FULL THE CHAINMAKER’S STRIKE (Victoria Bourne) 2012 Gemma Reynolds

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: The Chainmaker's Strike  
• Composer: Bourne Victoria   
• Libretto: Chris Harper    Libretto Text, Libretto Index
• Venue & Opera Company: London, UK, And Then We Danced  
• Recorded: August 5, 2012
• Type: Staged Opera Live
• Singers: Victoria Bourne, Gemma Reynolds
• Conductor:   
• Orchestra:
• Stage Director:   
• Costume Designer:   
• Lighting Designer: Charles Blunt  

Information about the Recording

• Published by: tete a tete  
• Date Published: 2012  
• Format: Streaming
• Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
• Subtitles: nosubs  

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

Synopsis:

Women chainmakers in the Black Country in the 1900’s often started work in the forges as children and spent their entire lives making chains. They were known as the ‘Slaves of the Forge’ working fourteen hour days and earning the equivalent of 50p a week. In 1910 the women chainmakers of Cradley Heath won a battle to establish the right to a fair wage following a ten week strike that was a catalyst for what became known as the ‘Great Unrest’. It was a landmark victory that changed the lives of thousands of workers who were earning little more than ‘starvation wages’. Mary Macarthur was the trade unionist who led the women chainmakers in their fight for better pay.

The Chainmakers’ Strike is a song cycle telling their story of work, lives and the strike of 1910 through the eyes of a chainmaker and a journalist.

And Then We Danced is a new collective of musicians, artists and performers directed by Victoria Bourne and Chris Harper set up to explore the ways in which the voice, electro acoustic music and spoken text can be combined to make original theatrically presented works. The Chainmakers’ Strike creates a bed of electronic sounds formed from samples of anvils, metallic percussion and female voices (including recordings of a community choir singing songs adapted for the strikers themselves, unheard in this form since 1910) upon which both sung and spoken text tell a story of huge historical significance. www.andthenwedanced.com

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