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Daedalus Theatre Company Theatre’s medium is the human being. The powerful alchemy generated when a live, flesh-and-blood actor plays a role can enable a gathered audience to explore some of the darker, more obscure corners of human existence. It can also let us place conflicting narratives side by side and allow for a sophisticated idea of how truth works; an approach that reflects the complexity of human experience in the way a single, official version of events generally cannot. Theatre allows us to observe ourselves. Daedalus is concerned with how theatre can engage with and enrich society. The company’s work has evolved into a long-term, ambitious and seamless project. This integrates the making of sophisticated research-based performances and working with individuals. The goal is to apply the tools company members have developed as theatre-makers in support of those without a voice and to investigate aspects of human activity that are ignored, misunderstood or avoided. In practice this means that: Daedalus offers theatre professionals a democratic and open space to make research-based, socially engaged theatre, based on the principle that form follows content; It seeks to use its techniques wherever possible to enable the public to engage with the issues that affect them; And it is committed to the principle that the outreach work and the making of professional theatre pieces will be mutually supportive. In effect, they constitute a single, constantly evolving project.
A brief history Uroborus, a small piece of street theatre for Glastonbury Festival first brought together a group of professionals to devise new work but it was not until The Arches, Glasgow, commissioned Selfish that Daedalus gained a clear identity. This is based on an open-minded, research-led devising process, with all elements of the production being given equal weight. Daedalus's most recent show, A Place at the the Table, added another crucial dimension to the company's working practice, bringing together experts on Burundi and members of the community with an interest in the African Great Lakes region to create a piece of theatre that revolved around discussion. Audience and actors sat round a table and the performance naturally led everyone into eating, drinking and talking together. In terms of both engagment with audience and engagement with the world, A Place at the Table set out the terms for future work, including our ambitious programme of workshops and performances (of which A Place at the Table will form a part) provisionally entitled People, Stories, People. Another result is that from late 2011 A Place at the Table will be our first tour. As part of our growth as a organisation, we have recently set up Daedalus as a company limited by guarantee. Daedalus was originally founded as a student company which specialised in neglected scripts, such as The Ascent of F6 by Auden and Isherwood, and Yeats's On Baile's Strand and The Death of Cuchulain, along with forays into contemporary work such as Howard Barker's A Hard Heart and the premiere of Ching Fang's My Name is Rage. A student funding body under the same name still exists in Oxford: details can be found on the Oxford funding page.
Further information: Details on members of the company can be found here
Why Daedalus? In Greek mythology, Daedalus was the inventor of the labyrinth which contained the Minatour: perhaps a fitting image for artistic creativity, perhaps not. He is also credited with many other achievements, including creating a wide dancing-ground for Ariadne. Interestingly, the original idea of a labyrinth is thought to have evolved from a complex dancing path inlaid in a floor. We realise that it's pushing it to suggest that Daedalus invented scenography but... He had a somewhat tragic life, most notably losing his son Icarus while escaping Athens, having killed his nephew, who was proving to be the more ingenious craftsman. Famously, Icarus flew too close the sun and melted the wax holding the feathers to the wings his father had made. Daedalus is celebrated for many inventions and innovations, including carpentry, and was thought to have made the numerous wooden cult figures that could be seen around Greece in Classical times. Pausanias certainly thought so while he was travelling round Greece:
What experimental theatre practitioner could ask for greater praise?
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