DaedalusAdmin

The East Storytelling Project returns to A Season of Bangla Drama 2025 with East to Elsewhere

By DaedalusAdmin on Wednesday, October 29, 2025

Photo collage featuring Shamim Azad, Farah Naz, Sef Townsend, Michele Chowrimootoo, Paul Burgess, Tasnim Siddiqa Amin (left to right)

We’re delighted to announce that Daedalus Theatre Company will be part of the 22nd year of A Season of Bangla Drama, with the latest iteration of our East Storytelling Project: East to Elsewhere. Our performance at the annual festival, at 7:30pm on 14th November 2025 in Tower Hamlets, marks a turning point. Our last performance at Season of Bangla Drama celebrated a decade of the project. This year’s show marks the beginning of an exciting new phase.

BOOK TICKETS HERE

Following a period of planning, dreaming and discussion with members of our storytelling community, we’re widening the project’s reach. Having recently taken Mobile Incitement to Exeter and run one of our Creative Nature workshops in Sheffield, our performance at A Season of Bangla Drama pilots the format we hope to use to, well, as the title says, take East elsewhere.

The performance itself will, nevertheless, be firmly rooted in our home borough of Tower Hamlets, with stories from the area’s various cultures and an open mic. The theme of this year’s festival is kindness. Stories and songs of migration – of belonging and not belonging – have always been central to the East Storytelling Project. This is only partly by design; it’s also down to where we are and our decision to deliberately seek out tellers from the borough’s different communities. Our take on the festival theme is the kindness – and the unkindness – with which migrants, refugees and asylum seekers are greeted, and the kindness that makes people take terrible risks in order to support or be with their loved ones. East Storytelling Project as a whole stands as a form of resistance to attacks on asylum seekers and refugees, instead offering a community of kindness and cultural exchange through shared stories and music.

Major Projects Partners and Collaborators

Mobile Incitement in Exeter

By DaedalusAdmin on Saturday, October 25, 2025

Left to right: Jono Chant-Stevens, Dan Cox, Paul Burgess and Andy Bannister. Photo, Thomas Chant.

This summer, Daedalus performed its gig-theatre piece Gerrard Winstanley’s True and Righteous Mobile Incitement Unit at St Nicholas Priory, Exeter. Artistic director Paul Burgess reflects on the project.

We’ve been talking with the team at St Nicholas Priory for a while. It’s a fantastic building; the oldest in Exeter. Full of history, it felt like the perfect venue for Mobile Incitement. However, our first attempt, part of a planned tour in 2020, was cancelled due to Covid. This year, we finally made it. It was the first time we’d performed the show since we did it at the Freedom and Independence Theatre Festival in Whitechapel, East London, back in 2021. On that occasion, guest performer Saida Tani joined us to sing traditional Bengali songs.

Mobile Incitement, as we call it for short, was made in collaboration with The Black Smock Band – a gay eco-socialist folk band based in Deptford, South-east London. It tells the story of protest in England from the Peasants’ Revolt to the end of the Industrial Revolution, through historical texts, folk songs, and new writing. But what makes it particularly special is that everywhere we take it, we work with local people to make the show truly site-specific, with lots of local stories.

Major Projects Partners and Collaborators

Inviting Nature onstage: Dysbiosis premieres at Queens Theatre, Hornchurch

By DaedalusAdmin on Thursday, September 11, 2025

Photo by Hannah Davis of the Dysbiosis Collective and QTH Associate Producer Steven Bowyer at Queens Theatre

It has been four years in development, including some long pauses for fundraising. But we finally premiered Dysbiosis to a public audience last weekend. It took place at Queens Theatre, Hornchurch, which is also where it all started. We had performances on the main stage and an exhibition, titled Queering the Earth in the foyer.

The Dysbiosis Collective are Amy Daniels, Amy-Rose Edlyn, Fran Olivares, Kathryn Webb, Nuke Lagranje, Paul Burgess, Shakira Malkani, Tasnim Siddiqa Amin, Yael Elisheva and Zia Álmos Joshua.

Some highlights from the journey. Walking and drawing in Rainham Marshes with local residents. Running a workshop in a chapel in the middle of a cemetery in Sheffield. Doing a birdsong-filled sound walk in another cemetery, this time in Mile End, London. An exhibition of community artworks at the Royals Youth Centre in Rainham. Turning up to make a pitch to a Havering Changing residents’ panel with tea and homemade cake. Collaging with LGBTQ+ young people in Romford. Testing out ideas at Omnibus Theatre, as part of the 96 Festival of LGBTQ+ theatre.

Artist Spotlight Major Projects

Artist Spotlight: Amy-Rose Edlyn

By DaedalusAdmin on Tuesday, September 2, 2025

We’re delighted to spotlight Amy (they/them), who first joined us in June to install our exhibition at Omnibus Theatre. This time, Amy returns as co-creator of Queering the Earth and stage manager for Dysbiosis. Throughout an intensive week of rehearsals at Queens Theatre Hornchurch, Amy will be bringing a wide range of skills to support the team. As a queer interdisciplinary artist and theatremaker deeply engaged in political and community work, Amy already feels like a long-lost member of Dysbiosis.

Tell us about yourself and your creative practice. You’ve worked across stage management, design, facilitation, and live art – how would you describe what drives your work and where your practice is heading?

I am a queer, multidisciplinary creative based in Tower Hamlets. I started out as a theatre designer/maker alongside working in technical theatre working extensively around West End and off-West End productions for over a decade now. In the past 5 years I expanded my practice in co-founding and directing queer arts company Bold Mellon Collective CIC as a creative producer, facilitator and curator of visual and live-art. Since February 2025, I have also been an artist in residence at Firepit Art Gallery and Studios CIC developing my own visual art & curatorial practice. I am especially interested in community-based projects which weave the intersections of the LGBTQIA+ community together and promote wellbeing through the arts. Politically active and socially engaging works drive me to create and currently I feel my practice going through an exciting transformation in blending these worlds and expanding capacity so I am excited to see where it takes me!

