RE: LOAD - a positive celebration of Ashton’s creative community

This weekend RE: LOAD will bring a celebration of Ashton’s creative community brought to life through poetry, street art, dance and film.

RE: LOAD – implemented by Tameside Council, has been created by Olivia Peers of Born and Bred Dance Theatre, who took on the RE: LOAD project to work with young people from Ashton Sixth Form College, who are making a creative film featuring a live performance and an art installation which celebrates the town of Ashton. The installation and dance will be performed on Saturday 7 October at Ashton Library.

RE: LOAD has been fully funded by the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund for Communities and Place for Tameside Council around the Ashton Creative Improvement District.

The project has taken a multi-disciplinary approach to enable the gathering as many voices and opinions from local young people as possible through a fantastic partnership with Ashton Sixth Form College. Working with students from its English, Dance & Performing Arts, Film and Art Courses over four intensive weeks.

The project highlights include work with professional poet Louise Fazackerly from Wigan. who has worked with students to write a poem celebrating Ashton which forms the backbone of the project.

Dance students then took up the creative mantle working with Helen Le Roux, a dance artist from Oldham and created movement inspired by the poem. At the same time, art students worked with Simon Mound (originally from Droylsden) to take lines of poetry and turn them into stencils. The stencils will be used to create a graffiti art installation outside of Ashton Library.

The final flourish will be the turn of the film students who will be capturing Ashton in all its glory with the help of Josh Hawkins from Manchester. Alongside shots of the town, you will hear the poetry and see the dance, installed in everyday places that make Ashton, well, Ashton!

Olivia says of the project: “My challenge was to work with young people to celebrate Ashton and look for positivity within the town” she said. “Celebrating where I live is something I am passionate about. I’ve celebrated my hometown of Mossley a lot, but Ashton, the place I used to study, meet friends, shop, swim, skate, and still work in, I haven’t celebrated yet. So, I felt it was about time!

“RE: LOAD is about re-coding our minds and looking at Ashton in a new light, a positive light. So let us rewrite, re-frame and re-code your brain.”

Cllr Sangita Patel, Tameside Council’s Assistant Executive Member for Heritage, Culture and Digital Inclusivity, said: “I’m really looking forward to this creative celebration of Ashton and to see what the students have created with Olivia. We know that Ashton has so much creativity to offer and with both Fridays on the Square and RE: LOAD taking place this weekend it really is going to great to see positive events bringing people to the town to celebrate the best in culture and the best of what Ashton has to offer.”

To RE: LOAD Ashton as it enters a new era, join us on Saturday 7th October at Ashton Library. The Street Art will be installed from 10:30am - 1:30pm and at 2pm you can watch our Dance Performance, Ashton: Reloaded.

Find out more about RE: LOAD at www.intameside.co.uk