Into the Wild

Performance: photos by David Black

2011-01-20T04:50:00.000-08:00

Performance: photos by Jan Holm

2011-01-20T04:43:00.000-08:00

The performance: photos by Jan Holm

2011-01-20T04:36:00.000-08:00

Wild Celebration of Battlehill

2010-09-11T07:01:00.000-07:00

Battlehill Art, music and drama

2010-09-11T06:57:00.001-07:00

Argentinian Musician Back in Huntly for Woodland Arts Date

2010-09-11T06:40:00.000-07:00

Suprises Galore in Woods

2010-09-11T06:36:00.000-07:00

Sound installation photographs

2010-09-09T01:28:00.001-07:00

Daisy's cake baking

2010-09-08T05:10:00.001-07:00

Daisy has been keeping the audience sweet with her delicious cakes!

PRing at the Hairst Food festival

2010-09-08T05:06:00.000-07:00

PRing at the Farmers market

2010-09-08T04:59:00.000-07:00

PRing at Tesco

2010-09-08T04:54:00.001-07:00

More photos from week 1

2010-09-07T08:39:00.000-07:00

The first weekend was a great success with over 50 people coming on the promenade in the woods.

1st weekend of Into the Wild

2010-09-07T08:36:00.000-07:00

The first weekend featured the Into the Wild cafe, a performance by the Woodland Orchestra and the promenade around the woods. If people come early to the Battlehill Woods they can relax in deckchairs, taking in the woods and listening to Jelka and Fabianna's sound installations.

Ambush by Annie Lamb

2010-09-07T08:35:00.000-07:00

if you want to hide in the woods
grow a green plush hat
a moss-green velvet all-weather hat
pull it down over your ears
come away
hide in the woods through the long summer’s day

if you want to hide in your hat
sport a fern cockade
tall and frilly and fastened with braid
break up your outline fine
hunker down
here in the woods at the back of the town

you might like to lie in wait
at the side of the track
where lovers and wild men rush up and back
heartily unaware
that you’re there
that the shadows are grown so long, so late.

Drama on Battle Hill by Ruth Bean

2010-09-07T08:34:00.002-07:00

Morning mist lifts like a velvet curtain,
beams of light pierce through the darkness.

Slowly life switches on to its performance,
the stage already set, for the drama to unfold.

A fine line between humour and death,
as acts are played out on a continual roll.

The humour, as one leaf seems to balance
on its own stick like a spinning saucer.

Then nature flips sides, to attack its own,
the stomach of a tree gouged out, guts exposed to all.

Next, the unthinkable creeps in,
a piece of plastic hangs limp on a tree limb.

Another lies, on shrivelled up brown leaves,
as if the plastic has sucked out their oxygen.

The evening mist now falls like a velvet curtain,
beams of light start to switch off.

Battle Hill is enveloped in darkness,
but still the drama carries on.

8th August 2010

Battlehill Woods in the Evening by Anne L. Forbes

2010-09-07T08:34:00.001-07:00

Flowing lines of the high bank, like a surge in the sea
Roots exposed through bare earth and brown leaves;
Silver Birch with umbrella like branches;
Sunlight through the trees on the fields beyond.
The roar of the road.

Sitka Spruce in straight lines, with short spiky branches all the way up;
Untidy, haphazard, disorganized growth;
Graceful ferns, soft moss, and seedlings abound below.
A sad fallen tree with its roots torn up, leaning on others for support.
The caw of a crow.

Tall stately Beech, calm, quiet, clean, good.
Clean underneath, with last year’s brown carpet
Stretching to the light green grass beyond.
Reassuring sounds of chopping wood.
A pigeon cooing.

Younger Sitka stretch up, straight as a dye, in military formation;
Regular and regimented. You want to salute.
Nearby a tree with ripples up its trunk like elderly skin.
Another with varicose veins.
The call of a bird.

One lone tree – dark, black, wicked, cruel,
With one foot stretching out to kick you,
Or stamp you out.
Nearby a tree with an ugly gash, like a war wound;
Flesh torn from its heart; sawdust spreading below like blood.

A pair of trees stretching heavenward, with flowing garments,
Leaning together, whispering secrets.
Their men are straighter, darker, more official;
Their fingers reaching out -
Eager to know what’s going on.

A beautiful old tree, spreading her arms up and around,
Protecting parked cars squatting below;
Her gnarled base firmly spread in the ground.
Grounded, mature, wise, loving; bunions in her feet,
But still strong - happily facing the hills ahead.

Nearby, a towering quarry with vegetation clinging to its sides;
Pines reaching up above; swamp grass and new forest growth below;
Cliffs encircling, protective, secure.
Sounds of birds, cars – and midges.
Time to go home.

Battlehill – observations from the edge of the wood, Maureen Ross

2010-09-07T08:31:00.001-07:00

Place 1

The ground slopes away to a big beech. Its many branches rise from a thick trunk – all dark, back-lit by the evening light.

Looking up, the canopy of leaves lets in the white light from the sky in scattered pieces like a static sparkling firework.

Birds are singing all around.

I can hear loose drops rain on the leaves. Most of them don’t seem to reach the ground.

Beyond the tree the ground continues to slope – over an old stone wall, over a roof top and rises again up and over the intensity of a copper beech till it reaches the horizon on a far away hill.

The rest of the evening light continues to shine through the vegetation around the foot of the tree making it glow.

A large drop of summer-warm water lands on my head. I move on.

Place 2

This is the very edge of the wood. A broom bush in full flower stands guardian to the open field.

Here small blue flowers reflect the evening light that reaches in from the field. Their names are speedwell and forget-me-not. Is this a message?

Behind me the wood rises up thicker and deeper and further from the open field.

A collared dove calls Alas poor Betty. Alas poor Betty in a slow syncopation.

I notice one of the forget-me-nots is completely white. The ghost of poor Betty?

Place 3

This piece of edge of wood marches with a field of buttercups.

And here there’s a huge hawthorn heavy with blossom and scent, flanked in its clearing of grass and ferns by an old high gorse.

The gorse breathes out the astonishing smell of tropical coconut. It catches the yellow from the buttercup field and throws it in my eye.

A strange bird call comes from the wood behind me – a deep
de whoop doo de whoop doo
What is that?

More little blue flowers – ones I don’t know but these are yellow tormentil.

Through the green plant stems there are little white froths of cuckoo spit.

The rain has found its way down through the leaves in greater splashing numbers now. I move further into the deep dark wood to escape.

