21st August 2024
A Gathering Place is a new project in progress from dance company Made By Katie Green, exploring ways of responding choreographically to archaeology and engaging with the question of what archaeology can tell us about our changing relationship with the land beneath our feet. How have people shaped the land, and how has the land shaped them? How can we piece together stories in response to archaeological discoveries that can tell us more about what it means to be human and the ways we’ve responded to the world around us over time?
In June and July 2023, Made By Katie Green piloted this project working in Dorset (with Bournemouth University’s Big Dig Field School/Durotriges Project) and in Surrey (with colleagues from Surrey Hills Arts and Surrey Archaeological Society) and created 3 films to begin to show what A Gathering Place could look, feel and sound like.
Visit the Made By Katie Green website here to read more about the research, and watch the films, including a short ‘behind the scenes’ documentary filming with the Durotriges Project
a short film created in response to the Durotriges site, interviews with archaeologists and also to a Durotrigian burial found at Langton Herring, called ‘A Place of Not Forgetting’:
and another film giving the sense of the performance walk created for Holmbury Hill in Surrey, called ‘A Gathering Place’:
As a result of this research Made By Katie Green received a commission from the Chase and Chalke Landscape Partnership Scheme in 2024 to create a new Gathering Place film responding to the Dorset Cursus, the longest Neolithic cursus monument in Britain.
Watch the new film commission, CURSUS:
Project credits
Direction Katie Green
Film direction and editing by Daniel Martin
Choreography and performance for ‘A Place of Not Forgetting’ by Alice Shepperson and Deepraj Singh (Additional choreography from Megan Griffiths and Emily Yong)
Choreography and performance for ‘A Gathering Place’ by Ella Fleetwood and Lucy Starkey
Choreography and performance for ‘CURSUS’ by Chloe Mead and Amarnah Ufuoma Cleopatra
Writing by Anna Selby
Additional writing for ‘A Gathering Place’ by Katie Green responding to extracts from Judie English
Original music composed and performed by Max Perryment, Lou Vilstrup and Amarnah Ufuoma Cleopatra
Additional sound design by Dave Holmes
Dramaturg for ‘A Place of Not Forgetting’ and ‘A Gathering Place’: Tom Six
Special thanks to:
Landowner Rebecca Hill and family in Dorset
The Durotriges Big Dig Team, especially Co-Directors Miles Russell and Paul Cheetham and Megan Russell
Documentary contributors Kerry Barrass, Keir Broughton, Georgia Buckland, Andrea Frankham-Hughes, Will Odling, Lorraine Pither, Megan Russell, Miles Russell, Shelly Sell
The Durotriges project is funded and resourced by Bournemouth University.
Alison Clarke, Anne Sassin, Judie English and Janet Kingsley in Surrey and Mark Beaumont, Hurtwood Ranger.
The research for A Gathering Place in 2023 was funded by the National Lottery through Arts Council England (as part of the Developing Your Creative Practice programme).
CURSUS was commissioned as part of the 20-project Chase and Chalke Landscape Partnership Scheme, running 2019-2024 and made possible with support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Celebrating the Dorset Cursus, the longest Neolithic Cursus in Britain, which runs for 10 kilometres across the Cranborne Chase Landscape.
Thank you to Martin and Karin Green for allowing access to the Cursus landscape on their farm.