Garden of the World
Talks, performances and workshops on Zoom 14 July-18 August 2020
To mark the Centenary of the founding of Welwyn Garden City, Kadam Dance and Welwyn Hatfield Interfaith Group announce the on-line Garden of the World project. This is a series of talks and performances inspired by gardens and expressed through dance, music and poetry. The events will run every Tuesday at 8 pm on Zoom from 14 July to 18 August 2020.
Heightened awareness of the value of gardens and the healing power of nature during the period of the lockdown gives particular resonance to the theme.
In the centenary year of Welwyn Garden City, the on-line Garden of the World project aims to unite communities in Welwyn Garden City with each other and further afield in neighbouring areas of Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, through the arts and in an exchange and sharing of practices of faith.
PROGRAMME
The lecture-demonstrations will take place on-line on the Zoom platform. Links will be available here.
The topics are wide ranging: the vision of a garden city envisaged by Howard Ebenezer, founder of Welwyn Garden City; finding the connections between garden design and classical dance; gardens in poetry; gardens in sacred texts; Indian music and nature, culminating in two dance commissions, created for and filmed in an outdoor setting.
Tuesday 14 July
A Garden City: Vision and Reality – Tony Skottowe
A talk on Ebenezer Howard’s vision for Welwyn Garden city and why we need it now more than ever; and on how the town has changed over the last 100 years, including the fact that it has become a much more multi-cultural community.
Tuesday 21 July
Classical Dance and Garden Design – Sanjeevini Dutta with dancers
What could dance have in common with garden design? Sanjeevini Dutta, Director of Kadam Dance combines her twin passions to find connections between these two apparently disparate subjects. With live demonstrations.
Tuesday 28 July
Gardens in Poetry – U3A
A subject beloved of writers and poets from the Old Testament to John Betjeman via Shakespeare, Tennyson and Kipling. Local poet Jon Westoby and the members of U3A share their pleasure in poetry.
Tuesday 4 August
Faith and Gardens – Interfaith Group
Members of the Interfaith Group will introduce gardens in Welwyn Garden City connected to their faiths and will share from sacred texts the symbolic meanings in the references to gardens, from the creation of the Garden of Eden to the word ‘paradise’, which comes from the Persian for a ‘walled garden’.
Tuesday 11 August
Nature and Indian music – Dharambir Singh
The distinguished sitar player Dharambir Singh conveys the moods of the season and sounds inspired by nature in a lecture-demonstration.
Tuesday 18 August
Premiere of dance solos created for Garden of the World – Kali Chandrasegaram and Katie Ryan.
Two professional dancers respond to the theme of nature and how it has given solace over the period of the pandemic. Both pieces are made for film and shot in outdoor locations.
Viewers will watch the films together on YouTube, followed by a Q and A with the dancers and the audience.
JOIN WITH THIS LINK https://tinyurl.com/ybk8rfhe
Welwyn Hatfield Inter Faith Group
Formed in 2004 Welwyn Hatfield Interfaith group promotes cross-faith discussion and the delivery of social action for the benefit of the wider community. The group organises open meetings on various topics and holds events to promote understanding, tolerance, respect and friendship between individuals of all faiths and none. In this way we aim to reflect the cultural diversity of our borough.
The on-line Garden of the World project is made possible by the Arts Council National Lottery Emergency Funds. Kadam Dance is very grateful that its freelance artists have been supported over the period of cancelled live performances.