Battlehill – observations from the edge of the wood, Maureen Ross

16th June 2010 7:30 – 8:30 pm

Battlehill Woods by Annie Lamb

2010-09-07T08:30:00.001-07:00

1. Place
Blue & yellow blue being forget-me-nots (?) *, yellow being broom which perfumes the place making me imagine it’s a scent of forget-me-nots.
The shade is deep. There are a couple of medium sized black slugs here at my feet making their way up or down grass stems. They seem busy (eating the grass, presumably).
The shade is cast by beeches that look young but probably aren’t. Also, there’s a rowan in blossom. And the sky is absolutely closed. Sounds: raindrops. This is the lip of the quarry – the A96 is at my back.
Atmosphere? Tense. Waiting.
Feeling, situation? A chance meeting – because of the path. Or – because both quarry & bungalows can be seen from above – witnessing something private.
* They were speedwells.

2. Place
A tumulus about six feet across that is many-humped and made out of an old stump with moss growing thickly over it. This is by the same path, on the edge of dark conifer woods where are coal tits. But on or beside the path are beeches and I just passed a whitebeam in flower.
The tumulus has ferns (perhaps male fern?) over it and they look rather antic, and on an open mossy surface is some of that yellow fungus that looks like cat sick (or calf skite or scrambled eggs – it is that yellow).
There’s a scar in the ground beside the mound, edging the path, full of beech leaves.
Atmosphere? Fairylike because it’s a world in miniature like a bottle-garden, evoking: feeling surprised that I don’t still love bottle-gardens (I used to go to sleep pretending I was a little salamander deep in the moss in winter).
Situation? Becoming a little salamander and creeping in.

3. Place
Glade where new oaks are planted – tree tubes. There’s a seat by the path.
Standing here one feels like a small person (a hobbit would be ± right) in the centre of a ring of great conversing trees. The trees across the path, above the seat, are tall spruces with pointy tops and graceful swooping (up-swept) lower branches just now tipped with edible-looking green. They bow or lean slightly over the hobbit and toward the tall beeches standing behind the new oak stand, and between is an open, grassy glade – very green – sort of Althing for Trees of different tribes coming in from different directions.
Atmosphere – Solemn. Serious – not ‘hobbitty’
Feeling – respectful
Situation: suppose if I wait a bit they’ll ask my opinion?

Battlehill Trilogy by Anne Rogers, June 2010

2010-09-07T08:29:00.001-07:00

1. Battle

Wind tore through the forest, roaring its discontent.
Trees groaned and screamed, held in a manic Mexican wave.
Some fell, ripped from the earth, leaving open wounds.
Some lay supported by their neighbours – dying not yet dead.

Sated the wind moved on. Silently rabbits returned; fed amongst the fallen,
dug in newly exposed earth.

2. Peace

A circle of light, lush green growth.

Branches sweep the ground, plants seek the sky.

Birds’ crazy harmonies enhance the peace.

3. Requiem

The old men of the forest bow their heads in conference.
Ready to take up their roots and walk they have no fear.
Ignore their message if you dare.

Their prophet stands amongst them, limbs shocked into prayer.
“All life is one; don’t break the chain.”
Ignore his message if you dare.

The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge

Ashes to Ashes Dust to Dust Earth to Earth

Team Wild

2010-09-03T02:09:00.000-07:00

Clea, Fabianna and Jelka at work!

Woodland Orchestra

2010-09-03T02:06:00.001-07:00

The Huntly Writers group and Fabianna have been creating a Woodland Orchestra. They will perform at the Into the Wild cafe on Sunday the 5th and the 12th at 3pm.

Interview with Nancy, who was born and grew-up in Huntly

2010-09-03T02:04:00.001-07:00

What are your first memories of the Battlehill?
The thing that I remember most is the freedom we had, being able to run about and enjoy ourselves. You were away from the town as well - that was exciting. That is my really big impression: the freedom that we had up there, because it was so open and different from now.

What kind of games did you play?
Cowboys and Indians. We used to go to the picture house in Huntly and see films and we used to re-enact some of the films in the Battlehill. That must have been a bit funny. Some of the boys had little toy guns. At that time you could play with guns, not like nowadays, you can´t really play with guns. They just had like cowboy guns, wee revolvers. They used to get caps to put in and it made a bang.

Did you have any favourite places in the Battlehill?
I just remember the big stone where we used to have our picnics. That was sort of our base and we just played around there and some of us went off and did our own thing. It was just so free. There was no fear in those days either, like there is now. You would be scared to let the children run off on their own. At that time you could just run about in the Battlehill.

What did it look like around the rock?
It was mostly just shrubbs and small trees at that time. It seems so closed in now compared to what we had. As I said you could run about and there was so much space. There does not seem to be the same space now with the trees. It was quite green up there at the Battlehill, but with the trees the vegetation does not get the same chance to grow. I think you could actually see Huntly from the Battlehill.

Do you remember any animals?
Rabbits probably. But we were probably making so much noise that we would have scared the wildlife away. But there certainly were rabbits.

Do you still go there for walks today?
Yes, my friends and I sometimes have a walk there. It´s a nice walk but I must admit that I prefer to be in spaces where you can see the countryside rather than just walking through trees all the time.

Interview with Poppy and Niamh, both 10 years old

2010-09-03T02:02:00.000-07:00

Where do you go when you go to the Battlehill Wood?
We go to the beginning and there are paths which you can follow.
Yes, we follow the path and then go up to the hill bit.

Do you sometimes leave the paths?
Yes. I like running through ferns and stuff.

What do you play in the Woods?
My dad put up a swing where the steps are. Or we play this game where we are in a sort of tribe and we have to build our own little things and we climb trees and stuff. We kind of use the trees as our houses and we build pretend fires. There is only two of us, so we just pretend there is more.

We also have this place which we call the kingdom. It´s a fallen tree but there are other trees around it. You can go around the back and then go in it. It´s become a bit damp now because of the rain.

I like to pretend that I am wild animals. I like being griffins, sometimes wolves and sometimes horses.

What are griffins?

They are mythical. They are half a giant eagle and half lion. They are cool, I like them.

What kind of movements do they do?
Oh I just run through the forest and jump quite far and go on rocks. Sometimes I growl.

Are you allowed to go into the woods on your own?
Sometimes, but not usually. Sometimes- we then just take drinks and food but not really anything else. Sometimes I have picnics with my mum and dad.

Do you have a favourite place to do that?
When you go up the steps there is a green bit so you can sit there and eat your picnic.

What kind of animals do you see in the woods?
I have seen a lot of birds. I have seen a lot of rabbits. I think I once heard a woodpecker, but I never saw it. You see a lot of butterflies.
There are quite a few squirrels as well.

And what sounds do you hear there?
Sometimes when it´s quite windy the trees are creeking. And you hear birds.
We stopped in the middle of the woods and listened for a minute and you hear a lot of bees buzzing.

