Nice news for the publishing side of the company: there's a brilliant review of Theatre and Slavery in the new issue of The Drama Review. It's by Jane Plastow, the Professor of African Theatre at Leeds, so it should carry lots of weight in academic circles. It's also very nice that she points out it isn't a solely academic publication.
Devising processes continue. It's a big, complex business, but starting to shape very well. I'm enjoying the combination of Method-ish psychological character exploration with wild theatricality. By playing with form, naturalism becomes only one of the theatrical modes employed. There was a hiccough on Monday, with Nancy pointing out that there didn't seem to be much point her character being in the play as things stood. She was absolutely right. As so often in this sort of process, the blip led to a very creative new idea, which solves at least two plot-lines much more satisfactorily than before. Process, process....
Showing posts with label theatre slavery Africa China. Show all posts
Showing posts with label theatre slavery Africa China. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Passage of Music
I was invited to lunch at the House of Commons yesterday. After Australia House on Friday, it seems to be the season to be swanning through the corridors of power. Strange to pass through the security checks on September 11th, but once inside you can't help feeling rather proud of the place.
The lunch is a launch event for the Passage of Music season, which Dilemma is part of because of the involvement of Osei Korankye, the wonderful seprewa player we're bringing from Ghana. Passage of Music is a season of events around the slvery anniversary, which use music to evoke the past, to arouse an emotional response, and to promote reconciliation. Exactly the word used by the Australian Deputy High Commissioner about ORIGINS on Friday night - nice to see such a powerful theme emerging in our work. Meurig, our contact at Serious, who are producing the season, asks me whether Osie might be able to play at the unveiling of a statue of Ignacio Sancho at the Foreign Office. I've yet to ask him, but it sounds pretty exciting to me!
It's a beautiful day, and we have drinks on the terrace of the House of Commons. This being lunchtime, most people have orange juice or water. With a majority of black people (for once) and several of us in African dress, we probably confuse the passing tourists on boats, who are looking for lunching MPs. A woman from the Arts Council makes a very good speech about the role of art in public life. When she said she was going to Parliament to celebrate the Slavery anniversary, a friend had said "Yes, but why are you going?", as if the arts couldn't have anything to do with politics. She should read Julia Swindells' chapter in the Theatre and Slavery book when it comes out soon: it's really clear how theatre helped campaign against the slave trade two hundred years ago.
The lunch is a launch event for the Passage of Music season, which Dilemma is part of because of the involvement of Osei Korankye, the wonderful seprewa player we're bringing from Ghana. Passage of Music is a season of events around the slvery anniversary, which use music to evoke the past, to arouse an emotional response, and to promote reconciliation. Exactly the word used by the Australian Deputy High Commissioner about ORIGINS on Friday night - nice to see such a powerful theme emerging in our work. Meurig, our contact at Serious, who are producing the season, asks me whether Osie might be able to play at the unveiling of a statue of Ignacio Sancho at the Foreign Office. I've yet to ask him, but it sounds pretty exciting to me!
It's a beautiful day, and we have drinks on the terrace of the House of Commons. This being lunchtime, most people have orange juice or water. With a majority of black people (for once) and several of us in African dress, we probably confuse the passing tourists on boats, who are looking for lunching MPs. A woman from the Arts Council makes a very good speech about the role of art in public life. When she said she was going to Parliament to celebrate the Slavery anniversary, a friend had said "Yes, but why are you going?", as if the arts couldn't have anything to do with politics. She should read Julia Swindells' chapter in the Theatre and Slavery book when it comes out soon: it's really clear how theatre helped campaign against the slave trade two hundred years ago.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
From Slavery to Salesmanship
The latest edition of African Theatre is out, edited by Michael Etherton. He's a writer who has always interested me, since I read his book on Contemporary Irish Dramatists years ago, and started to understand how colonisation has shaped theatre in so many parts of the world. My production of Spokesong for Stage One, back in the early 90s, was really the start of my journey into post-colonial theatre, and owed a huge amount to him. So it's very exciting for me to be in communication with him, and to hear how much he likes the website and ideas behind Border Crossings!
The African Theatre book is subtitled Youth, and is about work around Theatre for Development, empowering young people to articulate their concerns, and to make real changes in the attitudes of adults, with political results. This makes me think more about the issues around contemporary slavery and near slavery, and I email Michael about theatre which is tackling these issues in the modern world. He's put me in touch with some extraordinary people, mainly working with NGOs on the Indian subcontinent, who are helping child labourers and bonded labourers to make theatre pieces and videos which articulate their lives and effect change. So, this is material which must go into the planned book on Theatre and Slavery.
The book is intended to sit alongside the Dilemma production - at the moment a lot of energy is going into selling this into venues. There's a lot of interest, and some definites outside London, but the key London venue is still not secured, in spite of several requests for the script, meetings and so on. I suspect this is the bit of the job I do least well - I've always been a bit bad at the selling side of things - there's a bit of me somewhere that believes nobody would want anything from me...... Deborah comes with me to one meeting and I ask her for some notes afterwards. "You're very honest" is her only comment. I guess City people find that quite surprising in what is, essentially, a sales pitch. It would really help if somebody else could somehow take this on......
I feel more at ease when the meeting is more speculative, like my hour with Angharad at LIFT on Tuesday. She's still talking with great excitement about Dis-Orientations, and would be interested in the Trilogy being part of LIFT 08. It's not her decision, though: programming these days is the work of the "Seekers". That's fine - we initiate a dialogue with Wen Hui (who I sort of know anyway). In the meantime, Meijing invites me to the Hong Kong Festival as the guest of the British Council to make contacts for taking the Trilogy over there..... and it all feels quite buoyant. And Angharad has asked if I'll be a Seeker for LIFT 2010 - which is a real recognition for what we've been doing.
The African Theatre book is subtitled Youth, and is about work around Theatre for Development, empowering young people to articulate their concerns, and to make real changes in the attitudes of adults, with political results. This makes me think more about the issues around contemporary slavery and near slavery, and I email Michael about theatre which is tackling these issues in the modern world. He's put me in touch with some extraordinary people, mainly working with NGOs on the Indian subcontinent, who are helping child labourers and bonded labourers to make theatre pieces and videos which articulate their lives and effect change. So, this is material which must go into the planned book on Theatre and Slavery.
The book is intended to sit alongside the Dilemma production - at the moment a lot of energy is going into selling this into venues. There's a lot of interest, and some definites outside London, but the key London venue is still not secured, in spite of several requests for the script, meetings and so on. I suspect this is the bit of the job I do least well - I've always been a bit bad at the selling side of things - there's a bit of me somewhere that believes nobody would want anything from me...... Deborah comes with me to one meeting and I ask her for some notes afterwards. "You're very honest" is her only comment. I guess City people find that quite surprising in what is, essentially, a sales pitch. It would really help if somebody else could somehow take this on......
I feel more at ease when the meeting is more speculative, like my hour with Angharad at LIFT on Tuesday. She's still talking with great excitement about Dis-Orientations, and would be interested in the Trilogy being part of LIFT 08. It's not her decision, though: programming these days is the work of the "Seekers". That's fine - we initiate a dialogue with Wen Hui (who I sort of know anyway). In the meantime, Meijing invites me to the Hong Kong Festival as the guest of the British Council to make contacts for taking the Trilogy over there..... and it all feels quite buoyant. And Angharad has asked if I'll be a Seeker for LIFT 2010 - which is a real recognition for what we've been doing.
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