Mental Health takes centre stage in the Borders this Autumn

Live Borders Arts and Creativity is excited to be part of this year’s Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival from 10 – 27 October 2024.

The Scottish Mental Health Festival provides a platform where everyone in Scotland can create and share art about mental health and promotes how the arts and creativity can support everyone to live mentally healthier lives.

This year Live Borders Arts & Creativity are looking at how people’s experiences are shared on the stage through theatre performances and workshops, linked to the festival theme of ‘In/Visible’.

Northern Rascals’ brings SHED to Melrose Corn Exchange, a brand -new project that uses visual art, spoken word and performance to raise awareness of the issues young people face with their mental health. ‘SHED A Layer’ is a 90 minute free workshop that runs alongside the performance of SHED and explores the method behind the making of the dance theatre show.

Can I Be A Butterfly? is a semi-autobiographical, part imagined, solo play about Chronic Fatigue and its possible message to a fast world. Using movement, poetry, sound, song and text, the performer weaves her own story around the fairytale of Briar Rose accompanied by the voices of others who have experienced ME and Chronic Fatigue.

In Men Don’t Talk, three men find banter, bird boxes and biscuits in a fictional men’s shed, which celebrates companionship, camaraderie and custard creams. Clare Prenton’s poignant, hilarious, moving and thought-provoking play, Men Don’t Talk, explores the myth that ‘men don’t talk’.

Live Borders Arts and Creativity are also following the theme of ‘In/Visible’ in the next theatre course for writers and actors during October, November, and December where they will create a new piece of theatre based on exploring what it means to be invisible and how that translates to the stage.

Jason Moyes, Head of Arts and Creativity at Live Borders, said, “This is our second year bringing the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival to the Borders. At a time when it feels more important than ever to be encouraging everyone to talk about mental health, creativity often provides a space to look at mental health in a safe and inclusive way. We are delighted to be offering a broad range of performances and workshops to the people of the Borders.”

The Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival runs throughout October.

 

In/Visible: New Drama Workshops at Heart of Hawick – every Tuesday from 2/10/24 to 10/12/24.

‘SHED A Layer’: Free Workshop at Melrose Corn Exchange – Tuesday 8 October.

‘SHED’ by Northern Rascals: at Melrose Corn Exchange – Wednesday 9 October.

‘Can I Be A Butterfly?’ by Clare’s Many Thread: Performance Theatre at Heart of Hawick – Wednesday 16 October.

‘Men Don’t Talk’ by Claire Prenton: at Heart of Hawick – Friday 25 October.

 

Tickets are available from https://www.liveborders.org.uk/book/whats-on/scottish-mental-health-arts-festival-2024/

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