Winter Droving 2022

Having travelled from Barcelona and Vilnius, Adrian and Jurate captured the hearts of the people of Penrith. Appearing to be lost in the middle of the event, Adrian and Jurate turned their childlike curiosity towards whatever appeared in front of them, be it chips, horses or glowing lanterns! Leaving behind a trail of chaos and orange chalk, the pair bring an air of innocence and intrigue to whatever they cross paths with.

The Chi Mo Lion came from Master Tang and the Chi Mo Martial Arts Centre in Manchester. A traditional dancing Chinese Lion, the Chi Mo Martial Arts Centre did not disappoint! Accompanied by traditional music, the lion leaps and prances for it’s audience, making small work of any objects it encounters.

The AST Drover’s Cup took place on King Street in the middle of the afternoon. This year saw the highest ever number of Drover’s Cup participants with 7 teams; The Cornthwaite Group, The Fire Fighter’s Charity, The Idol, The Lancaster Group for Boys and Girls, Penrith Mountain Rescue, The Chamber of Trade and Commerce and The Penrith Superlatives. The Drover’s Cup has become a tradition of the Droving and was sorely missed during the pandemic years. The cup is a series of competitions, designed to test the participants strength, speed, resilience, accuracy and self-deprecation. The winner of the Drover’s Cup achieves the much-coveted title of ‘rural champions’.

Eden Arts worked with Alex Jakob Whitworth on a commission to deliver mask making workshops to children and young people from the local area in the weeks running up to the Droving. Alex ran a full day session in Yanwath School, where over 90 children aged 7-11 engaged in learning about the Droving and created animal masks using different layers and textures which they could wear to the event the following week. This was followed up with a similar session which took place in Penrith Library during half term. The library were offering food packages and support to families over the school holidays and had a massive 67 children and 40 adults attend the session with Alex. On the day of the Droving, Alex could be found in a stall on King Street, by the designated Children’s Area, working with event attendees to make their masks. In total, Alex worked with approximately 400 people on mask making!

Eden Arts worked with Matrix Circus to create a children’s area on King Street where the younger visitors to the event could spend some time working with the Matrix Circus people on learning circus skills. The area was busy all day, only emptying when the circus performers packed up their bags and moved into the town centre to perform a fire show for the ever-increasing crowd.

This includes a ban on all single use plastic bags, single serving sauce sachets and polystyrene serve-ware.
Winter Droving promotional masks were made from bio-degradable materials such as felt and card rather than hard plastic.
Extinction Rebellion attended the event, running a print workshop on one of the market stalls and also performing as the Red Rebels.
Wherever possible, non-dated promotional materials were used, which can be reused year after year. We chose not to produce a printed programme due to environmental impacts; the programme was published online and on social media for people to download instead.