Visitors to this year’s Swaledale Festival will be encouraged to experience the Yorkshire Dales through music, performance and the natural landscape itself thanks to support from the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority.
The annual festival, which runs from Saturday, May 23 to Saturday, June 6, will feature 75 events across the Dales, many designed to connect audiences more closely with the surrounding countryside.
Support from the authority’s Sustainable Development Fund is helping deliver several nature-inspired performances, including a unique woodland event near Fremington.
Internationally acclaimed percussionist Delia Stevens, from Hebden Bridge, will present “Playing In The Trees” at Intake Wood, where audiences will be guided through the woodland while music is created using fallen trees as instruments.
Explaining the idea behind the performance, Ms Stevens said: “When you are a percussionist you are always looking for sounds. If you go back to the roots of the word ‘xylophone’ – it literally means ‘wood sound’.
“The ‘Playing In The Trees’ events are about putting the vibrations back into trees that have fallen down. When we hit them, they are re-resonated.
“I would like to use Intake Wood as my concert hall – to play the landscape, be in an intimate space with an audience only a metre away.”
Emily Rowe Rawlence, from the Swaledale Festival arts charity, said the event reflected the festival’s long-standing connection with the landscape.
She said: “The festival loves the intersection of the arts with the landscapes of the Dales. Some of our events are outdoor performances, so the landscape shapes the experience.”
Chair of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, Derek Twine, said the festival had been “a highlight of the social and cultural year” in the national park for more than 50 years.
He added: “We are delighted to be able to support the Swaledale Festival this year through the Sustainable Development Fund.”
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Wouldn’t it be nice if the YDNP would spend more of our money on something that would benefit more ordinary people that have lived and worked hard in the dales for many years to help make this area what it is today and not on some dreamland.