Output details

“The Steelmen Stories”

Exhibition of poetic documentary films

Research Context

“The Steelmen Stories” was commissioned as a contribution to the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. As such, it is part of a substantial body of research producing hybrid documentary films.

Research Imperatives

The works centre on the people/players of Ebbw Vale Rugby Club (Praxis theme) and the output was to be a poetry/documentary hybrid (Praxis form) the exact nature of which would evolve through the process of making. This approach to widening definitions of documentary practice was a creative collaboration between Morris and poet Owen Sheers - the ‘writer in residence’ for the Welsh Rugby Union. The risk factor in terms of setting out on this collaborative project (to create a number of undefined works, based on unresolved processes) was both invigorating and highly productive.

Project methods

The project was built upon collaborative approaches to the ‘act of making’ (a curator, a poet, a filmmaker and members of the public).

‘The Steelmen Stories’, are five fusions of documentary and poetry viewed through the prism of valleys club rugby. Morris conducted interviews with members of the Ebbw Vale Rugby Club about the game, the ground, the team, the history, their passion and the community of Ebbw. Sheers used these interview to construct a series of poems that faithfully captured the authentic documentary tones and phrasing. Morris then invited the original interviewees to record the poems in their own voices, creating a suite of five poetry documentary films in response to these poems. This experiment in hybridity has led to two further projects with Owen Sheers:

• “The student Sex Work Project”, another poetry/documentary fusion project, that will have as its outputs a documentary drama film and a theatre project at the National Theatre in London.

• “Mametz Wood” a theatre documentary piece commissioned by National Theatre Wales for September 2014.