Did you ever get lost in the woods?
No.

Do you find it more a light and happy space or more a spooky place?
It depends where you are. Where you can see the fields it´s kind of peaceful.
But when you go into the Kingdom and you go really far in, it get´s really dark, so that would be a bit spooky.

Why do you call it the Kingdom?
I don´t know, me and my other friend and her little sister found it and we just went, „Oh well, this is the Kingdom.“

Do you play kings and queens in there?
We did once but we don´t really do that anymore. We more kind of just explore now.

What do you find when you explore?
Me and my brother used to collect pine cones and we once found about four inched long pine cones. It´s good to go on your bike because there is a lot of curves and dips, so that´s quite fun. There is also a bit where there is a style, so that you can climb over the fence to play on the rocks on the other side.

What do you play on the rocks?
I play griffins a lot. And me and Niamh we like to howl a lot.

That would be the wolves howling to the moon?
Yes.

SUMMER

2010-09-02T07:57:00.001-07:00

(Indian) summer is finally here in Huntly and with it lots of fresh produce to pick! Mushrooms, red currents and raspberries. DELICIOUS!

Cup of tea please

2010-09-02T07:46:00.000-07:00

If you are walking around the Battlehill over the next few days you might be able to get a glimpse of some of the animals and their belongings.

Elk and safety

2010-09-02T03:55:00.000-07:00

Interview with Jimmy, born and grew up in Huntly

2010-09-02T03:53:00.001-07:00

We always went up to the Battlehill to play there. But in 1953, with the gale, a lot of the trees got absolutely flattened. That was at the far end.
Where the quarry is now – that´s where we built a hut. There were big goarse bushes and down below was Bogie Wool Mills. They had big wool sacks. I don´t know how we got hold of them - we certainly didn´t buy them – so we got one of them, slit it and made a tent. Oh it was beautiful! At summertime we played there everyday. At that time for example we would go to the local cinema – the matinee programme – then we got the guns and we’d go up the Battlehill and it was back to the cowboys and Indians.

So you were reenacting the films?
Yes, reenacting what we saw. At that time it was Gene Autry, the singing cowboy and Johnny Weissmueller. We did one or two of his, because I don´t know if you noticed over the Bogie Bridge where the road goes up to the farm, we used to have a big rope swing there. We did a few yodelling and swinging back and forth there.
It was always cowboys, we never had Indians. We used to go and look for the Indians, but we never found any. But yes, we always reenacted the films. The guns just used to be a piece of wood. We never had a real gun, oh no! All we had were bits of stick. The horses were just our own legs, so there was no money spent.
We often built a small fire and we used to have boiled eggs. If we had potatoes in the field we would put them on a stick and pass them round. And the wee fire would help roast potatoes and we used to sit up there.
On a Saturday my father used to come home for lunch at one o´ clock and I had to be there at one o’clock. But fortunately at that time you had the Bogie Mills who worked, you had Spencers Mill worked and the Gordon cream company worked. All their sirenes were tested half past twelve on a Saturday. Brilliant! Because the minute we heard that we used to shoot off, down the hill, back up home and we got home at one o´clock. And then back down again.

There used to be a path that come up in a curve, it came straight along a joint and the council had seats there. It was wrought iron steel seats. There used to be a set of a dozen seats, if I remember it right and I think they lost one every year. The painter used to come up to paint them and you always heard them saying, „ Have you lads seen any seats?“ „No“, true enough, because we never saw them. There used to be several of a dozen and eventually they had two seats on the face, because people used to walk up there on a Sunday afternoon and sat down. The big trees weren´t blocking your view at that time. You were looking right over to Huntly, it was brilliant. After 53 it was devistated, totally devistated. It was a bare hill.
There was a lot a lot of berries! Rasps, blaeberries, but mostly rasps. That was another excuse to go up there. „Can we go and pick rasps?“. So your mother would give you a jar, but while you picked them, you ate them all and when you came home nothing was left.
I remember that my mother had told me that the council at that time had decided at that time, to manage the Battlehill better, they would plant trees and at that time we as a household used to pay rates. You paid your rates based on your rent. If you paid five pounds a week rents the rates would be a shilling and a pound. So you paid five shillings above that to cover dustbin emptying or whatever it was. So at that time the council accumulated some money and decided to plant the Battlehill. When the trees matured they would sell the trees and the money would come back into the council again. The Battlehill was planted, but unfortunately they changed it into region at that time and the money went to the region, so we never got the money back.
People of Huntly used to go up often with a handsaw and cut a big limb off, maybe ten or twelve feet long! You used to see them walking down back home with it! They used it for firewood.

Are there any sounds you associate with the woods?
You always, always heard the wood pigeon! You heard the cuckoo up there earlier on but you could never pinpoint it. It was really nice, because the grass was never cut, paths were never maintained.
My sister was playing with us all the time up there but unfortunately she died fourteen years ago. She was cremated and her wish was that her ashes are up there.
I try to look for words to describe what it was, but it was freedom, it was your freedom. The minute you stepped up there nobody said boo to you. That´s the good old days.

Interview with Liz

2010-09-02T03:51:00.000-07:00

When do you go to the Battlehill?
I go there at least once a week. I usually take my dog, a greyhound. People think it looks quite comical, she is attached with her harnsih to me. I go there for exercise and because it´s nice to absorb the natural surroundings. I am generally going at speed.

How would you describe the place in terms of atmosphere?
It feels very restfull. Generally it´s a circular route I do round the edge, you see different things, you have trees and you look out across the fields towards Kinour.

Is it about forgetting to go up there?
Well, usually I have music as well, that´s actually steering me on and helps me to forget as I go round, it´s probably a Serotonin rush from the exercise as well and that makes it complete and wonderful.
I love it when there is snow. When I had my cancer treatment seven years ago that was a great place to go. Even if you didn´t feel like it, I went anyway because it does cheer you up. I even wrote a little short verse about it:

Crump crump crump marching through the snow
Crump crump crump through the woods I go
Saving every moment as though it were my last
I hear my inner voice call out:
You´re going way too fast!

Are there any sounds you would associate with the woods?
It´s a peaceful place without so many sounds. I suppose the main sound would be the wind going through the trees. I love the wind. You have been sheltered from it and then suddenly „woosh“ it comes right in your face.

Are there any smells you remember?
I suppose rotting leaves, the smell is very evocative. I like it when it has just rained and you have a scent coming from the small plants.(...)
The tree that quite often has flowers at the bottom, that’s a sad one. I assume someone has comitted suicide. It´s a huge beech tree just before you go into the quarry.

Have you ever had a picnic or something like it in the Woods?
I have sat and sort of contemplated life, yes. There is a seat on your way, on the side that´s facing towards Drumblade, I have sat there and wrote a speech.

