Participation – Daedalus Theatre Company

East Music returns!

By DaedalusAdmin on Thursday, September 3, 2026

East Music Song and Tune Exchange

Bring your instruments and voices along with songs and tunes from across the world’s folk and grassroots traditions to play, sing and share

This is a free, friendly and inclusive session for musicians of all levels of experience, and from all musical heritages. Global Majority* and LGBTQ+ music makers are particularly welcome. The session, which is acoustic only, will be led by members of the Black Smock Band, a queer folk group. If you’d like to bring a song or a tune to share with the group, please do!

Date: Saturday 19 September 2026

Time: 2-4pm

Duration: 2 hours including a break for refreshments.

Location: Poplar Union, 2 Cotall St, London E14 6TL

Ages: 18+

Reserve your free space here

Produced by Daedalus Theatre Company in partnership with Poplar Union. Funded by Arts Council England.

*Global Majority refers to people who are Black, Asian, Brown, dual-heritage, indigenous to the global south, and/or have been racialised as ‘ethnic minorities’.

Events Participation

New Workshops this Summer in Rainham and Romford

By DaedalusAdmin on Friday, June 12, 2026

It’s been two and a half years since Daedalus first announced our partnership with Havering Changing and we feel really grateful to continue this collaboration with two new workshops this Summer.

Collaging Havering: Past, Present and Future

First up, we’re heading to Rainham on Saturday for the Annual Mardyke Community Centre Summer Festival. The event is free to enter with live entertainment, family activities and a wide range of refreshments on offer. Daedalus Assistant Producer Tasnim Siddiqa Amin and local artist Vicki Griffith will be facilitating a creative collage workshop exploring Havering’s past, present and future.

From the migration of East End communities after the Second World War to changing demographics, industries and high streets, we’ll share stories from local history, reflect on what community means in Havering today, and imagine what the borough could look like in years to come.

Date: Saturday 13 June 2026

Time: 12PM – 4PM

Location: Mardyke Community Centre, 52 South St, Rainham RM13 8PJ

No booking required, just turn up.

The creative nature workshops Daedalus delivered in Rainham in 2024 gave Vicki “the confidence to explore this side of my creativity more fully. Since then, I have continued learning through local craft workshops and more recently, simply to share with community partners and local groups. In 2025, three of my own denim artworks were selected for display as part of the ‘Secret Artist’s Project’ in Rainham, Essex.”

About the facilitators

Events Participation The Company

Call for Bengali Storytellers from Camden: East to Elsewhere on the theme of KINDNESS

By DaedalusAdmin on Saturday, June 6, 2026

Do you have a story to tell about kindness? We’re looking for Bengali storytellers from Camden. If you have a story about acts of kindness, migration or how Camden has shaped your life, we want to hear from you! This callout is for people with little or no professional experience in storytelling.

About the Project:

We’re thrilled to bring East to Elsewhere to Camden People’s Theatre this Summer. This project will explore the rich history and diverse cultures of Camden and beyond through stories of migration, community and kindness.

The kind of thing that we are looking for:

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

Eligibility:

Are you Bengali?
Do you have a connection to the London Borough of Camden?
Are you interested in telling stories?
Are you new to storytelling?

If you answered yes to these questions and are NOT a professional storyteller, we invite you to pitch your story!

Key Details:

Major Projects Participation Partners and Collaborators

East Storytelling Project Announcement in partnership with Camden Peoples Theatre

By DaedalusAdmin on Tuesday, May 26, 2026

Our East Storytelling Project is back this summer, and we are thrilled to announce that we are growing our project thanks to a new partnership with Camden Peoples Theatre and funding from Arts Council England.

After marking ten years at Rich Mix in 2023 as part of A Season of Bangla Drama festival, we imagined what our storytelling project might look like outside of Tower Hamlets. Whilst the project began in the East End we have always had storytellers and audiences who have connected with us from across London and especially following the launch of our East Archive, this is a project that connects people across the globe. Stories of migration are at the heart of the project, so it makes sense that we, too, would migrate!

