News

General blog posts

News, watch

Listen Now: Song of the Golden Road Radio Ballad

On Saturday 6th November Span Arts and Planed hosted a listening party event at Tafarn Sinc for the culmination of the heritage lottery funded project Cân y Ffordd Euraidd / The Song of the Golden Road.  The project which has been running since May 2021 has created a radio ballad in response to the Preseli Heartlands, from Crymych to Cwm Gwaun.  Taking inspiration from the work of Charles Parker, Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger whose radio ballads to industry and other ways of life were broadcast on the BBC in the late 50s and early 60s, the project hosted talks, walks, interviews and music workshops recording material at each event.  The events took place at different locations throughout the Preselis circling the Golden Road, a name for the ancient trackway that runs across the Preseli ridge. A radio ballad, an extended sound piece weaving together oral speech, ambient sound, traditional songs and newly created music and lyrics was created from the rich and deep material recorded.  The final programme is an hour in length and skilfully weaves together the lived lives and languages of the Preseli area. At Tafarn Sinc we were joined once again by musician Stacey Blythe who [...]
News

Song of the Golden Road Listening Party

Parti Gwrando Cân y Ffordd Euraidd / Song of the Golden Road Listening Party  Tafarn Sinc, 6th November 2021  You can listen to the full radio ballad here!  After a summer of informative talks and walks in the Preseli area the radio ballad Cân y Ffordd Euraidd / The Song of the Golden Road is finally ready for its first public broadcast.  This hour-long online bilingual radio programme will be launched at Tafarn Sinc on the 6th November.   Cân y Ffordd Euraidd / The Song of the Golden Road has created a radio ballad in response to the Preseli Heartlands from Crymych to Cwm Gwaun.  The project has taken the form of a series of workshops and walks from the communities that reside at the foot of the Preselis, concluding with a community walk along the golden road, a name for the ancient trackway which traverses the seven-mile ridge of Mynydd Preseli (the Preseli Mountains) from Foel Drygarn to Bwlch-Gwynt.  The  workshops followed different themes from the Neolithic, agriculture, education, religion and industry and were an opportunity to get to know the place from different perspectives and to find out what is important to people about this place.  Sophie Jenkins Community Engagement Officer with the Ein Cymdogaeth Werin project had this to say about the workshops, “One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about the workshops are the opportunities to keep re-visiting the really unique elements of our heritage and culture in the Preseli area and all of those layers that overlap and build a picture
News

Y Tangnefeddwyr

This project has now come to a close, but you can still listen to the full radio ballad here!  On Sunday 3rd October the project Cân y Ffordd Euraidd is inviting singers to join a ‘scratch’ choir or Côr Unnos to sing and record a version of the song Y Tangnefeddwyr (the peacemakers) – a setting of Waldo Williams’ well known poem.  The choir leader for this unique event will be Rhian Medi Jones and the accompanist  Rhidian Evans. The event is being recorded for the project which has been taking place over the Summer, Cân y Ffordd Euraidd  / The Song of the Golden Road which has been building a creative response to the heritage of the Preseli Heartlands, from Crymych to Cwm Gwaun, with the intention to create a ‘radio ballad’ a weaving of voice, sound and song.  The ballad will be an oral record of a unique place for future generations to enjoy. The Golden Road is the name given to the ancient trackway which crosses the seven mile ridge of the Preseli Mountains from Foel Drygarn to Bwlch Gwynt.  The project up until now has taken the form of a series of workshops and walks in
News

We are hiring!

Digital Marketing Assistant (Maternity Cover) Span is seeking to recruit an enthusiastic, hardworking, and creative person to join our team. The successful candidate will be committed to ensuring Span’s events and activities are promoted as effectively and widely as possible The role would suit a student or graduate with experience in Wordpress, coupled with superb digital, social networking and design skills and an interest in the arts. Responsible to:        Span Arts Director Location:                    Narberth and/or online and event locations Salary:                        £9.50 per hour equivalent to £7410 per annum (£17,290 FTE) Hours:                        15 hours per week Fixed term maternity cover contract, starting in November 2021. Some evening & weekend work will be required Holiday 5.6 weeks pro rata including Bank Holidays Span Arts is committed to achieving equality of opportunity in both services to the community and the employment of people and expects all employees to understand and promote its policies in their work.   Span Arts is a Real Living Wage Employer DIGITAL MARKETING JOB DESCRIPTION & APPLICANT GUIDANCE NOTES Please note we will not be accepting CV’s. To apply please download and complete the form below: SPAN ARTS DIGITAL MARKETING ASSISTANT (MATERNITY LEAVE) – JOB APPLICATION FORM Please send your
News

Span Arts welcomes their new Director!

