Welland Festival returns on Wednesday 30th October 2024
at Elland Community Hub, Huddersfield Road. HX5 9DW
Welland Festival is an arts for wellbeing celebration in Elland.
This one-day festival focuses on connection, expression, and shared experiences through creativity. It’s an opportunity for everyone to enjoy creative health experiences, provided and led by local artists, practitioners, and community members.
Welland is open to everyone and aims to be as accessible as possible to people across Elland and further afield.
In 2024, Welland is part of CultureDale, the year of culture in Calderdale!
Wednesday 30th October
Elland Community Hub, Huddersfield Road. HX5 9DW
A full day and evening programme will be announced soon. In the meantime check out the highlights from 2023 below.
In 2023, Welland was themed around unearthing untold stories from our community. We ran a showcase event this year, which took place on Saturday 29th July at Southgate Methodist Church in Elland and was a celebration of a four-month creation period with the local community.
Find out all about it below!
This Here Land… is a dance piece about togetherness, community, and celebration, drawing inspiration from the rich local area and identity of Elland. The dancers take the audience on a compelling exploration of the town’s landmarks, memories, and defining moments, inviting them to connect with the essence of this land; it’s past, present, and future, and how we might build community together.
This Here Land… brings together both professional and non-professional dancers who reside or work within the local community.
The piece was crafted entirely from scratch over the five days leading up to Welland and is a collective effort from the whole group, who worked together for the very first time to offer their shared vision, creativity, and spirit.
The piece will be reimagined in 2024 for a larger cast from across the community!
This Here Land… was also made into an audio version for our podcast! Tune in to unleash your imagination and let go of the world around you for a little while…
Three brand-new short films featuring people from the local community were created in the three months before Welland and premiered at the showcase event:
Each film is a unique story of life in the lower valley, offering a glimpse into the rich tapestry of our local community.
Created in collaboration with filmmaker Dawn Feather over the past three months.
A celebration of togetherness, expression, and stories from across the local area.
As part of Welland’s wider programme, we spent the four months leading up to the main showcase running classes and workshops across the community, resulting in wonderful pieces of collaborative artwork, and a special photography exhibition of local life.
Elland’s Essence is a photography exhibition with artist Kim Hubble, celebrating the hidden beauty and human stories around Elland.
Also on display were beautiful co-created artworks made by the community over the past four months, including a compassion tree from our Refugee Week event, the collaborative map and cyanotype prints from the Welland showcase, and a beautiful book of illustrations from year 4 pupils at Old Earth School called The Power Collective.
The exhibition is now closed but we hope to be able to bring it back in 2024.
A range of taster workshops, including some of the sessions we offer throughout the year, were available to try at the Welland showcase too. Including:
With Matt Lackford
Somatic movement with Rosalind Arden
With Sandile Duma
With Kim Hubble – the work created will displayed in our exhibition over August 2023.
Collecting memories from the area on a special map, with artist Mussarat Rahman. This will also be part of our summer exhibition.
Curious Motion is a not for profit organisation that relies on public funding and the support of our community to provide our projects. All of our activities are offered on a free or ‘pay what you can’ basis. Thank you to everyone who supports us.
Copyright 2024 Curious Motion | All Rights Reserved | Company number: 12356173 | Designed by Grinning Graphics