Last year we were successful for the Mayor’s Tower Hamlets Small Grants Programme, where we piloted East to Elsewhere by responding to the A Season of Bangla Drama 2025 festival theme of kindness.

Artist Spotlight Participation Partners and Collaborators

Artist Spotlight: The Black Smock Band

By DaedalusAdmin on Thursday, April 2, 2026

Photo of Paul Burgess, Dan Cox and Andy Bannister (left to right) by Tasnim Siddiqa Amin at a rehearsal in Deptford, 2026

Daedalus Theatre Company and the Black Smock Band have worked together on many projects. You may recognise our director, Paul Burgess, as one of the members of the band! After years of collaborations, we think it’s time to spotlight the band in their own right. Grab a cuppa and settle in because it’s a read as heart-warming as the band’s music, which incidentally, you can hear live – and sing along with – on Wednesday 22nd April 2026 at Camden People’s Theatre. Book your tickets for QUEER REVOLUTIONARY SINGALONG now:

Book here

Tell us about yourself and your creative practice.

Andy Bannister: In addition to being a musician, I’m a visual artist and a tutor working in higher education. I teach on a fine art course where I mainly work with students who focus on sculpture and combined media- this reflects what I do when I’m in my studio. In my current work, I’m exploring the impact of science and technology on culture and society, with a focus on the widespread civil opposition to the nuclear arms race during the Cold War period. There’s a crossover here with my activities as a musician, in terms of my interest in the role of folk music within protest movements and the emphasis on stories of resistance within the folk tradition.

Associate Artists Events Participation

New Creative Nature Workshop for Young People (16-25) in Romford

By DaedalusAdmin on Monday, March 23, 2026

Our work continues in Havering with Kaleidoscope, a grassroots organisation that has been working with young LGBTQ+ people in Romford since 2022.

Date: Tuesday 7th April 2026
Time: 5PM-7PM
Location: Lumiere Romford, RM1 3EE
Age: 16-25

Book now

Often queer people have been called unnatural, but nature is filled with wonder and ambiguity. Take the most apparently basic animal, the fruit fly; researchers have found that fruit flies have metafemale, metamales and intersex gender identities, and bisexuality. One species of fungus has 23,000 genders. Gay penguins have been well documented in zoos and the wild. Starfish are asexual.

Artist Spotlight Events Participation

Artist Spotlight: Marshall Savage

By DaedalusAdmin on Thursday, November 13, 2025

Photo of Marshall Savage at Kobi Nazrul Centre (2025)

Marshall Savage, also known as Mijan, is a Bangladeshi-British queer person from Bow. Marshall is passionate about LGBTQ+ rights and welfare not warfare. Marshall doesn’t come from a creative or academic background, but he loves learning new skills and embracing new experiences wherever they lead him. He is the newest member of our East Storytelling Project.

After a late evening of rehearsals for our latest East production EAST TO ELSEWHERE, local trade unionist Marshall and assistant producer Tasnim sat at Chaiwalla on Brick Lane with a coffee and roti to talk about the East End, activism and the importance of sharing stories of migrant women.

Tell us about yourself.

My name is Marshall, I’m born and raised in Tower Hamlets, in Bow specifically. I work for Tower Hamlets and I’m also a Trade unionist. I’m very heavily involved in activism, especially local activism and organising against the far right

Events Participation

Call for Emerging Bengali Storytellers: East to Elsewhere on the theme of KINDNESS

By DaedalusAdmin on Tuesday, November 4, 2025

Photo by Rehan Jamil

Do you have a story to tell about kindness? We’re looking for Bengali storytellers from Tower Hamlets. If you have a story about acts of kindness, migration or how Tower Hamlets has shaped your life, we want to hear from you! This callout is for people with little or no professional experience in storytelling.

About the Project: We’re thrilled to announce East to Elsewhere, 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.

The kind of thing that we are looking for:

Major Projects Participation The Company

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.

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.