The staff and board are very excited to welcome Bethan Touhig Gamble as the new Director for Span Arts! Span Arts are happy to announce the appointment of their new Director, Bethan Touhig Gamble. With Bethan’s recruitment, the board of Trustees have taken the strategic decisions for the role to become a full-time position. This added capacity and new perspective will be critical to support Span Arts to achieve its vision of Arts for social change in West Wales. Bethan first came across Span Arts when they partnered with NoFit State to bring the large-scale touring show, BIANCO to West Wales for the first time. With a background in community regeneration and community arts, Bethan joins Span Arts from almost a decade as Head of Development for NoFit State Circus. Alongside her work with NoFit State Bethan has lectured at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, as well as working as a fundraising consultant for a broad range of arts and volunteer charities across Wales. "On behalf of the Span Arts' Board of Trustees, I am delighted to welcome Bethan Touhig-Gamble to the post of Director. We very much feel that with our previous Director, Kathryn Lambert,  having
News

Join our team!

Span Arts Director Are you passionate about the arts?  Do you want an opportunity to lead an exciting and vibrant organisation?   Are you a creative thinker with organisational flair, financial understanding and good people skills?  Span Arts, a community arts charity of 30 years’ standing based in Narberth, Pembrokeshire, is seeking a new Director to take overall responsibility for day to day running of the organisation, its events and projects. Working with a committed body of Trustees you will manage a small team of people and projects, ensuring long-term sustainability and a varied programme of live and digital arts projects and events.  Job title -  Span Arts Director Responsible to  - Span Arts Trustee Board Responsible for Staff and volunteer team Location - Narberth Salary - Salary from £26,000 to £30,000 FT, dependent on experience, future incremental increases dependent on performance Hours  - Part time 25 hours per week Some evening & weekend work will be required Main Purpose of Post To provide vision, leadership and management for the day to day running of Span Arts; ensure the organisation’s sustainability; maintain and develop the quality and diversity of its projects and programming; assure the strong marketplace position of the organisation. Click the link below for full: JOB DESCRIPTION & APPLICANT
News

Calling all those who dare to dream!

Span Arts teams up with Taking Flight and LAS theatre to reintroduce families to theatre, indulge their imaginations and get kids and their grown-ups working together to solve a mystery in the great outdoors. Lockdown has been, at best, a long hard slog for everyone. We've had no access to the things we love- restaurants, cafes, museums... and of course theatre and family events. As the world begins to open back up, with light at the end of the tunnel for theatres and theatre fans alike, two theatre companies have teamed up with their venue counterparts to create The Curious Case of Aberlliw, an accessible outdoor digital adventure in three parts – to get those creative juices flowing as we prepare to get back into our beloved venues. Elise Davison, Artistic Director of Taking Flight explains “We really wanted to create something for families to enjoy together, to get outside and to problem solve.  Over the last year, we have continued to work on productions using various digital platforms. We used the time as an opportunity to be able to explore ways of providing an equality of experience that isn’t just streaming, that goes some way to create immersive events that
News

Outdoor Shakespeare is back with Henry V!

After missing a year, Span Arts is delighted to announce that The Festival Players Theatre Company returns to the enchanting setting of Lampeter House, to celebrate another year of Outdoor Shakespeare. For this special occasion and their 35th Year of touring, Festival Players International brings you Shakespeare’s most popular History Play, HENRY V. After a rebellious and spirited youth hood, carousing in the taverns of London, Prince Hal takes on the responsibility of Kingship and leads his troops, of low and high station, across the Channel to do battle with the French at Agincourt. Follow the charismatic King Henry the Fifth in this stirring tale of leadership, bravery, humour, and love; two hours of exhilarating entertainment for a summer’s evening. This year, the show will take place on the 20th of August at 7pm. Refreshments and snacks will be available from the bar. Lampeter House, located in the village of Lampeter Velfry, just outside Narberth, provides the perfect setting for outdoor Shakespeare with a small amphitheatre-style theatre built into the beautiful grounds of this lovely estate. As this is outdoor theatre the audience is encouraged to be prepared for any weathers, as the show will go on, rain or shine. Due to
News

