Daedalus Theatre Company | Theatre can go where politics and the media cannot Partners and Collaborators

East Stories: free Easter holiday storytelling workshops for children!

By DaedalusAdmin on Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Two amazing international storytellers, Shamim Azad and Sef Townsend, and acclaimed theatre-maker/musician Paul Burgess, will be running workshops for children aged 6-9. Come along to hear some tales and sing some songs before creating a storytelling performance! A fun and fascinating session that will bring out your creativity.

Booking: Tickets for either of the two sessions can be booked at: www.ticketsource.co.uk/daedalus

Children should be accompanied by a parent or guardian. The rest of the family (and friends too) can come and watch at the end.

Date: April 2nd 2016

Time: take your pick: either 10:45am-1:15pm (with a showing at 12:45pm) or 2:00pm-4:30pm (with a showing at 4:00pm)

Venue: Brady Arts and Community Centre, 192-196 Hanbury Street, London, E1 5HU

The project is part of the East storytelling project, a partnership between Daedalus Theatre Company, an artists’ development collective, and Bishwo Shahitto Kendro, a community arts group, that brings together Tower Hamlets community members to share their stories and songs. Find us on Facebook by searching EastStorytelling or go to www.daedalustheatre.co.uk/wp/projects/east/. The East storytelling project was initially developed with support from Apples and Snakes, Rich Mix, Arts Council England and Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

These workshops are funded by Arts Council England and crowdfunding, with support from Tower Hamlets Arts & Events and Rich Mix. For further information please email contact@daedalustheatre.co.uk

And make sure you sign up to our mailing list to be kept up-to-date about future events; it’s just over on the right-hand side of this page!

Major Projects Participation Partners and Collaborators

East Archive: progress report

By DaedalusAdmin on Wednesday, February 24, 2016

We’re now well into the process of recording our stories and songs from the East project for our online video archive. Today we had a look at all the videos we have so far. Bangla, Jewish and Somali songs, folk tales from Bangladesh and Korea, personal stories from the UK, Bangladesh and Sweden…With plenty more still to come. It’s extremely rewarding to see our work being documented and we’re looking forward to sharing it with the world.

One of the highlights of this process was a get-together a couple of weeks ago, where we shared food, stories and songs. Several pieces from that session will be in the archive. Here are some photos from the event taken by members of the group.

Some of the East Storytelling community

The East storytelling project is a co-production between Bishwo Shahitto Kendro (BSK) and Daedalus Theatre Company. It’s managed by Daedalus and funded by Arts Council England and crowdfunding, with in kind support from Rich Mix and Tower Hamlets Arts & Events.

Events Partners and Collaborators

Titanic Express vigil, 3pm on Monday

By DaedalusAdmin on Saturday, December 26, 2015

The Titanic Express massacre 15 years ago was one of many atrocities against civilians in Burundi that have taken place over the last few decades. Overshadowed from an international viewpoint by the Rwandan genocide, the ongoing conflict in Burundi has taken many lives and is still very much unresolved. Recent flare-ups, not least the violent repression of anti-government protests, are a chilling sign that the situation is again deteriorating.

Our production of A Place at the Table was initially a response to The Titanic Express massacre, although it developed into a broader piece about the Burundian conflict and the how difficult it is for outsiders to engage fully with it. Making it was a profoundly affecting experience and has left us marked for ever with stories of those suffering the effects of violence in Burundi.

APATT at Southwark Cathedral – Photo: Harriet Stewart

And it’s true that it’s a difficult conflict to understand. It’s complicated, and can be traced back to colonialism and beyond. It is part of a wider set of regional conflicts. It’s a tangle of race, class and geography. But the need for peace and justice is simple, even if achieving them is not.

The Alliance for Justice, a campaign to end impunity for those who have committed atrocities in Burundi, The Democratic Republic of Congo and worldwide, has organised a vigil to mark the 15th anniversary of the Titanic Express massacre.

The time is right to increase the pressure on the international community as well as to commemorate a terrible loss. Please come along if you can. The details are here.

Titanic Express vigil, 3pm December 28th, Trafalgar Square, London – final details for those attending

Events Major Projects Participation Partners and Collaborators Research and Development

Going Beyond East

By DaedalusAdmin on Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Left to right: Farah Naz, Shamim Azad, Paul Burgess and Sef Townend. Photo credit: Indigo

East‘s behind-the-scenes organisational team met at Rich Mix to plan the next stages of the project. What started as a simple, short-term community storytelling project (led by Daedalus and Bishwo Shahitto Kendro, and supported by Rich Mix, the Arts Council and Apples and Snakes) has grown. With further support from the Arts Council plus some crowd-funding, we’re now making an online archive of our stories (and some songs) and working out how to support our storytelling group’s desire to do something longer-term, while also dealing with several offshoots of the project, including our work on radical history (which will probably now be treated as a separate project) and possible work with local schools and community centres. Oh and the events we’re planning as an offshoot of A Season of Bangla Drama. They’ll be in April. Watch this space…

All of which explains why the meeting was about three and a half hours long. We got through a lot of tea, but were very restrained and shared just one piece of cake between us.

