On the 27th June, research team Mike and Chris headed over to Bunbury Aldersay CofE Primary School to deliver their introductory sessions. This school, similarly to Astbury will be working to stage their play and add their own unique elements to it. 
In this workshop, the children learnt about the history of the plays and had the opportunity to act out their version, learn the Souling song and think about what characters they may wish to add into the play when they create their very own version of it. 

Teacher Sarah Frost gave some feedback at the end of the session to say:
'The children really enjoyed it and are looking forward to the project next year. It was evident that a lot of effort has already been put into the project and your parents were very accommodating, Knowledgeable and explained the history wonderfully.'

On the 23rd May we ran our first schools workshops for the project at Astbury St. Mary's Primary School. These sessions were run by lead researchers Christine and Mike Brocken and were supported by our Work Based Learning student from the University of Chester, Ashleigh Husselbee. Ashleigh has kindly written us a blog all about the session.

Minerva Arts has recently embarked on an exciting new project led by Chris and Michael Brocken. They have been taking the children of Astbury on a journey into Cheshire’s past of Soul Plays. Souling is a type of Drama native to Cheshire that Chris and Michael want to share with the children of today. The aim is to have them create their own Soul Play and bring it back into the Drama of today. The children have so far been practicing scenes and learning all about the types of songs and characters that are involved in Soul Plays. The workshop was interactive right from the beginning with Chris asking questions about what holidays they celebrate. The children then sang along to the songs that are typically in a Soul Play, both with them being played on a tape and the guitar by Michael which helped them to get a real feel of what a soul play is like. They then listened to a short play, as Soul Plays usually were, and were instantly eager to get up and perform it. They split into two characters and were all assigned a role, equipped with a signature piece of clothing. The children worked together to create their own version of a Soul Play, using the original play as just a base. This allowed creativity to flow beautifully and the children really had a lot of fun, as well as learning loads of information and skills.