Modern Fairies and Loathly Ladies

Folktales about fairies have become the province of children in modern British culture. Yet the success of works such as Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones and World of Warcraft has proved that other kinds of traditional tales still have power to enthral adult audiences and readers in today's world. Tolkien and Martin use European myth and legend to build their storyworlds with stunning success. Modern Fairies and Loathly Ladies will focus on the storyworld of British folk-tales and -songs about fairies and the supernatural, to explores how this material can be re-mediated by award-winning artists to be made relevant to modern audiences.

Less-well-known and unusual stories involving fairies and the supernatural will be unearthed through archive research by Carolyne Larrington (Co-I). Larrington will present the tales, motifs and scenes from romance, folk-tale, ballad, and anecdote, recorded in Middle English, Latin and modern English in accessible forms, where necessary translating and glossing, so that the academic and obscure becomes relatable and vivid. Larrington will curate six folkloric themes: the fairy masculine; the fairy feminine, the changeling child, the shape-changing loathly lady, human experience in the fairy-world and the value of fairy treasure. Material relating to these themes will be presented to twelve world-class artists working in a range of different media, from folk musicians (including the PI, Fay Hield) and storytellers, to visual artists and poets. They will choose stories, scenes, and moments from the themes, and will work collaboratively to produce new songs, stories, poems and artworks based on the traditional material. Open notebooks, blogs and collaborative sharing will enable insight into the creative processes across different media while work is in progress.

The new artworks produced will be performed to the public in six informal 'Gatherings' at Sage Gateshead. This performance format is open-ended and flexible, allowing artist and director responsiveness to individual audiences and the varying materials produced by the themes. One artist will take the lead in directing and curating each 'gathering'. A variety of art forms (music, painting, poetry, story-telling) will feature in every 'Gathering'; artist-audience interaction will be encouraged and invited. Programme notes of different types, and informal spoken introductions to themes will complement the artists' creations. Audience research will be carried out by Sarah Price (RA) using talk-based methods. The project leaders and their partners will be enabled to understand how audiences engage with new art drawing on traditional themes, how relevant they find folk-tale narratives and motifs to their own lives, what kinds of programme notes and other complementary materials enhance or detract from the audience experience, and how new audiences can be attracted and grown through local and traditional story mediation.

Thus the project surfaces the experience and knowledge of creative artists in the work in progress stage and drills down into audience and performer experience through targeted qualitative interviews. In addition, this project represents a creative developmental phase for a future free-standing performance-based artwork, to be produced in collaboration with the Sage Gateshead. Moreover, the project tests the viability of 'gatherings' as a format for artistic development through performance.

The inventive and responsive methodology, from source-research, through presentation to artists, creative composition and audience-engaged performance, to lasting outputs, will produce a new model for community-based arts interventions and experiences.

Modern Fairies and Loathly Ladies bridges the gap between academic theories about the value of narrative and the experience of storytelling and their applications in everyday life. The project's highly interdisciplinary mixed-methodology will have impact on the academy, on artists, arts organisations, culture departments, and on audiences themselves. The project's outputs are tailored to the advancement of academic knowledge, artistic creativity, audience participation and to broadening the knowledge base for individuals, communities and organisations.

Artists: The project will directly involve twelve artists and provide a robust model for different kinds of cross-media collaboration, networking and innovation. The methodologies developed for giving immediate feedback on work in progress (during workshops and gatherings) will enhance flexibility and responsiveness among creative practitioners. Testing the viability of the new 'gathering' format (informal, audience-oriented, flexible) will present artists with a new means of presenting and developing work in progress. The musicians, in particular, will gain insight into the effectiveness of cross-media events and the development and provision of paratextual information (different kinds of programme notes, informal spoken introductions, question and answer opportunities) in reaching and growing new audiences.

Arts organisers: the developing qualitative methodology for capturing audience responses will enable arts organisers to find out in more fine-grained detail what audiences respond to, and what they find distracting or off-putting. In particular our project partner (Sage Gateshead) will benefit from testing the 'gathering' format, from insight into the role of paratextual information in enhancing the audience experience, and will be enabled to support further cultural events based on traditional and local material. Soundpost will develop new methods for teaching in the traditional idiom via our artists and broaden their skills in promotion and marketing to a new spoken word audience, widening their experience beyond traditional music domain. For the wider arts industry including other artists and venues: this project opens a dialogue between folk musicians/spoken word artists and Sage Gateshead, providing a model for such collaborative endeavours which could be replicated.

Audiences will gain insight into new art forms and freshly presented universal themes of human experience, resonating with their own lives. They will be offered the possibility of following through into longer term engagement with artists and material.

Amateur artists (musicians and poets) will gain insights into how these art works were created and learn skills to develop their own future activity. Established fans of the collaborating artists will be exposed to new stories and gain deeper understanding of new materials being developed in their preferred genres.

Heritage management organisations will gain insight into what can be produced from their holdings, understand more deeply what impact they have on audiences and discover ways of encouraging new audiences and artists to engage with their archive.

Local and national government culture organisations: The research will inform initiatives and decision-making with regard to local and national heritage- and tradition-based cultural events, particularly those involving specific communities. Arts organisers will be informed about the value of re-mediating traditional (in particular local, heritage) material, about creative processes and audience interaction, about audience reception and supporting contextualisation of performance.