Saturday 14th June is a day to celebrate the changes in the seasons and our right to create, connect, protest and live well.
Woodlands are places of refuge for dissenters, free speech flourishes in spaces outside the control of formal institutions. While nature witnesses every step we take, alternative underground movements have used woodland to discuss strategies for political change. A walk through the woods formulates my ideas quickly and serves others well as a space for expressing ideas. We will invite local pressure groups to come together, share their vision for the future and inspire us with powerful words from the past that reflect their mission. This might be a poem, a speech, lyrics from a song or any words of hope and justice that shape their cause. Bring a banner and stake your claim to the soil.
Trade and migration with the global majority has influenced Cornish music over the centuries. At a Cornish shout you will often hear spirituals, pubs around the county filled with voices singing reinterpretations of work songs that gave hope to people surviving enslavement. Sharing stories about hardship and resilience through song allows us to connect and explore values of resilience and freedom around the world, bringing us closer together.
At this birth of kernowfuturism we will make a hullabaloo, preserving heritage across musical genres. This project was inspired by the work of Le Sony’r Ra or Sun Ra, an American composer and band leader. His music connected the black diaspora with their African ancestry. We will employ Cornish folk musicians to play for us and premiere a reinterpretation of the avant-garde jazz piece ‘Space is the place’ on traditional Cornish instruments.