FILMS – TO SEE ALL THE FILMS LISTED CLICK HERE
FILM-SCREENING of two films on the relationship of mining and music.
Wednesday 14th March, 7-8.30pm, Kenworthy Hall, St Mary’s College, Durham University.
Sounds from Beneath, by Mikhail Karikis & Uriel Orlow 2010, 7 minutes
In Sounds from Beneath a desolate disused colliery in East Kent, once populated with workers, machines and the sounds of their activities, is brought back to life through song. The video centers around a choral piece for which Karikis invites an ex-miners’ choir to recall and sing the subterranean sounds of a working coal mine. It transforms into an amphitheatre resonating sounds of explosions in the ground, machines cutting the coal-face, shovels scratching the earth and the distant melody of the Miner’s Lament, all sung by Snowdown Colliery Welfare Male Voice Choir grouping in formations reminiscent of picket lines.
The Miners Hymns, by Bill Morison 2010, 50 minutes
This elegy, in film and music, to the coal mining history of north east England, with a particular focus on Durham, is the product of an exceptional creative collaboration between renowned filmmaker Bill Morrison (Decasia) and acclaimed musician and composer Johann Johannson. Collaged from archive film footage and drawing on the region’s brass music culture, the Miners’ Hymns celebrates the labour, endurance, vibrant community and rich culture that characterised the lives of those who worked underground.
strike 1984 