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Clumber Park Mask & Chime Making Workshops

Date published: 3 Jun 2013

Posted by: Joe Pick

Chime instruments balanced on an easel

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On the day of the Paa Joe & the Lion Grand Finale event at Clumber Park in Nottinghamshire, City Arts ran family workshops creating masks and instruments for the spectacular Ga funeral procession.

Artist Stephen Jon led a very busy mask making workshop in the City Arts Dome, creating the lion and bird masks you can see in this gallery.  Outside, Mark Beeston led a chimes making workshop.  The finished chimes were hidden in trees on the route of the coffin’s procession.  As the procession neared its end the audience were asked to grab the chimes from the branches and shake them, providing a jangling sound-scape whilst the Lion crossed the Clumber Lake towards its final resting place.

The grand finale was inspired by a traditional Ga funeral in which a coffin is traveled around a village in a bid to confuse the spirit so it cannot return and haunt its friends and relatives.  It is believed that the spirit must cross a stretch of water to shake off its demons and reach the land of the afterlife.  The event was filmed as part of forthcoming feature documentary film, Paa Joe: Dead, not Buried.

The workshops and grand finale were open to the public and produced by Artdocs in partnership with City Arts, the National Trust in the Midlands and Nottinghamshire County Council.  Photos by City Arts.