Is it Batman... or the latest commission by Berwick Shines?
Beams over a border town
“What I love about this particular piece of work,” said Lucy Vaughan, head of creative engagement for The Maltings in Berwick, “is you kind of engage with it by stealth.
“You’re not required to buy a ticket or go to a particular place.
“You might just be walking around Berwick in the evening and see the lights, and you might want to find out more, looking on your social media or asking a neighbour.
“It’s likely you’ll have some sort of response.”
Of course, social media isn’t always the most reliable source of information.
Lauren Velvick, creative producer for the Berwick Shines cultural engagement programme, said Saturday night’s opening performance of Litany for the Border had spawned a lot of Batman memes (for reasons Batman fans will be better able to explain than me). We all laughed.
The first of three Berwick Shines commissions came to fruition almost a year ago.
That was Matthew Rosier’s Berwick Parade in which hundreds of town residents were filmed and the edited footage projected onto the walls of Berwick Barracks, to the swivel-headed delight of a ticketed audience corralled within.
Commission number two, then, is very different, offering a more diffuse audio-visual experience created by Gareth Hudson and Toby Thirling whose effect Lucy so aptly described.
Between 5.30pm and 8.30pm each night – until February 22 – beams of light probe the sky (the clouded sky as it was on Monday) from three sites: Berwick Barracks, Berwick Infirmary and the flashy new Berwick Sports & Leisure Centre.
(And if those energetic treadmill joggers were wondering why people were staring up at them and taking photos, it’s because the light source is positioned on the roof.)
In sync with the beams, like the stems of a bouquet but some motionless and some like roving searchlights, is a soundtrack described by Toby as an “audio collage”.
You can hear it unaided (in beguiling snippets, I would suggest – was that really a cat miaowing?) or via a smartphone link.
It’s a rich mix, including the voices of local choirs performing three new choral motets by Newcastle-based composer Eleanor Cully Boehringer, snatches of Gareth Hudson’s interviews with local people and field recordings made by youngsters who captured the sounds of wind, seagulls (possibly a cat) and railings when tapped with an instrument.
They’d had great fun doing that, said engagement producer Liz Hardy, and has photographic evidence to prove it.
The Matthew Rosier piece, brilliant though it was, was served on a plate. You arrived, you watched and listened (there was a live band), you perhaps spotted yourself or family members and friends, and generally marvelled at the cleverness of it.
With Litany for the Border, you can either brush the surface or dig deep, as its creators evidently did in the making of it.
Toby, present on Monday to explain, said the three motets related to Berwick’s past, present and future.
Eleanor took inspiration for the first from The Coldingham Breviary, a 12th Century liturgical book made for a Benedictine priory in Berwickshire and now held at the British Library, but also incorporated a King’s Own Scottish Borderers quick march, whose words she altered.
For the second, she created a poetic text from the responses to Gareth’s questions touching on spirituality and people’s feelings for their town.
The third was inspired by a research trip to the Taizé Christian community in France whose serene and simple music reflects its brand of worship. Two words, ‘by night’, she had set for four voices as “an intimate and repetitive lullaby”.
Artist Adam James was also invited to lead a ‘live action role play’ session where participants considered how a future Berwick might look, their ideas feeding into the third motet.
Toby, originally from Durham but now Brighton-based, said this was his sixth collaboration in a decade with Gareth who lives on Tyneside and lectures at the University of Huddersfield.
“He takes care of the visual side, I take care of the audio side. We feel really comfortable working together and after 10 years I think we can almost pre-empt what the other is trying to do. There’s a really nice back and forth.”
The commission had brought Toby to Berwick for the first time, initially to explore and then to meet people and lead ‘sound walks’.
“It was really eye-opening for me,” he said. “It was nice to listen to people saying how much attachment they have to this place.
“One thing I really value about this work is trying to get to the bones of what connects us to places and their history.”
He explained some of the “sonic characteristics” that make Berwick special.
“Obviously you’ve got the lapping mouth of the Tweed and the different birds and animals. Then you’ve got the wind which is a key thing, almost dictating the rhythm.
“Wind and waves are almost akin to a heartbeat. There’s this slow swelling, an ebb and flow.
“The town has put up with a lot in terms of weather and war, and that’s something we wanted to explore, the idea of this border town and all these different people knocking along together.”
As for the role of Eleanor, clearly a rising talent: “We like working with choral compositions and the intricacies of that.
“I’m not a composer so it’s been nice to involve someone with a different skillset. In the past we’ve re-worked existing pieces and it’s worked perfectly well. But we wanted this to be entirely original.”
All this chat was taking place in the Hide Hill premises which for the next two years will serve as the home of The Maltings-in-exile, as the nearby arts centre is reconstructed or ‘reimagined’.
“We’re running it as a ‘play, create and discover’ base for the town,” said Lucy.
“What we want to do, along with the town council, is stimulate activity and bring people into the town centre. We did a soft launch before Christmas with taster drop-in activities that families could do together.
“We can’t do performances but the Maltings Youth Theatre is now based here and can use it for workshops or rehearsals.”
Being a former betting office, it has sparked some memories. Liz said one woman recalled how, as a child, she’d had to stand outside with a bag of chips as her uncle went in to place his bets.
For the coming days, it will serve as the information centre for Litany for the Border… and it was from there that we ventured out into the gloom to experience it for ourselves.
It would be fair to say it made its presence felt gradually, the first beams from inside Berwick Barracks tracing faint lines against a sky still not quite dark. Standing on the wet grass, we craned our necks.
As dusk gave way to night up on the town wall, the drama became more apparent with the barracks beams flowering behind and the infirmary beams in front… and the aural accompaniment reaching those not equipped with headsets in tantalising ripples.
Inevitably, the weather will play its part in any individual experience of the work, both cloud cover and rain affecting the crispness and length of the beams – and testing the resilience of its audience.
I well remember the first Hudson/Thirling collaboration which resulted in the Everything is Beautiful… series of installations at the Globe Gallery (when based on Newcastle’s Pilgrim Street) in 2016. Completely mesmerising, it moved some people to tears.
Since then the pair have had significant pieces of work displayed at the Lumiere festival in Durham and also in Middlesbrough.
This latest one in Berwick also has the power to move but you have to work a bit for it, braving the elements and taking your chance. Every now and again – right place, right time - it hits home.
And as well as the social media memes, word is spreading by word of mouth. The 300 local participants, including schoolchildren and choir members, are its unofficial ambassadors.
As for legacy, it has already spawned a new community choir, the Berwick Shines Choir having been formed by volunteers who found they liked the singing sessions enough to want to carry on.
The third and final Berwick Shines commission went to Glasgow-based Lewis Hetherington and will come to fruition in May. The programme has also spawned half a dozen artists’ residencies, including the first ever at Berwick Academy.
“We’ll clearly fund-raise to do this sort of work again here in the future because it’s been really successful,” said Lucy.
In the meantime, for more on Litany for the Border, check the website for The Maltings.