Outreach and Development

Daedalus sees outreach work, company development and the making of new pieces of theatre as fully integrated aspects of the same project. What does this mean in terms of working with the public and how can that, in turn, feed company development?

Through group workshops and one-to-one interaction, backed by careful professional support, Daedalus members will use theatre techniques to enable people in communicating their experiences and placing them in the context of other narratives. This can involve a wide variety of approaches, such employing metaphor or myth, using a creative medium such as poetry, film, installation or movement, or simply using an actor to speak someone’s words.

This process will feed the creation of innovative, professional theatre pieces which enable the exploration of moral, social or philosophical issues. It is work such as this that initially made the company’s name. These performances will remain true to the company’s broader aims by using audience interactivity; exploring the issues surrounding verbatim narrative and continuing to evolve in response to changes in their source material. They will involve the workshop participants as much as possible and ensure that they are treated with respect and offered support where appropriate.

As respected theatre-makers, Daedalus’s team also bring their own experience and values to the process and will be encouraged to use the opportunity to investigate their own areas of interest as artists and thinkers. The performances they create will bring theatrical excellence to the process of giving people and issues a wider and more subtle hearing than generally offered by more conventional methods.

All this is supported by a democratic creative process and a belief that, when devising, sources come first and the performance emerges from them: form always follows content. This belief not only enables innovative and open-minded theatre-making but also, by acknowledging the limits and constraints of the conventional tools of verbatim work, in other words verbal first-person narrative, liberates workshop participants to find new ways of expressing and contextualising personal material.

Finally, through informal feedback, formalised evaluation methods and open discussion between company members, all the company's activities can learn from one another and contribute to a continual evolution of techniques, structure, goals and strategies.