Interview with Margaret, resident of Huntly since 1937

2010-09-02T03:50:00.000-07:00

I came to live by the Battlehill in 1937 and stayed there for 57 years. The first time I went for a walk there my husband took me half way round the wood and I found that was quite a long walk then! Later I had four children and they were the ones who played there – ropes onto trees for a swing and climbing trees and lots of other games.

During the 2nd World War a timber merchant cut down all the fir trees, but left the big beautiful beech trees which mostly grew at the soldiers rest. The soldiers rested by a little burn which is not there now. The soldiers came from fighting the Battle of Slioch in Robert the Bruce’s time. Slioch is very near the Battlehill, just off the turn to Banff. As a child my husband, who lived very near the hill played there a lot. He was playing near the burn once and he found a silver buckle and three silver buttons which appeared to be off an officers uniform and very old. His father put them into a museum.

The flowers were violets and wood anemonies in the spring. Later in the year we could gather wild rasps. and plenty of them. Lovely big brambles grew mostly in the quarry at the edge of the hill. We also got rowan berries which we made jelly with.

The Battlehill was a favourite place. We loved walking all round it – summer and winter, all weathers. The children had wonderful sledging on the hilly banks when we had snow.
We saw red squirrels and the odd pheasant or two and one nested at the back of the hill, but poor thing the nest was scattered and all we could see was some feathers. Maybe a fox did this. My children saw roe deer, but I never did.

I had two poodle dogs and many a time they took themselves off for a run up the Battlehill. Once I had a very spooky late night – the moon was shining in a very dark sky. My dogs had gone off and I went by myself, quite a long way into the hill and callled and called for my dogs but they never came to me. They came home bedraggled the next morning.

We only brought a few branches for the fire when we were out for a walk, we had plenty of wood as we were a timber family.

The Battlehill is a wonderful place and many Huntly people enjoy walking there. I would say it´s a very happy place. Children came and I´m sure they still do, to roll their Easter eggs and have picnic tea after. My children went over the garden wall to play in the Battlehill and near enough to call me to say they were alright.

Looking back, the Battlehill was very bare for a long time after the fir tree were cut during the 2nd World War, but eventually it was replanted with young fir trees. I remember that we could see the town clearly and it took many years to grow to the size the firs are now.

There were lots of rabbits on the Battlehill and an official trapper – but that´s a long time ago.

This weekend!

2010-09-01T05:31:00.001-07:00

The Into the Wild team are so excited that it is all kicking off this weekend. Fingers crossed the weather is nice!

PROGRAMME

2010-09-01T05:24:00.000-07:00

Getting to Huntly

2010-09-01T04:30:00.000-07:00

Huntly is in Aberdeenshire, which is in the North East of Scotland. It is easy to access Huntly as it is on the train/ bus route from Aberdeen to Inverness. It is also just off the A96, if you are driving.

For directions and a map to the Into the Wild Cafe from Huntly's railway station please click here.

For directions and a map to the Into the Wild Cafe from Huntly town square please click here.

For directions to the Battlehill Woods please come to the Into the Wild cafe.

Into the Wild on BBC Scotland's Culture Cafe

2010-08-31T07:59:00.000-07:00

Into the Wild on BBC's Scotlands Culture Cafe. Listen from 37mins in.

Fashion shoot for sophisticated animals

2010-08-31T04:16:00.000-07:00

HAIRST: food and farming festival

2010-08-31T04:00:00.000-07:00

Celebrate the harvest in Huntly this weekend with the HAIRST festival. Click here to visit their website. There is alot going on and if you are lucky you will catch a glimpse of some of the Into the Wild characters mingling about the Farmers Market on the Saturday or the Mart on the Sunday. Then come along to the Into the Wild performances. You can pick up a time slot from the Into the Wild Cafe and there is a free mini bus service running up to the Battlehill Woods.

NEOS

2010-08-31T03:58:00.001-07:00

Pick up a programme now! Loads of artists and performers from the North East will be opening their studios or showing people their practise in September. Dudendance will be part of this.

Click here to visit the NEOS website.

Interview with Alice, former resident of the Bin Forest

2010-08-31T03:50:00.000-07:00

When I lived in the Bin Forest I would go for a walk regularly, it would be every day taking the kiddies for a walk. Now it would be taking the dog for a walk, so it tends to be not just for myself. I don´t think I want to walk in woods on my own particularly. The only time I went into the woods on my own was when I was really upset.

With the kids we did expeditions and imaginary games and we gave places names. We had the whale rock which was a huge stone and it was covered in lichen, heather and small trees. And we also had boletus corner, because we always found mushrooms there. We would also collect mushrooms and flowers. We made a camera and pretended that we had landed on a planet and had to take photographs to send them back to earth. We did a lot of drawing as well, we would take a pad and a pencil and find beetles and other insects. We usually strolled through the woods. We used to walk across clear fells which were actually quite hard to walk over with all the brush, but paths are a bit boring sometimes.
Walking with the dog relaxes and chills me, it makes me feel stress free and I also like his company.

What animals have you seen in the Battlehill?
There are deer, little rabbits, flies and insects. I haven´t seen squirrels but there are squirrels there. There are also definitely badgers that go into the Battlehill, they don´t live there, but you can see the hair on the fence where they come in. There are birds, but it´s actually quite quiet. It´s a peacefull spot and it´s small.

What were your favourite places in the Battlehill Woods when we did the workshop?

There is a very little clearance with a fallen log, it was quite early on then and not much had grown, but there was obviously bracken and gorse there. You could see that it was going to be quite lush. You had to look up to get any kind of view, it was just a one person sort of open space. And then there are the amazing beech trees. I found them while I was wandering with no plan in mind, because I don´t know the Battlehill very well. And the other thing I discovered is the spooky tree. It is kind of black, I think it was because of the way the light was, it was a really dark tree. Actually a lot of these trees, especially beech trees look quite silvery when the sun shines. That tree really looked like a gateway to another world.

Which fairy tale would you place in the Battlehill?
There are two fairy tales I have been thinking of lately. There´s the gingerbread man and Hänsel and Gretel. The sweety cake house would have to be in the strange bit, where the beech tree is. Or would I put it in the Sitka spruces, except there is not enough room for it.
The gingerbread man is „Run, run as fast as you can, you can´t catch me, I am the gingerbread man.“ I just love it. I just like it, because I love to be able to escape from things. Gingerbread man doesn´t really go into the woods, but he does escape, cause he doesn´t want to be eaten.

Is going to into the woods about escaping as well?
Yes, escaping from civilization. My automatic thing is to go up the hill first to get a bit of distance.

