MUSIC AND ARTS PIERIAN HISTORY
The History of Music & Arts at the Pierian Centre
The city council intends St Pauls to become Bristol’s Cultural Quarter over the next 5 years – and the Pierian Centre has expertise and connections to offer this process. The arts traditionally bring life and vitality to communities. Everyone has a creative potential – and this universal potential expresses itself in ways that cross culture, language and class.
The very first booking we took in 2002 was for a Tibetan Overtone Chanting workshop – and music and the other arts have played a vital part in the life of the Centre ever since. Mark Vaughan still brings his Chanting workshop to us – but our cultural programme has blossomed considerably since he first worked here.
Our “Themed Evenings” were an early experiment in bringing different art forms together. Themes such as Storytelling, Mythologies and Voices allowed a variety of practitioners to present different approaches to the same subject – giving participants a rich and multi-layered experience.
This cross-art-form approach is now pursued in the context of our regular Art Exhibitions which are accompanied by a related programme of music, film, poetry and debate. This provides a really full response to the theme of the exhibition; and, as an “event”, it also draws many more visitors than an exhibition alone would. June 2005 saw the first of our big Refugee Week exhibitions, Celebrating Sanctuary. This is now an annual 9-day extravaganza, bringing different communities and different art-forms into the Centre. Other (slightly) smaller exhibitions take place in Spring and Autumn – and again allow the whole of this beautiful Georgian building to be given one creative focus.
From its small beginnings in 2002 the Pierian Centre’s cultural programme has spread out into different strands, sometimes linked, sometimes distinct: Art, Music, Film, Books, and Performance/Theatre.
Art
in addition to the big exhibitions mentioned above, the Centre has undertaken a number of sponsorships and commissions. We helped Helen Wilson exhibit her sensational Rwandan paintings at London’s Oxo Gallery and then transfer them to the Rwandan Embassy. Carly McDonough was able to undertake her photographic project, Maid in South Africa, with help from the Centre; and we also helped UrbanaLaguna present their video project, Installation4Life, here at the Centre.
Major purchases include Ricky Romain’s Without Power, Without Voice, which forms such a strong presence in our hallway. The Pierian Centre has also commissioned 3 artworks for the front courtyard. Our Peace Pole was designed and carved for us by Touchwood Enterprises, rearing up from the basement to emerge on the same level as startled passers-by. The eighteenth century arches at the foot of the pole are home to the ceramic fountain created for us by Joanna Espiner, and The Dreamer, a striking sculpture by Sophie Howard that catches many of the Pierian Centre’s dreams and aspirations.
As well as investing in the scale and quality of the work on-site, the Centre is finding ways of taking art out of the building and into the community. We are collaborating with Neville Gabie (resident artist for Bristol Alliance development in the City Centre) to develop projects in the area; and we have supported Paul Witt of Bristol Art Market in bringing outdoor art to the railings in Portland Square. Further plans involve collaborations and partnerships with other organizations in the city.
Music
Zimbabwean mbira player, Fidelis Mherembi was the first inspiration for our programme of music. We developed KaleidoSound evenings to bring together musicians and instruments from around the world to see what kind of dialogue emerged. The result was a number of evenings that dazzled an audience with music probably never heard before. Fidelis has since left the UK – and KaleidoSound has evolved into our regular Musicians Forums. These dispense with an audience and give musicians the freedom to experiment with new sounds and combinations. We are sponsoring Fidelis to do an MSc at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) next year – so we’re hoping to see him back at the Centre from time to time.
Some of our most important bookings, like the Tibetan Chanting, occupy a fertile terrain that combines music and spirituality. Chanting Peace, Spirit of the Drum, Gongs and Singing Bowls are regular visitors – culminating in what we hope will become an annual Sound Healing Festival. Other bookings are more purely musical: David Ogden’s Exultate were given rehearsal space here 2003-4; Bristol Guitar Society holds its monthly meetings here; and Bristol Didgeridoo Club fill the building with a strange music every fortnight.
The Pierian Centre has also hosted gigs and concerts of a delicacy in tune with the building’s character. The Pindrop Band; Air and Sutura; Indian music from Simon Kohli & Tapan Roy; “Healthy Concerts”; a performance & Masterclass from Classical guitarist Sean Woods; and Ma Helba’s “Artists for Africa”: all these captured something of the spirit of the Pierian Centre.
Film
The first “big” film shown at the Pierian Centre (after smaller beginnings) was Blind Flight about Brian Keenan & John McCarthy’s ordeal in Beirut. We presented it as part of our Refugee Week exhibition in 2006; and the presence of its director, John Furse, meant that the film could be first enjoyed and then discussed and explored in a fuller way.
The value of this was reinforced by the experience of hosting screenings as part of 2007’s Afrika Eye Film Festival. The Ghanaian film maker, John Akomfrah, was able to present and provide extraordinary context for a number of rare Ghanaian documentaries as well as his own film, Testament. In the same week Evan Williams & Siobhan Sinnerton from Channel 4’s Unreported World came to show and discuss their film Mugabe’s Reign of Terror. The result is our commitment to launch a regular film club with discussion here at the Centre.
Books
We’ve been delighted to find how congenial the Centre proves as a platform for Book Launches. Our first was Alison Freund’s Not in My Name, a poetic response to the Iraq War; soon followed by Bette Burke’s Cinderella Square, the first published history of Portland Square. The latter half of 2006 saw the launch here of Perlita Harris’ In Search of Belonging: Reflections by Trans-racially Adopted People; Sami Chugg’s Loving Your Body; David Green’s Music of Maninjau; and Carmen Alfonso’s book and exhibition, On the Island of my Bed.
The anniversary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade allowed us to tie in the launch of Pip Jones’ Satan's Kingdom: Bristol and the Transatlantic Slave Trade with a public discussion; and to set it in the context of our art exhibition, Slavery, Power & Freedom, and the Pierian Centre’s wider commemoration Bells Unbound.
Performance Theatre
The nature of a Grade 1-listed building means that performance is less well-represented, but it does have a presence. Mrs Willoughby Builds a House (1795) was a fascinating performance piece from architectural historian Janet Margrie. Weekly Improvisation workshops are led by Tristan Hancock; and every fortnight Cecilia Ndhlovu teaches Zulu Gumboot Dance in our Old Kitchen. Theatre Bristol run seminars for practitioners, and Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory hold auditions here.
Speakeasy
In May 2007 Helen Wilson hosted a Welcome Speakeasy here for Nii Obodai (Watershed’s resident artist) – with performance by Breathing Fire, poetry from Lawrence Hoo, and Ishmahil Blagrove of ricenpeas discussing his work as a film producer and director.
