Estah's Story (2019)

In 2019 the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site Office supported Estah's Story at Heartlands, a site-specific work responding to the magnificent Cornish Mining World Heritage Site, involving song, vertical dance and a processional style performance with strong cast of actors, singers and vertical dancers.

Yskynna’s immersive performance of Estah’s Story which included aerial dance at Heartlands in Pool; a key centre of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site held it’s 2019 summer run with fantastic reception from attendees. Yskynna had a mix of new cast working with their established Yskynna dancers learning from their impressive skill and experience.

Estah is a Cornish Bal Maiden, she leads us into her world, her life at the tin mine and into her dreams, both realized and lost. Visual story telling at its best by Yskynna with Vertical Dance off the historic architecture at Heartlands, with song and spoken word. Journey across time and find your heart, hearth and home with Estah’s Story.

The World Heritage Site Office worked with Yskynna to provide historic background, we also initiated a Diaspora call out collecting real family histories and stories which went on to directly inspire the performance and script.

The show featured the Red River Singers and the Ingleheart Singers, led by Hilary Coleman and Claire Ingleheart. It included immersive story telling as the audience moved through the Diaspora gardens and round the engine house.

Final attendance numbers were 1023 with people attending coming from as far away as the North of England, Norway and Switzerland. The majority of respondents (87%) were new audiences, having not engaged with Yskynna performances previously.

The audience feedback questionnaire included the favourable comments below.

• Words to describe the performance lively, lovely singing, spectacular acrobatics
• Fantastic teaching about Cornish history to the rest of the world and it's heritage abroad and in Cornwall
• Breath-taking, emotional
• Different, amazing, unique. Thrilling
• Beautiful, sad, touching, informative
• Amazing, inspiring, unique
• Brilliant pur dha
• Absolutely fantastic!
• Mesmerising, enjoyable, informative
• Fantastic! Fabulous! Unmissable!
• Wow, incredible, breath-taking, moving
• Awesome, magical, historically excellent, emotional
• Historically creative, exceptional choreography
• Impressed with the storyline as our social education didn’t tell us enough about the Cornish tin mining events of the century