Jane Austen – sense or sensibility?
The current media pre-occupation with Jane Austen sees her life and her novels primarily through the lens of emotion, of love and of marriage. We however will consider how Jane Austen’s novels explore also the concerns that she took seriously: faith, morality and the future of her country.
Paula Hollingsworth has had a life-long passion for the novels of Jane Austen – which has led to her recently writing of an MA thesis on Jane Austen’s spirituality. Currently a vicar in Leicestershire, Paula was born and brought up in Westbury Park.
Thomas Hardy: Un-enduring Love?
How did Hardy cope with the changing world of ideas, technology and the rapidly changing nature of human society?
I think he looked for love all his life, for a sense of belonging both in town and country that he never quite found, for fulfilment – intellectually, romantically and certainly sexually and I think morally or religiously. Unlike, say George Eliot who was wrestling similar ideas he never quite abandoned the idea that humanity needs moralilty derived from something metaphysical, a sense of God, even though he became an atheist.
So he no longer believed in the content yet seemed to think that the forms of religion were somehow necessary.
Hardy seems to me clear that the old forms of community, church, society etc couldn’t go on as they had but that something needed to replace them.Are we facing similar questions and difficulties?
What does spirituality without religion imply? And what does it mean for the Church?
David Lloyd is a Church of England Vicar with interests in arts.
His dissertation (whilst doing Architecture) was on ‘Architecture as Metaphor in Lady C’s lover’. “Far From the Madding Crowd is probably my favourite novel, first read it when I was 13. I never leave home without a copy, keep one by the bed at all times and have to read the whole thing before I come back whenever I go away so I have three worn out ‘travel editions’ that have all the places they’ve been to and where I’ve read it.
The Still Point of the Turning World
…there the dance is
A series of five poetry sessions with David Collins, Actor and Poet and Rev Julie Nicholson, Theatre Arts Director, Diocese of Bristol Each week we’ll explore a theme, read some favourite poems, share thoughts and ideas and have an opportunity to write our own poem.
Theme
Week 1: Forgotten things
It looked like a clump of small dusty nettles growing wild
Week 2: Absence
I visited the place where we last met
Week 3: Wonder
Is the soul solid, like iron?
Week 4: Journey
Go and open the door. Maybe outside…
Week 5: Discovery
I have seen the sun break through to illuminate a small field
Date/Time/Venue
Monday evenings: 23rd February; 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd March
7.30-9.30pm
The Methodist Church, North View, Westbury Park
Cost
£4 on the door per session or £15 season ticket (5 sessions)
This pays for warmth, light, tea, coffee, biscuits, pencil and paper, David and Julie. What a deal!
Contact
If there is anything else you would like to know about the course, please
telephone 07850 367 779 or email stillpoint@tapbristol.org.uk
‘The Most Effective Drum’ is a piece of devised theatre based around war poetry. It uses verse from Ancient Greece to the present day, along with music, movement and art, to create a unique experience blending poetry and theatre. The production employs a variety of dramatic styles to portray the ugliness of war and the beauty and nobility of the human soul – the subjects of war poets past and present.
The poems in The Most Effective Drum represent the voices of the victims, perpetrators, observers and survivors of war. One by one (like waves surfacing from the swell of an ocean, or solo instruments emerging from the belly of an orchestra) these voices rise up and insist upon the individuality of their experiences, of their suffering. And then, one by one, they return to the ensemble to become an expression not only of grief’s universality, but also of the nobility of the human condition and its capacity for compassion.
The Most Effective Drum brings together its performers and audience in a communal Act of Remembrance.
Julie Nicholson Says:
My inspiration was poetry, theatre and wanting to take an imaginative approach to Remembrance. I conceived an idea for devised theatre based around war poetry taken from ancient Greece to present day using music, movement and art.
My base line idea for the ensemble was a mixture of Greek Chorus and Birtwhistle style orchestra (the shape of the orchestra is essentially a body which constantly changes form and from which solo performers emerge as though joined by elastic, never actually separated from the body but able to function independently)
Each poem, whether solo or chorus never stands alone, but always part of a wider picture or image supported by ‘the body’. Each piece is linked by music, sound or movement.
The overall style I wanted to capture is that of requiem and ritual, in colour and mood. I wanted it to reflect the liturgical colour purple associated with requiem, and to draw on the soul aspect rather than drowning in a Shakespearean blood bath. Whatever we devised was intended to reflect the essence or story of the poem.
The heart of the piece reflects the ugliness of war and beauty and nobility of the human soul.
Tue 11th – Sat 15th Nov, 2008.
This dynamic performance puts an achingly human face on the tragedies of war… truly poetic and beautiful – BRISTOL EVENING POST.
The Most Effective Drum – Poetry and the theatre of war. The Wesley Studio, Methodist Hall, North View, Westbury Park, Bristol BS6 7QB