Call Out – Cân Sing Singing Workshop Leader

Cân Sing, Span’s fortnightly singing workshop for all singing abilities is looking for a new singing leader.  Cân Sing, Span Arts’ fortnightly singing group is a wonderful, diverse and friendly group of singers who share in the uplifting benefits of singing.  Throughout lockdown, Span Arts continued to offer Can Sing workshops online but now that we return to in person events and activities, we are on the hunt for a new singing leader who can inspire and support the group to develop their natural singing ability and build an accepting, non-judgmental community that enjoys singing together.  Cân Sing enjoy singing a wide range of songs from around the world with a particular focus on natural voice singing and welcomes all voices.   Cân Singers tell us that singing with Cân Sing is “Stimulating, connecting and heart-warming” with “with just the right mix of warm up, chat and song.”  Are you an experienced singing leader, workshop facilitator or singer who wants to make a difference in the community?  Then this is the perfect role for you.  Span Arts can provide the setting (indoors, outdoors or online depending on restrictions), an hourly fee of £35 per hour and all administrative, marketing and covid safety support.  We are looking for an experienced singing leader, who is good with people and can make people feel safe and welcome and confident to sing, whatever their singing ability.  To find out more about the role
News

Artist Call Out – Love Stories to Nature

Deadline: Monday 26th July Delivery: August – September 2021 Span Arts is inviting West Wales based artists, musicians, creative practitioners and or collectives to create new work for our Summer project Love stories to Nature – Straeon / Cariad at Natur.  We are looking for artistic responses to the call for the arts to help contribute to recovery, wellbeing and help to solve the climate crisis ‘by telling stories that persuade people to ‘fall in love with nature again’ and prompt people to get outdoors and enjoy Pembrokeshire. We will select up to 4 artists to create an artistic response, in any art form, that begins a conversation between artists and the people of Pembrokeshire about nature, the environment, sustainability and wellbeing. We are open to applications from individuals, partnerships or collectives who are able to creatively respond to the brief and provide a way for people to take part. We are looking for blended proposals; by which we mean projects which take place online or in person, or ideally a mixture of both so that audiences/participants may take part digitally or physically, indoors or outdoors. We invite you to suggest ideas you would like to grow together. This project will
News

Tell us what you think!

Click  here  to fill out our short questionnaire and help us shape the future of Span Arts! We are a vibrant community arts charity,  with a 30 year history of bringing the arts to rural Pembrokeshire. We are driven by the core belief that the arts have the power to improve people’s lives and wellbeing. We are now thinking ahead to a time beyond the pandemic, and would like to know what you think the future should look like. We believe in the power of the arts to bring positive social change, but what that change should look like is up to you, the people of Pembrokeshire. It is your opinions that matter, and that will shape what SPAN offers to Pembrokeshire over the coming years. So, we want to hear from you, about your hopes for the arts in Pembrokeshire. What is your experience of the arts, and what would you like to see in the future? There is increasing evidence that the arts are beneficial to us all in many ways, including in providing opportunities for social connections, creativity, fun, and in providing benefits for both our physical and mental health. Throughout the pandemic, we have seen time
News

Span Arts seeks New Board Members

Span Arts is seeking to recruit new Board members to its Trustee Board to help guide and support our leadership team through recovery and reopening and help to shape a viable post-covid arts offer for Pembrokeshire. We are open to new ideas and approaches as we want to find new ways of working to achieve our mission to make ‘Art as social change in rural Wales.’ SPAN is a vibrant forward-looking community arts charity which aims to deliver high quality arts projects and events to the people of west Wales. Based in Narberth, since lockdown Span has continued to operate online, with staff working from home, using digital technology to enable us to continue to offer arts experiences, from Theatr Soffa, our online community theatre productions to online music gigs, workshops and The Kindness Project. SPAN has offered a creative community service throughout the pandemic to help people feel connected, have fun and combat loneliness and social isolation through arts engagement. We are now looking for experienced, passionate and well connected new board members, with the energy and ambition to help steer Span Arts into the future. We are looking for a diverse group of board members, with expertise and
News