What was it like to live in the woods?
It was brilliant, it was just a playground, it was nearly perfect.
When we went mushrooming we would take a camping stove and a flask of water, brew it up and cook some mushrooms.
We tried to do different walks every time. No routine walks, routine walks are bad.

Do you have any prefered season?
A wood in snow is a magical wonderland. A wood in spring is great, cause you see things starting to grow, you see the wood sorrel grow before the bracken grows. And of course, atumn is mushroom season.

Did you ever get lost in the woods?
Yes, we definitely got lost one day. It was just me and the two kids. But we had a pony and ponies can find their way home. So we actually just let the horse lead us home. We were quite happy that he knew what he was doing. The worry was that you got too tired before you got home, the worry was not that you would not get home.
We had a lot of different walks that we did from different directions. I think it took us ten years to run out of walks.

Into the Wild Cafe

2010-08-31T03:34:00.000-07:00

The cafe will be open from business this Saturday at 2. Daily Williamson has been gathering will berries all this week from up in the Battlehill Woods to make delicious muffins. All the cast are quite excited about the thought of these! The cafe is in the Old Gauld + Sons shop on Bogie St, Huntly. There is also interviews about the woods from Jelka Plate, woodland drawings from Paul Rous, poems from the Huntly Writer's group and Soundscapes from composer Fabiana Galante. It is a nice and relaxing place to hang out prior to the performances.

Interview with Aiden and Mina, 10 & 8 years old

2010-08-31T02:39:00.000-07:00

Where do you usually go when you go to play in the Battlehill Woods?

A.: We go deep into the woods and on the paths as well. We play Harry Potter.
M.: We usethe characters but we make up our own game with them.

Do you build things in the woods?

M.: We just pick up sticks and pretend they are wands and we start playing.

Do you build houses with the sticks?

A.: We use the fallen down trees as little houses. But we have made tents before.

What kind of tricks do you play when you pretend do be Harry Potter?

M: There is "Stupify“, "Avadra Kedavra“, "Imperiocus“. "Avadra Kedavra“ kills you, that´s the worst one. "Stupify“ makes you go mad. Imperio means that the person who sets the wand on you takes control. With "Wingardium Leviosa“ you can lift things up. With "Explleraomus“ the person you have said it to will fall back.

Do you have favourite places in the Woods?

A.: Mina has got a tree, it has got her name on it. It´s a big tree.
M.: It´s thick and quite long. It has got big bushy branches and it has got my name carved in it and the date.

Did you carve it in?

M.: No, we found it like that.
There is also the leaf pit, there is the little hill thing, you climb it up and you just jump into the leaves. That´s fun.

Have you seen any animals in the woods?

A.: We have seen birds.
M.: And squirrels. But you more hear things than you actually see them. We once saw a dear and it was just in the distance and we were just like, "It´s a dear!“

What kind of sounds do you remember?

M.: Birds and the leaves crackling together when there is wind. Sometimes you hear owls, like “dwodwo dwodwo.“
A.: There are pigeons.
M.: Sometimes there are woodpeckers.
A.: Mostly it´s songbirds. The ones that squark and tweet and squark.

Do you remember any smells?

A.: Usually moss.
M.: A kind of moisture smell.

Do you collect any stuff when you go there?

A.: Sticks. I have hundreds. When I used to be a kid I used to use them as swords.

Do you find it more a light and happy place or do you think its spooky?

A.: I used to think it was spooky when the trees were sounding like “krchkrchh“.
M.: There must have been a battle there, because why would it be called Battlehill Woods?
A.: I think it was the Jacobites. Most likely.
M.: Or even some fighting of the land.

Who are the Jacobites?

A.: Well the English had the throne but the Culloden was Scottish really, so they were trying to take it and lost. They almost had it but then decided to go back. Bad move. They could actually have took it at London but then they decided to go back and got slaughtered and never became the rightful heir.
M.: There is a nice song called "The Jacobite“.
(Mina sings the song)
When we first walked up there I was so small that we had to stop. There are these little benches and mom would have to tell us a story and then we would carry on.
A.: She did it about these dancing trees and the witch tree.
M.: The witch tree is a tree that looks like a witch in Battlehill.
A.: It has got a nobbly nose.
M.: There is this green patch and if you stand back you see this big huge tree. It has got a lot of sticks everyhere.
A.: There is also the wishing stone.
M.: When you are coming back you see that big stone in the pathway. We always make a wish and then we carry on.

If you were to choose a fairy tale in the Battlehill Woods, what would you choose?

M.: The dancing trees. And there is the witch trees. And there is a sort of a little barrior.
A.: The witch turns people into trees and she disguises herself as that tree that people call the spooky tree.

What are the dancing trees?

M.: They have got moss at the bottoms which looks like skirts so you go, "The dancing trees!“

Getting closer to going WILD

2010-08-31T02:09:00.000-07:00

Dates and times for the performances

2010-08-26T03:37:00.000-07:00

Costume rehearsal

2010-08-26T03:34:00.000-07:00

All the team went up and tried out the performance last Saturday with their costumes. It is starting to really come together and if, on the day, the weather is as good as it was last week, the performances are going to magical.

Programme out now!

2010-08-21T02:40:00.000-07:00

These can be picked up around various venues in Huntly (The Brander Building and the Into the Wild cafe).

More stills from Summer School rehearsal

2010-08-19T07:50:00.000-07:00

Summer school

2010-08-10T10:36:00.000-07:00

Summer school has started for the participants of Into the Wild. Quite a few local teenagers have been getting involved in the workshops.

New to Battlehill

2010-08-10T10:21:00.000-07:00

Smoke fire

2010-07-31T14:30:00.000-07:00

Man-made marks in Battlehill

2010-07-31T14:28:00.000-07:00

Newsletter 2

2010-07-28T04:57:00.000-07:00

Art Team Begins Rehearsals for Performance

2010-07-28T04:54:00.000-07:00

Bonnie and Clyde

2010-07-24T03:37:00.000-07:00

Animal mask

2010-07-19T07:19:00.001-07:00

Rehearsals

2010-07-19T07:08:00.001-07:00

Rehearsals have started for the performance and local Huntly teenagers Cathi, Grace and Gordon have been working on different scenes, drawing on inspiration from the Film Noir genre and films by David Lynch.

Battlehill Woods in Spring

2010-07-19T06:52:00.000-07:00

Interviews with Jelka Plate: D. Grace, youth from Huntly

2010-07-19T06:27:00.000-07:00

How do you use the Battlehill woods?