You first encountered Dysbiosis as an audience member at the Omnibus Theatre sharing, then co-curated the exhibition, and now you’re joining as stage manager. What has it been like to experience the project from these different perspectives?

Events Major Projects

Mobile Incitement returns!

By DaedalusAdmin on Thursday, July 17, 2025

When the pandemic struck in 2020 we had a tour arranged for our gig-theatre piece Gerrard Winstanley’s True and Righteous Mobile Incitement Unit, and were in the middle of fundraising. That tour didn’t happen, obviously, but five years later one of the venues has invited us to perform. It will be part of a season of performances, talks and other events looking at the theme of protest and Exeter’s role in the Civil War period. The venue is St Nicholas Priory, a fantastic mediaeval building in the heart of Exeter. We will be working with local historians and performers to create a really special version of the show.

Artist Spotlight Major Projects

Artist Spotlight: Amy Daniels

By DaedalusAdmin on Monday, July 14, 2025

As we enter our third phase of our new project, Dysbiosis, we are a team that continues to grow, and so here we have it: our latest spotlight on our newest team member, Amy Daniels. Amy joined us to present our first public sharing of Dysbiosis at the Omnibus Theatre last month as part of the 96 Festival and will be leading on the lighting design for Dysbiosis here on out.

Amy has been a lover of theatre since she can remember. She studied English Literature at the University of Sussex, then fell in love with all things production during a year abroad at Stony Brook University in New York. She works on a wide range of performance, with an emphasis on the political, the playful and the pondering. Find her full credits and portfolio on her website – www.amydanielslighting.com

Tell us about yourself and your creative practice.

Events Major Projects Participation Partners and Collaborators

Announcing New Daedalus Production and New Partnership at Exciting Queer Festival in South London!

By DaedalusAdmin on Wednesday, April 16, 2025

After two R&D phases and more than two years in development, we’re finally ready to share Dysbiosis, our latest theatre project — and we’re doing it as part of the 96 Festival on its tenth anniversary.

We’re thrilled to bring this work-in-progress performance and exhibition to Omnibus Theatre in Clapham, South London, marking an exciting moment for Daedalus as we step outside our usual East London base to join this landmark festival in a vibrant new context.

About the Show:

Dysbiosis is a queer-led, multimedia performance that unearths the tangled connections between queerness, place, nature and environmental justice. Developed through collaboration with working class, global majority and LGBTQ+ Londoners, it weaves together original music, spoken word, performance and visual storytelling to explore how we live in and with the natural world.

Major Projects Participation

Dysbiosis: Nature, Creativity and Community

By DaedalusAdmin on Monday, March 17, 2025

DYSBIOSIS is a creative wellbeing programme designed to improve mental health, reduce loneliness, and support underrepresented communities in London. Through multi-artform public workshops, a one-day conference and a touring exhibition, the programme fosters social connection, builds confidence and promotes sustainable, creative practices.

We have most of the funding, but our Arts Council grant is conditional on our raising some of the funding ourselves. You can help us achieve this, by donating and by spreading the word; we’d be very grateful!

Donate to the crowdfunder here

Events Participation Partners and Collaborators

Call for Storytellers: Tales of Tower Hamlets on the theme of KINDNESS

By DaedalusAdmin on Tuesday, March 4, 2025

Do you have a story to tell about kindness in Tower Hamlets? We’re looking for storytellers with Caribbean, Somali, or/and West African heritage. If you have a story about acts of kindness, migration, or how Tower Hamlets has shaped your life, we want to hear from you!

About the Project: We’re thrilled to announce Tales of Tower Hamlets, a new storytelling event celebrating the theme of Kindness from the EAST Project. This project will explore the rich history and diverse cultures of Tower Hamlets through stories of migration, community support, and kindness—especially stories of kindness shown by migrant communities to newcomers such as refugees and asylum seekers.

What We’re Looking For:

Stories about acts of kindness within migrant communities in Tower Hamlets.
Experiences of newcomers, especially refugees and asylum seekers.
Historical migration stories linked to East London.
Contemporary stories about migration today.
Personal stories—if you feel like sharing!
Stories that reflect the awesome diversity of East London and Tower Hamlets.

Eligibility:

Artist Spotlight Major Projects

Artist Spotlight: Nuke Lagranje

By DaedalusAdmin on Sunday, February 23, 2025

For our final Dysbiosis artist spotlight, we meet director, writer, and performer Nuke Lagranje (he/they), whose work draws deeply from his experiences as a queer, neurodivergent person. In the first R&D phase in 2023, Nuke embodied one half of a two-headed, non-human creature—an abstract entity accidentally conjured by an artist. This creature weaves together elements of fairy lore, huldras, and other mythological beings, reflecting a connection to nature and the unseen.

Assistant Director Tasnim sat down with Nuke to discuss his creative practice, the intersections of queerness and nature, making new connections in the industry, and more.

*Photo of Nuke Lagranje (right) at* *Queens Theatre Hornchurch* *with Yael Elisheva by Hannah Davis.*

Tell us about yourself and your creative practice.

My name is Nuke. I direct, write plays and prose and act now and then. My focus when I write or direct is usually magical realism, social activism and psychology. I produced, wrote and directed Constant Reprises. I am Spanish-Dominican, I grew up in Madrid, moved to England for university then moved to London after graduating from Portsmouth. I am queer, Black-Caribbean and… I love dogs.

What does ‘dysbiosis’ mean to you?