High Plateau

High Plateau, a piece of community theatre for a small cast of young people (aged 16 - 25), was inspired by excerpts from Mark Beeson's long poem The Blue Monkeys of Zomba Plateau broadcast on Radio 3 in the spring and summer 1999. The production was a collaboration between Beeson, choreographer Rosalyn Maynard and composer Gillian Webster.

Based on Beeson's diaries, the poem charts one young man's journey and experience as a lone, British primatologist, far from his homeland of Dartmoor, living on a mountain in central Africa, studying - and ultimately saving - an endangered population of Blue Monkeys. He has recently returned from an ACE funded trip revisiting the Afro-montane forest where he carried out his work 25 years ago.

The principal artists involved were Mark Beeson (writer and primatologist), Rosalyn Maynard (dancer and choreographer) and Gillian Webster (musician and composer).

Rosalyn Maynard is a choreographer who grew up on the edge of Dartmoor. She lectures in dance at Dartington College of Arts and has worked with MED Theatre's young people on three past projects, including the dance documentary film Grave Intimations broadcast on BBC2 in 2004, for which she was interviewed as one of the panel of experts. She specialises in Doris Humpheys technique.

Gillian Webster is a composer and musician who lives on Dartmoor and has worked on a number of projects with MED Theatre, including The Forest on the Hill commissioned by English Nature in 2002, and Limen , a concert of new work for three young classical musicians, funded by the Regional Arts Lottery Programme as part of the Dartmoor Rising project in 2003. Originally a physicist by training, Gillian is an expert in music technology.

PHOTOS FROM MALAWI:

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In 1981 Beeson conducted a study of blue monkeys on the Zomba Plateau in Malawi. The monkeys were under threat of being shot to protect pine plantations, but Beeson's research enabled their survival by removing fears about the extent of the economic damage their bark-stripping behaviour might cause. The research highlighted the tensions between the different interests inherent in a conservation issue, brought into sharp focus by the poverty of the local population, and made him aware of deeper psychological tensions within himself caused by loneliness, homesickness, alienation and cultural and historical guilt.

The dance-drama work constantly flashes from the highlands of Malawi to Dartmoor, comparing the two igneous plateaux, their past, their present and their future, through the primatologist's own link with the English National Park where he grew up. A key concept in the creation of the dance is that of four perceived elements: earth, air, fire and water, representing the mountain, the mist, the sun and the streams, counterpointed with the scientific complexity which underpins the simplicity of the perceptions. The drama takes place on one day, set going by the disturbing appearance of a visitor in the primatologist's camp.

Through dance, music, poetry and drama High Plateau depicts the unfolding of a single day, radiating forwards, backwards, up and down through time, exploring in Beeson's rich, emotive language personal, local and global issues linking Dartmoor and the highlands of central Africa.

The project was launched in March 2006 with an African arts workshop led by Ayodelle Scott, featuring drumming, singing and dancing, held in Manaton Parish Hall. Ayodelle comes from Sierra Leonne but came to England in 1987 and now lives in Ashburton. He founded the multi-cultural dance and singing troupe Kabudu and also plays with Baka Beyond .

MED Theatre

email: info@medtheatre.co.uk

01647 441356

The MED Theatre Studio, 11a New Street,

Moretonhampstead, Devon, TQ13 8PE