Radio Ballad Production Team – Brief

This project has now come to a close, but you can still listen to the full radio ballad here!  Interviews: Friday 23rd July   We are inviting Wales based sound/music/radio producers to work on a co-created bilingual radio ballad Cân y Ffordd Euraidd / The Song of the Golden Road, part of PLANED’s National Lottery Heritage funded Ein Cymdogaeth Werin - Preseli Heartlands Communities project which is being produced by Span.      There are three strands to this brief:  Music and Sound Recording Fee £1000  Community music making/song-writing Fee £1800 (3 x 600)  Radio Ballad Production and Broadcast Event Fee £2500   All fees are inclusive of VAT, travel expenses and material costs.   Though each strand can be applied for separately we are open to applications from individuals, partnerships or collectives who are able to creatively fulfil a combination of, or all elements of the brief as outlined below:  Music and Sound Recording   Fee £1000 5 days @ £200.00 inclusive of VAT, travel expenses and material costs. We are looking for an experienced sound recorder with access to their own recording equipment to attend the remaining Song of the Golden Road community workshops capturing audio content from the days including a guided walk across the Golden Road.  Workshops are scheduled to take place on the 31st July, 14th August and 21st August and will include a mixture of indoor and outdoor recording.  This recorded content will be used in forming the final radio ballad.  The sound recorder will also work with the Span Community Producer and Radio Ballad Producer to
News

SPAN successful in Cultural Recovery Fund

An online artistic programme to reduce isolation and loneliness, alleviate fear, stress and boredom, and build community networks in Pembrokeshire.
This programme had its roots in Span Digidol, enabling us to respond quickly to the COVID crisis.

News

SPAN feature in exhibition Women Making History

An online artistic programme to reduce isolation and loneliness, alleviate fear, stress and boredom, and build community networks in Pembrokeshire.
This programme had its roots in Span Digidol, enabling us to respond quickly to the COVID crisis.

current project, News, project

Criw Celf

Criw Celf Primary  is an Arts Council of Wales funded project for children who have shown a talent or special interest in art. Young people from Pembrokeshire, aged 9-11 applied to become part of this exciting creative project with SPAN. https://youtu.be/GCK-ZmkRz6k Now in it’s third year, the programme has featured in-person, outdoor sessions with local artists. Participants had the opportunity to enjoy five master classes led by professional artists, exploring a range of art techniques and skills. It is an amazing opportunity for the children to be part of an exciting creative project where they made new friends with similar interests and learnt new skills. Over a series of sessions the children stepped out into nature, focused on their surroundings, took what they discovered and turned it into a poem. They practiced new drawing and mark making techniques, as well as creating exciting textures with a variety of materials. Using their poems and textured materials they created their own fantastical 3D worlds within a box. At the end of the project, family and friends of these talented young artists gather for a very special private exhibition at the SPAN Arts building, Narberth. The exhibition also opened to the local community, who enjoyed the colourful displays that featured a wide array of techniques by

completed project, News

Arts & Health Pembrokeshire Network

An online artistic programme to reduce isolation and loneliness, alleviate fear, stress and boredom, and build community networks in Pembrokeshire.
This programme had its roots in Span Digidol, enabling us to respond quickly to the COVID crisis.

Cor Pawb
completed project, News

Raise Your Voice Pembrokeshire

An online artistic programme to reduce isolation and loneliness, alleviate fear, stress and boredom, and build community networks in Pembrokeshire.
This programme had its roots in Span Digidol, enabling us to respond quickly to the COVID crisis.

News

Cânu Gwerin

After the success of Under Milk Wood, Theatr Soffa is preparing now for its next production, telling lockdown stories and weaving them into an online performance. Join us! Everyone welcome.

News

Under Milk Wood

Thank you for booking your Theatr Soffa seat for Span Arts production of Under Milk Wood in Lock Down! This rehearsed reading will go live at 8pm on 20th June 2020. The production features a community cast – a full cast list will be published here after the performance. The performance lasts c. 60 minutes and is rated PG.  There will be no interval so get your refreshments ready! As a ticket holder we ask you politely not to share this link or to record the performance as it is broadcast. This is a live theatre event performed remotely. To view the production in full screen click on Under Milk Wood in the top left corner. We hope you enjoy the show! https://youtu.be/jt1opanxF9I In the event of any technical difficulties.  Please be patient and the stream will resume as soon as possible. If you have enjoyed this performance and would like to watch similar productions in the future please consider donating by clicking the link below: Donate here!  

Scroll to Top