It’s all happening! Gerrard Winstanley’s True and Righteous Mobile Incitement Unit is coming to Brixton City Festival next week.
Thu 21st – Ovalhouse – 6:30pm and 8:30pm
Fri 22nd – Festivals Hub, Brixton – 6:30pm and 8:30pm
For details, see here…
We had a very successful day running an East storytelling tent at Great Day Out in Victoria Park. Here are some lovely photos by Rehan Jami of tellers Alia Alzougbi and Sef Townsend in action.
Help us tell the real story of our country’s history…
With politicians across the world trying to twist history to serve their own ends, we, the people, need to tell our own stories. That’s why Daedalus Theatre Company and The Black Smock Band are working with Ovalhouse Theatre, students at Queen Mary, University of London and local residents wherever we vist, to develop an exciting new project: Gerrard Winstanley’s True and Righteous Mobile Incitement Unit.
Part gig, part theatre, part political meeting, part public participation project, it will tour the country with songs and stories of dissent and rebellion… and an invitation to speak up and get involved. There’ll also be a website where we and the public can share ideas, texts and songs, and discuss England’s radical past, present and future.
Developed over the last few years under the working title of The Radical History Project, the piece centres on the Mobile Incitement Unit, a kind of portable, interactive installation, containing an archive, props and costumes, materials for making placards and writing protest songs, a miniature field for enacting land rights issues, tea-making facilities and much more besides. But we need to crowd-fund £2,000 to build it.
Please consider making a donation. Everything helps, however small! And, unless you want to be anonymous, you’ll be credited as a funder (or a sponsor for amounts over £250).
Go on, click the button below. You know you want to.
Thank you!
We’re back in Victoria Park again this Sat…
Specifically, we’re proud to present, in conjunction with BSK, storytelling this Sat, with two amazing tellers: Sef Townsend and Alia Alzougbi. It’s part of LBTH’s A Great Day Out, and of the East Storytelling project. Look out for the storytelling tent. It’s all happening near the bandstand in the East part of the park.
Come along!
We’re absolutely delighted to be part of this year’s Eid-al-Fitr celebrations in Victoria Park, Tower Hamlets. As part of our East storytelling project, organised in collaboration with Bishwo Shahitto Kendro, we’ll be running a storytelling tent with amazing tale-spinners Shamim Azad and Sef Townsend, supported by musician Paul Burgess. Info on the flyer below. It’s this Sunday. See you there!
We’ve been talking to the inspiring Kinsi Abdulleh about adding some Somali storytelling to the East Archive, and she invited us to the launch event of this year’s Numbi Festival. Numbi is “a platform for collaborative cross-cultural exchange for artists working in theatre, visual arts/photography, music/dance, and film, that draws from the experience of Somali communities around the world.” And, like us, it’s based in Tower Hamlets. We have great neighbours!
Last night’s event focused on a discussion of Hadrawi’s Baladweyn. Sef (one of East‘s professional storytellers) and Paul (our artistic director) went along. It was a really inspiring evening, and eye-opening for those who didn’t know a great deal about Somali literature. There are two more days of the festival to go. Details are here.
Thanks to Sef for the photo.
We had such a great week of R&D (radicalism & dissent), working on Gerrard Winstanley’s True and Righteous Mobile Incitement Unit with The Black Smock Band and Gerrard himself, who kindly joined us from the C17th.
A massive thank you to Ovalhouse. And thanks to the team: Alex Swift, Andy Bannister, Dan Cox, Maeve O’Neill, Matt Beattie, Paul Burgess, Rhiannon Kelly and Sarah Jeanpierre.
Things are taking shape. Lots more to come…
As it says above, really. We’re on Instagram. If you are too, please give us a follow!
We’re @daedalustheatre. See you there!
GERRARD WINSTANLEY’S TRUE AND RIGHTEOUS MOBILE INCITEMENT UNIT is the name for the collaborations with The Black Smock Band that we were developing under the working title of The Radical History Project.
There’s a project page here, plus there’s loads more info to come as we put the project together… In the meantime, we made a little video about it.
We’d like to say a big thank you to our outgoing chair Chris Luffingham, who is stepping down from the board. He’s been with us since we first became a proper company, and guided us through a period of significant change, not least gaining charity status. It’s not a complete goodbye, however, as he will remain in an advisory capacity. Still, we’re very grateful for all the time and good advice he’s given us over the years.
We’ve also recently been joined by two new trustees: Alia Alzougbi and Mark Bixter. We’ll post some more about them separately. Chris White will take over as chair.