Vivien Keiles

Thesis

Thesis

The Body & The Museum: Voice, Narrative & Embodied Practice in Memory Institutions Today – a proposed new approach

• Supervisor: Rachel Cowgill and Stef Conner

To investigate an embodied approach to engaging the public in singing local broadside ballads in a community festival, including workshops, inclusive research, ballad walks and relaxed performances, in order to identify factors of this approach that may benefit the wellbeing of participants, such as social inclusion, an enriched sense of place, to build festival audience engagement, and increase access to memory institutions for ‘hard to reach’ groups.

Biography

Biography

Vivien Keiles (AKA Ellis) works as a choir leader, arts and health researcher and performer, alongside being a care worker with Camphill Village Trust. She is known for her gutsy, passionate and folk-edged performances of early music with groups such as The Carnival Band, Sinfonye, The Broadside Band and The Telling. She has made numerous recordings as a soloist, including 'Cancionero', a programme of early Spanish music with The Dufay Collective, which was nominated for a Grammy Award.
Vivien leads Dragon Cafe Singers, a free inclusive singing group meeting every Monday in the London borough of Southwark, under the auspices of Mental Fight Club, an arts and health charity. She is developing new models of community music engagement drawing on early & folk music, including 'ballad walks’. She created a new model of GP education in arts and health, on which she co-wrote a paper, ‘Creating health: evaluation of three arts for health training events for GP trainees', for the Royal Society for Public Health.

Publications

Publications

Ellis V, Tully K, Gill N, Clift S. ‘Creating health’: evaluation of three arts for health training events for GP trainees. Perspectives in Public Health. 2021
'Southwark Rebel Women': song written in collaboration with the Dragon Cafe Singers, commissioned by Southwark Neighbourhoods Fund, Jan 2021
The Clerkenwell Ballad Walk: commissioned by Baroque At The Edge Festival, Jan 2021
'Our Journey': collaborative animation with Mental Fight Club charity, Wellcome Trust-funded 2020-2021
'Angels in the Architecture'': researched and performed concert inspired by 16th century roof bosses of St Mary's Church, Beverley Early Music Festival, May 2021
'Executions': concert of execution ballads for late-opening of exhibition, commissioned by Museum of London Docklands, March 2023
The Spitalfields Ballad Walk: commissioned by Museum of London Docklands, June 2023
York Festival of Ideas: ballad walk, workshop and exhibition at Minster Library, June 2024
'Strange Doings in London - The Songs and Ballads of St Giles': performances and workshops as Associate Artist with The Bloomsbury Festival, Heritage Lottery-funded project 2023-2025;
'Van Gogh in Brixton': research and recording street cries and songs for BBC radio documentary to be broadcast Feb 2025