song was very uplifting, great!’

Herizons is a community performance group of local women who meet every week for music and drama workshops at Elizabeth Gaskell’s House. Some members of the group first came together to devise and perform ‘Gaskell: The Musical!’ – a sell out sensation at Manchester Histories Festival 2016 – and we are pleased to have welcomed new members along the way. The group were recently honoured to perform at Manchester City Council’s International Women’s Day Awards at the Town Hall. This term, the Herizons group has been funded by the One Manchester Community Fund and sessions are delivered by enJOY arts and Claire Mooney, in partnership with Elizabeth Gaskell’s House.

We’ll soon be able to share some exciting news about what Herizons’ next adventure will be – so watch this space!

 

Political Pride Performance with young people at LGBT Youth North West

On Saturday 29th August young people from LGBT Youth North West took part in a performance on the theme of ‘Political Pride‘ which they shared with other young people and members of the public. This performance was part of a programme of events designed to provide an alternative space over the Manchester Pride weekend, with an emphasis on bringing Pride back to its political roots.

We worked with young people in creative sessions to share their feelings and opinions on this topic and to devise the final performance. The resulting piece included poetry, song, abstract movement and political awareness raising, in addition to boundless energy and lots of laughter!

You can check out the original song which young people wrote and performed here:

A big well done to everyone involved – we always enjoy working with LGBT Youth North West and look forward to our next project together.