Reviews of Bath Arts Workshop book from contemporary figures in the arts
‘[The book] will certainly inspire and invigorate those who are contemplating comparable adventures – albeit in very different times – and it offers a template for what could be done in communities where energies are abundant but frustrated because support organisations are thin on the ground. Amongst other things, the book upends metropolitan assumptions about what constitutes an appropriate environment and audience for bizarre, engaging, highly designed, politically unsentimental performance work. Attitudes have developed considerably over the last few decades, of course, but the core values of the BAW will retain their relevance and practicality indefinitely.’
David Gale, writer, performer, lecturer
Co-director Lumiere & Son
‘The book is a major achievement, the more so for having been assembled so long after the actual events. It does its job superbly in recording and preserving a truly impressive - and important - body of creative/community performance work.’
Neil Hornick, writer, performer, director
Founder, The Phantom Captain
‘An astonishingly researched and compiled history of a seminal arts/culture/community movement that was rooted in Bath but had influences around the world. Detailed, readable and packed with illustrations.’
Dr Luke Dixon
Writer, performance maker & beekeeper extraordinaire
‘Having worked in participatory arts for nearly 30 years it was wonderful to be able to look back at the accomplishments of Bath Arts Workshop through their new publication. It’s brilliant that they’ve collated their archive and secured it in print for future generations to see what they achieved. Their pioneering work was part of a movement which laid the foundations for organisations such as Strange Cargo to build upon. The generosity, humour, talent and avant garde ideas shaped people’s approach to making art that everyone could be part of. I love it!’
Brigitte Orasinski - Artistic Director, Strange Cargo
‘The time I spent with Bath Arts Workshop had a deep influence on my work for the next 40 years. This book will remind everyone of what was achieved. It gives us hope for the future.’
Ros Rigby OBE, Former Performance Programme Director, Sage Gateshead
‘It’s a fascinating history, and in the era of arts funding starvation that we are surely entering, an important history to share.
People – it CAN be done!’
David Curtis, author, London’s Arts Labs and the 60s Avant Garde
‘...what happened in Bath is of national importance. Here, in the late 1960s and 1970s, various interconnecting groups of young people began creating alternative networks and inventing new forms of community action. They changed the city, and their legacy can be seen (by those who know) in its unique fabric. But they also established models that worked and became precedents for community work in the region for decades to come.
It is arguable that nationally important Bath initiatives such as 5x5x5=Creativity and the Forest of Imagination would not have taken root in this soil if it had not been prepared by these people.’
François Matarasso, Honorary Professor, Gray’s School of Art, Robert Gordon University
Council Member, Arts Council England (2005-2013), Trustee, NESTA (1998-2003)
The Natural Theatre Company grew out of Bath Arts Workshop
LEARN MORE ABOUT NATURAL THEATRE COMPANY
With special thanks to the Nachman family and Somerset Film