Events Major Projects Partners and Collaborators Research and Development

Radical History: project definitely underway

By DaedalusAdmin on Monday, November 16, 2015

Thanks to Ovalhouse, the Arts Council and private funders, we had our first proper development period on our collaboration with The Black Smock Band: an undertaking which emerged from our East storytelling project but which seems to be taking on a life of its own. Temporarily known as The Radical History Project, it looks at the texts, oral and musical, left behind by our radical forbears and the mythology of English radicalism they created, while also searching out contemporary and local stories of struggle. We had a very productive week – well, it’d be shameful not, given the incredible wealth of material we have to work with. Our research so far has focused on the Diggers movement, but since we were working just yards away from where the Chartists gathered, we looked at them and at the challenges facing the area today. In fact, a modern-day version of the enclosures is taking place, with social housing being replaced by private developments.

The end-of-week sharing at Ovalhouse cafe seemed to go down well. There was even some dancing. And lots of helpful feedback – thanks everyone!

The team was Alex Swift, Andy Bannister, Dan Cox, John Bryden, Rhiannon Kelly and Paul Burgess.

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We’re still sorting out the documentation but, in the meantime, here’s a photo (credit: Kanatip Soonthornrak). And the project will be back for further research and development soon…

Events Major Projects Partners and Collaborators Research and Development

Radical History at Ovalhouse

By DaedalusAdmin on Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Radical_Hist_pubimg_draft01

Protest and rebellion are as English as rainy bank holidays, cream teas and plundering foreign countries. But plenty of people would have us ignore the great radical moments of our history.

As part of our commitment to exploring the potent mix of local stories and history, we have joined forces with The Black Smock Band – London’s premier gay socialist folk band (as far as they know) – to take a look at how out forebears fought the power, and what their stories mean today. By rediscovering the songs and ideas that helped change our country, we hope to find where all this turbulence and disorder could lead us today. We’ll be at Ovalhouse so you’ll also hear local stories of resistance, past and current.

This work-in-progress performance will start as a gig. If all goes well, it will end with the revolution we’ve all been waiting for.

November 6th, 9pm, Ovalhouse cafe, free

Facebook e vent

Ovalhouse website event

See you there!

Events Major Projects Participation Partners and Collaborators

East social

By DaedalusAdmin on Monday, August 31, 2015

Members of the East storytelling group got together for an informal gathering yesterday, to catch up on on news, share food, discuss our plans for the future and – inevitably – tell some stories. (To those members who couldn’t make it – you were missed and we look forward to seeing you next time!) We’re currently between formal projects and waiting for the results of a funding application, but thanks to BSK, our main partner for East, we could meet in a local community space to keep the momentum going. All being well we have a creative few months ahead, including making a video archive of the stories we’ve told so far. Fingers crossed for funding. More information to follow as it happens…

Oh and it’s never too late for new people to get involved! Drop us a line.

Here are some photos.

Partners and Collaborators The Company

The Arches has closed

By DaedalusAdmin on Wednesday, June 10, 2015

The Arches went into administration today. The press release with all the details is here.

This is terrible on a great many levels.

It means the loss of an incredible venue which kick-started a a huge amount of careers and provided a fantastic starting point for a great many companies (including us, as our first professional piece, Selfish, was an Arches commission). It’s a loss for Glasgow of course, and Scotland, and for UK arts touring. It’s also a blow to a whole model of working. The Arches was an exemplar of the idea that a venue could generate a commercial income and use that to fund brave and experimental work. But now we can see that such a fine balance is impossible without proper support and joined-up thinking from the authorities. It’s pretty shocking, really, that such a vital arts venue could be lost because of the intransigence of the Glasgow Licensing Board.

Partners and Collaborators Research and Development

Alex provokes

By DaedalusAdmin on Friday, May 22, 2015

Here’s a great provocation from This Thing Called Artist Development at Ovalhouse by Alex Swift.

The full title of the talk is “Samuel Beckett’s First Play Was Shit And It Took A World War For Him To Write A Good One (and he was 40 before he did) or Artist Development Programmes are a Form of Disciplining Reified Ideology Reflecting the Underlying Structures, Practices and Brutalities of the Late-Capitalist, Neo-Liberal Economic Base, And, You Know, That Can Fuck Off.”

It’s sort of about artist development but it’s also about, well, you know, the world. And stuff.

Partners and Collaborators The Company

The Arches is under threat

By DaedalusAdmin on Saturday, May 16, 2015

The Arches in Glasgow was the venue that had the courage to give Daedalus its first proper, professional gig, and the result was that we made and premiered Selfish there (show here, with Onur Orkut).

The Arches has a unique model: it’s a very successful club but uses the profits to fund new and often very experimental arts projects. It’s an inspiring place to work, in spite of the slight whiff of stale beer after club nights! It’s also an essential part of our arts ecology – so many artists and companies have started there, or broken new ground while working there.

And now it’s in danger, due to a licensing dispute with Glasgow council. Here’s a link with all the details and a petition: please sign it!