A lot of the time we go up there during the day for walking round and having a laugh. It´ s fun to explore all the the different places you can go in. I once went up there and just sat there writing for about three hours. No one else knew that I was in Huntly and I just sat there. We also sometimes go there to camp. One of the places where we camp is where the Sitkas are. They are going to be cut down and the place is probably not going to be that safe for camping anymore. We are a bit annoyed about that.

We usually only stay for one night. During the day you have the birds and sometimes you hear and see rabbits. But in the night you hear animals going through and it is rustling. It´s scary and thrilling. If everyone just sits in silence you can hear owls and you can hear the trees moving. You just get mesmerized by it all. It´s so much better than during the day, because during the day it´s more happy, but if you are there from day until night you can notice the changes quite subtly. If you are right in the woods, without a clearing, it´s magical. It feels like one of the places in a fairy tale.

Which fairy tale do you associate with the woods?

For the place where we camp I would probably say something like Snow White, because you have this rock and it looks a bit like the place where she would have been laying on. If you are further in the woods it is more like the Red Riding Hood, you are just listening out for signs of fairies. When you see light, like the stars or the moon is hitting off things or reflects something it feels as if you could bump into a fairy or a little pixy any minute. But sometimes it´s just playing scary and you think you are in a horror movie like the blair witch project. It gives you a thrill, an energy boost, an adrenalin rush. You get really hyper and think „It´s so cool“.
But I really think that it is going to change quite a lot when the Sitka is cut down. It is going to be a lot thinner.

One of our friends once got lost one night. He had gone back to the car and then came back along the path. Everyone just sat there and had the feeling that something was coming and wondered what was happening. We said „Oh my god, what if he got lost or has been murdered, oh no, no no.“ There was only about five of us and we were so scared and all just sat cuddled up. Suddenly he burst out of the trees and went „Aahhhhh“, because he knew we were scared. Everyone screamed and two of us just ran away, they actually got up and ran away!

Another time we were at the clearing at the starting bit of the woods where the quarry is. We all sat around the fire in a circle telling stories. It was going into morning, the light just started to come back and we suddenly heard something rushing past on the ground. Everyone just said „What was that“ and shut up. It came back and it was just a rabbit. It sat right next to where we were. I have never been that close to a wild rabbit. It just sat there and looked at us for a couple of minutes and then went off again.

What are your favourite places in the woods?

There is the bit with this giant rock where you can sit on. There are about four different places where you can sit on the rock and there is a fireplace in the middle of it. It´s quite creepy. There is also the bit that overlooks the quarry. That´s really nice when the sun is setting or rising. And there is the clearing with that big beech tree. That´s so entwining, it looks like when you turn around the branches will come and enwrap you. You have the feeling that you should be there and shouldn´t be there at the same time. You can be there for ages and not really notice the time going past. It´s quite spiritual as well. When it´s going into night it feels as if there is an aura of the woods and if you are there for long enough you feel like you are entwined with it and that you are part of it.

What is your prefered season in the woods?

I prefer to go there in summer and autumn, but it´s really cool in snow. The snow makes it look like a fairy land all over. Because you don´t get that much snow inside, but around it you get masses and masses of snow and it doesn´t dissappear for ages. It´s so sparkly and white. It looks like a different country when the pine cones fall onto the snow.

One time there was a lot of mist and it went all through the woods, it was so eerie and creepy but it was brilliant. The mist was all over the floor and you couldn´t see three feet in front of you.

What kind of movements do you associate with the woods?

Sometimes you see rabbits go past really fast and it gives you a scare, so you move quickly. It´s again like being one with it, whatever happens there, you feel it. When the wind is blowing, the trees are swaying slowly and when you are moving you are moving quite slowly as well. Even when you are talking, if it´s peaceful and the birds are singing you will just casually and slowly be talking.

A lot of the time you see the branches moving. I remember once I saw a branch falling down, because the wind was so wild, it was one from the top, not very big and it tumbled down and hit some other branches. It was mesmerizing, you just stopped and watched it, it was kind of hypnotic and if that was always happening you would just stand there and watch them.

Interviews with Jelka Plate: C. Raye, neighbour of the Battlehill

2010-07-19T06:19:00.000-07:00

My first memory of the Battlehill would be in the 60’s. Because I did not grow up in the town, the Battlehill was not something that I knew at all. But when I was a teenager I had a horse and my very good friend lived over on the far side of the Battlehill and I lived down the river from Huntly. So we used to go along by Perris Mill and up over the Old Road what was a road down to the Banff Road. That was how we would meet. I do remember one time that we came around the Battlehill on the horses and all these trees that are now huge trees were about shoulder height. I guess there were planted in the fifties, they might have been about six or seven years old. I just recognized them as evergreen trees. My memory is of these trees coming up through burnt very brownish, yellowish grass – it must have been summer. I do not remember the beeches, but obviously they are so old, they were there.

At school I remember hearing the towns kids talking about that they had been up at the Battlehill for the weekend. It was obviously somewhere the kids in town knew and went to.

Apart from that my experiences of it is all since I came back here in 1990 as an adult. It was such a great place for my kids and their friends to play. There was a swing and they would play that they had little gangs that shoot each other, they would run and hide. And they used to camp up there. There was a kind of progression when they were getting a bit more independent. They would camp in the garden and after the garden when they thought they were brave enough, they would go up, camp there and light fires.

Actually I have got a memory coming back to me. When we first came back here my youngest son was just four. And I started to notice that when I suggested to go up to the woods for the walk, he would be very very reluctant and he did not like the woods. After a while I realized that it was because we had been reading things like Haensel and Gretel and I think he thought we were going to loose him in the woods. He was really quite scared of the woods. But you know in summertime it can be very dark and pretty spooky up there.

Do you have any preferred places?

I love the beech canapee. I do not know why, but I usually walk along the path clockwise. Sometimes I make kind of figures of an eight if I want to walk for a bit longer. You can quite easily walk up there for an hour by going over all the paths. But my favourite part is the beeches and especially in the autumn when it is all just golden and yellow. Even if the sun is not shining it is light and bright.

Are there any smells you associate with the woods?

Smells? I suppose the brake up on the top has got a bit of a smell maybe in the autumn a kind of musty smell.

Which sounds do you associate with the woods?

The birds and unfortunately you always hear traffic. I mean we think we are quite quiet here, but there is usually traffic noise.

Apart from the birds, have you seen any animals?

I have seen a fox up there, I have seen deer, rabbits. At one point there were some white rabbits. I think it was a pet rabbit that somebody had just set off and said goodbye – be happy here. I saw it under a bush right at the top and at first I thought I was seeing things, but then not very long afterwards there was a whole lot of other white rabbits. It obviously lived long enough to breed! But then they just seemed to die out as quickly as they had appeared.

Do you have any prefered season?

