HighTide announces new musical song cycle Herring Girls: greater than we are alone for First Light Festival

HighTide has announced new musical song cycle Herring Girls: greater than we are alone as the first act on stage at this year’s First Light Festival.

Backed by an all female creative team, the piece celebrates one of the first instances of women’s protest in the UK.

The song cycle explores the legacy and impact of the herring girls’ fair pay protest of 1936 and will be performed on Lowestoft Beach. The same beach on which the protest was held 87 years ago, as part of the First Light Festival.

Herring Girls: greater than we are alone is composed and musical directed by Jessie Maryon Davies with a libretto by Hannah Jane Walker and co-created with the Herring Girls community choir.

Design is by Moi Tran with associate designer Mona Camille, movement director Lucy Cullingford, assistant movement director Sian Websdale, climate dramaturg Zoë Svendsen and dramaturg Clare Slater.

Taking place on 17 June, First Light celebrates the first sunrise of midsummer on the UK’s most easterly shores with a weekend of performances and events under the solstice sun. Set amongst the sands and gardens of Lowestoft’s South Beach, First Light Festival’s outdoor programme welcomes over 30,000 visitors and is free, unticketed and for all.

Clare Slater, Artistic Director of HighTide said: “I’m so proud that we have brought together a leading, all-female creative team to co-create this piece with an intergenerational community choir from all walks of life across Lowestoft. Across the devising workshops, the crafting workshops and the group rehearsals – skills are being shared, questions about protest and our rights are being asked, and new friendships are being forged. The performance day on the beach is going to be very special indeed.”

Composer Jessie Maryon Davies added: “Herring Girls: greater than we are alone is a celebration of the power we hold when standing together: whether that is the herring girls striking for better pay in Lowestoft in 1936 or the empowering and unique feeling one gets when singing together in a group.

“I’ve loved working with librettist Hannah Jane Walker and local choirs in the writing of this piece, diving into the history of these hard-working Scottish fisher-women, who sang while they worked, and what they mean to us today. I can’t wait to hear the singer’s breathing life into the piece on Lowestoft beach at First Light Festival. I hope we capture the heart and guts and grit of the herring girls whose story will forever remind us of the power of having one’s voice heard.”

For more information, visit hightide.org.uk