I love spring. And there is one particular thing that I love up there: it will appear that there is nothing much living among the Sitka and the other evergreen trees, but when the sun hits at a particular angle you will see that there is a little tree - usually it is a beech – coming up and the sun catches that fantastic green. I really hope with this felling thing that they are true to their word and spare these little trees that are coming up through there.

Talking about it being spooky, I do remember once being a bit alarmed up there. I was walking on my own and I met a guy with a gun. He wasn´t somebody I recognized or anybody local. He had something in one hand like a box and in the other hand he had this gun. It was just after Drumblane – you know the horrible shootings – so it must have been 1996 or 1997. I did not know this guy and I saw him with this gun and thought „Oh my god“. Afterwards I realized that he was probably rabbiting. I think he had a ferret in the box. So he would put the ferret down the rabbit burrow and then shooting them when they came out. I really thought that I don´t like that. I don´t like the idea of somebody up there shooting. I just felt that was alien to what the Battlehill is. It is a quiet recreational space.

Interviews with Jelka Plate: B: Andrew, archeology enthusiast

2010-07-19T06:14:00.000-07:00

What do you see when you walk around the Battlehill to make your finds?

With worked flints it’s the straight lines, as these are quite unusual in nature, that‘s what draws my eyes to them. Most people looking for flints spot unsual colour or the transparancy. I see the unnatural lines. This piece of flint was created by a person who had been trying to make a tool, on striking the flint it has fractured and created an unnatural straight line.
There have definitely people been living on the Battle Hill. It is not a case of someone just passing through, quickly making a tool and leaving the waste flint. Such a large concentration of flints in a small area suggests that one part of the hill was habited over a considerable period of time, perhaps over hundreds, or even thousands of years. The people would have been living in huts and the burnt flints may suggest a hearth area with knapping taking place nearby.

The waste flakes of flint are very difficult to date, they could be anything from 8.000 to 4.000 years old. But this one here dates from the neolithic period, around 4.000 years ago.

To an uneducated eye the flints are just normal small stones, but I know that they don´t come from this area, so they have to be brought in by humans. The nearest deposits come from the coast, at Boddam, near Peterhead, around 40 miles away.
This one is the top of a knife which has broken off. The person that used it was probably very annoyed when it snapped. When you think of that piece of flint, that goes back – let´s say a generation is 20 years – 200 generations, maybe his genes exist in the people living here today. Could you imagine seeing his or her face passing through all the generations to the modern age, it would be amazing. It would have been a very different world back then. Remember we had bears here, and also lynx, wolves, and aurochs.

Back around 8.000 years ago in the Mesolithic period it would have been a wilderness with dense forestation. Some of the flints I’ve found may have been from that hunter-gatherer period. People then probably lived on the coast in the winter where there was plenty of food. They would have come inland in the summer to hunt and go back to the coast in winter.

Around 4000 years ago early farmers settled and they started clearing the forests for grazing land.

What was your most exciting find you made in the Battlehill?

The ring was quite exciting, initially I thought that it may have been ancient and made of gold, which would have been nice. Do you see the little sparkles showing through? It is only the cheapest of tin and nickel dating to about 120 years ago.

Would Huntly already have looked like it looks now?

Oh yes, the houses would have been there. Not that much different.

See, this one is quite an interesting thing as well. When I found this, there was only a tiny little bit sticking out of the dirt. When I showed it to the head of our archaeology group he was convinced that it was a quartz ball and that it was about 4.000 years old. Under a microscope it looks fantastic, it looks handmade. We sent it down to Edinburgh and they were intrigued by it as well. Eventually they suggested that it was just a badly battered boys marble from 50 years ago! They couldn’t really understand how it had landed up like that, whether a boy had repeatedly been hitting it with a stone or set it on fire to make it look so crackly and ancient. Anyway it is still a nice object, I like it.

Which sounds do you associate with the woods?

I have been up there when it’s been a really wild day, real big storms when it is quite frightening to be there. You think „Wow, will I be crushed by a tree here.“ The elemental forces of nature can be exciting and exhilarating, the wind howling, trees creaking, banging and crashing noises with branches and pine cones falling all around.
There are not too many birds around. Those Norwegian spruces are quite sterile trees I always think. It really is the sound of the wind, even on a calm day it´s often windy on the Huntly side of the Hill.

Which smells do you associate with the woods?

After heavy rain there is a nice smell in the woods, a nice fresh and earthy smell. And also sometimes you can smell the pine.
I have seen me going up to the Battle Hill for a walk and my thoughts have been muddled at the time and I’m stressed with my workload, but after walking around the hill any stress diminishes and you obtain a real clarity of mind.
I have often lost the dog up there. Because I am walking through the woods and I am kind of relaxed and lost in my own thoughts I forget to keep checking on the dog. The dog is deaf and it´s eyesight is not good, so it takes a wrong turning and ends up going through the middle of the woods, but it always goes back to the car and looks up at the car boot and waits for me.

What relation do you have with the animals in the woods?

Rabbits and moles are good friends as they kick up the earth. This piece of flint was buried under a tree. A rabbit kicked out so much earth from its burrow so that it was just lying there. You would not have found it otherwise. Moles are friendly as well to archaeologists or people who want to find things.
Once I met a fox. One wild day I was in the middle of the woods where very few people go. I was with my dog, but it was way behind me. Because it was windy this fox did not hear me approaching. We met and just for a split second which seemed like a long two or three seconds, we just looked each other in the eyes. It was strange to be that close to a wild animal, and rare experience to look it right in the eyes. It had a big rabbit in its mouth, like a buck rabbit. He had obviously just killed him and was walking back. He had that level of surprise, but he did not show any great fear and then he just turned and carried on its way. That was a nice experience with nature.

Interviews with Jelka Plate: A. Mairi, resident of Huntly

2010-07-19T05:42:00.000-07:00

My first memories of the Battlehill are going up as a child to play with my pals and my brothers and sisters. That would have been in the fifties and at that time not all of the trees were planted up on the Battlehill. There was quite a lot of grass in the area. Once you went into the Battlehill, there was trees, but if you went further into the Battlehill there weren´t all the spruce trees that are there now. There were broad leafed trees, chestnut trees, trees you could climb on. I can´t find the place anymore where we used to go to, because there are all these spruce trees now and you can´t get up through it. We would go up and there would be about ten of us, my brothers, sisters and our pals. The parents didn´t go with us. There were not all the stories you have these days and none of the restrictions imposed on many kids nowadays. So we would go off for the whole afternoon. We went off after lunch, some of our pocket money was pooled to buy little things like broken biscuits from the baker. We made our lemonade and juice, cause we always had a picnic. This was in the summer time. We would go up to the top of the hill where there was this big stone what we called the table stone and the picnic bag was laid out. We had great fun, we played and ran around and hide and seek and tic and tac and we would run around or go down the hill to climb the trees. We loved climbing in trees. Actually I liked it better then, before all the trees were up, it was such a nice place to play in and run around. It is too dense now, there are too many trees. There was also the quarry, where at times there were old scrapped cars and busses and sometimes we played in them and pretended to be driving cars, the boys loved that!

On other days myself and my pal would go off with buckets to pick blaeberries. You don´t find them anymore now, because you don´t have the grass area anymore. We would pick a good lot of blaeberries and sit and eat them there. Usually we would still have enough to make a couple of jars of jam afterwards.

I am not one for trees just being knocked down for no reason, but I think, it was so much better then. Well, it seems to be sunshine all the time when you are a child and it was so much lighter then it is now. I find it very dark now. In fact when I went back, because I stopped to go when I was a teen, but when my own kids grew older we went up, so that would have been in the late 70’s, the trees were already quite tall by then, just after twenty years. I just thought it was eerie, because the grass wasn´t there because of the spruce trees, and the ground seemed bare, so it seemed dark to me. Not bright and light and airy like it was when I went to Battlehill.
It was like your secret little place. There were a lot of hidy places and you could run through there and find little flowers and berries. It was such a magical place to go.

You know what kids are like with their imagination, you imagine your little house there. You just found some bushes, went into it and you get sticks for seats. If it was just girls, you had little houses, you make a little village, you run around and pretend you are shopping. We did not take anything down to make it, we just used our imagination, stones were tables, sticks were seats, we would just break some branches. And that is exactly what my granddaughters did last week when I took them up: „This is your tree, this is mine, a house here and there, just come here, this is our little civilization.“ They did that and I thought, well that’s what I did when I was a kid. We never got lost in the woods, but as I said, there weren´t all the trees then. I could just imagine little sweety cake houses in the middle of the wood at the time I was there. I would never have associated the Battlehill with wolfs or anything sinister.

I found one photo taken on one of our picnics in the Battlehill. It was taken in 1958 when I would have been 12 and that probably would have been the last year we went the picnics as we were all growing older. In the photo there are two of my brothers and the others are from 5 other families in our street. I am not in the photo, and neither are my girl pals. My sister who was 17 and took the photo thought as I did, that we were probably making houses amoung the bushes when the photo was taken. The girl in the photo was her pal. They are sitting on the stone I spoke about where we had our picnics and my sister says there were other stones we used to jump on, from stone to stone. As you can see there are no spruce trees in sight, as if there were, they would be plainly visible all around. There is the one small tree, but it would have been native to this area and not planted. The other trees were all further down the hill.
My sister also reminded me that some of the days we went to the Battlehill after we had been to the children's film matinee (we had a cinema in Huntly at that time) and when we got to the Battlehill whatever film we had been watching that day was re-enacted all over.

Filming has begun

2010-07-19T03:27:00.000-07:00

Filming has begun up in the Battlehill for the Into the Wild project (when we get a rare glimpse of sunshine!)

North East Open Studios

2010-07-19T03:26:00.000-07:00

Into the Wild is part of 2010's NEOS. Brochures are soon to be out but in the meantime you can find out more about NEOS here.

Bogancloch Virtual Sitemeeting

2010-06-21T03:38:00.000-07:00

A video from Jake Williams

Map of Battlehill

2010-06-14T17:37:00.001-07:00

Battle over woods

2010-06-14T17:33:00.000-07:00

Jelka has arrived

2010-06-14T17:31:00.000-07:00

WANTED!

2010-06-14T09:54:00.000-07:00

We are looking for people from different generations who use or have used the Battlehill Woods in various ways; e.g. to go for a walk, to think, to hang out and hide away, to work, to ride the bike, to play.

We would like to invite anybody who remembers the woods from their own childhood or who has a relation to the Woods to talk about their memories, tell their stories or describe their favourite places in the Woods. Pictures, photographs and finds are very welcome as well.

If you would like to share your experiences please contact Jelka by emailing jelkapla@gmx.de or ringing 01466 794 719

If you go down to the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise...

2010-06-14T09:48:00.000-07:00

You can now befriend Dudendance on Facebook

Huntly Express

2010-05-27T00:55:00.001-07:00

Story Mapping

2010-05-27T00:55:00.000-07:00

As part of the Huntly Walking Festival, Dudendance ran a workshop in Battlehill Woods that invited participants to walk around the woods and describe the atmosphere and the emotions different areas evoked.

Experimenting with costumes

2010-05-25T03:31:00.000-07:00

Echoes from the Edge

2010-04-13T12:04:00.001-07:00

Echoes from the Edge sounds like an extremely interesting project.
Check it out here.

Get in touch!

2010-04-12T04:26:00.000-07:00

The Battlehill woods is Huntly’s small oasis of
wilderness close to the town. Dudendance, Jelka Plate, Fabiana Galante will be leading an art project over the summer looking at how wilderness effects our
imagination.

We are keen to engage with people who may have
memories or associated stories about the woods or who would like to take part in the project.

Performances and related events are planned for the 4/5th and 11/12th of September.

For further details and a chance to take part:
contact 01466 799 374
or email battlehillwoods@yahoo.co.uk

Battlehill Woods at Winter

2010-04-12T01:43:00.000-07:00

Mad Men-esque Goat

2010-04-02T06:26:00.000-07:00

This goat is like a character out of the current hit programme Mad Men. It might have something to do with the 1950's style and her uptight demeanor.

2010-04-02T06:25:00.001-07:00

Click here to read about the Enchanted Palace.

Rabbit character by Catrin Jeans

2010-03-01T10:30:00.000-08:00

This is one of my own drawings. I imagine the performance being very elegant with a Hollywood glamour feel to it. However there is an unsettling feeling due to the animal masks.

Catrin

Rabbit in the Battlehill

2010-03-01T10:06:00.002-08:00

Lost in time

2010-03-01T10:06:00.001-08:00

Our characters starting to explore the Battlehill Woods

Nice lighting in Iceland Riots

2010-03-01T10:04:00.001-08:00

Wild beings

2010-03-01T10:03:00.002-08:00

Classy ladies 1930s style

2010-03-01T10:03:00.001-08:00

2010-03-01T10:02:00.001-08:00

You should read Franz Kafka's Metemorphis.

Wild and twisted

2010-03-01T10:01:00.000-08:00

Christmas fairytales in Germany

2010-03-01T10:00:00.000-08:00

Imagination of Doctor Parnassus

2010-03-01T09:58:00.000-08:00

Feral Child

2010-03-01T09:36:00.000-08:00