Photo by Salam Jones (2025)
East: the place where stories gather…
The East Storytelling Project has been inviting people to share stories inspired by the East End’s rich, diverse history of immigration since 2013, with a programme of workshops, socials and performances. In 2023 we celebrated Ten Years East at Rich Mix. In 2025 we presented the first performance of our East to Elsewhere programme at the Brady Arts Centre centred on the theme of kindness. Originally based in Tower Hamlets the project is now growing to encompass the migration history of Camden, Newham and Havering.
Working in collaboration with Associate Artists Shamim Azad and Sef Townsend, along with theatre-maker and musician Paul Burgess, and supported by local organisations, this project not only celebrates the cultural variety of London’s East End but also some of the many tales that people across the world have in common.
Support the East Storytelling Project by donating.
There are four strands to our work.
The East Community – Over the last 12 years, we have provided support to a growing number of storytellers from local communities representative of the people who live in East London. We support storytellers in developing their storytelling skills and provide opportunities for performance experience. We’ve performed at A Season of Bangla Drama festival, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park’s SPOKE season and Boi-Lit. We also meet to share stories and songs over food. Let us know if you want to get involved!
The East Archive – This is an online archive of stories and songs from people living in or connected to East London. You don’t have to be part of the East community to add your story or song. Just give us a shout, and we can discuss your ideas and how to realise them.
Storytelling Workshops and Performances – Book our storytellers to do workshops and performances. For many years, the professional storytellers and musicians leading the project run a storytelling tent at Tower Hamlets Council’s A Great Day Out in Victoria Park and Tower Hamlets Boishakhi Mela, and have appeared at various other events, as well as running holiday workshops. Get in touch if you’d like to book them.
East Music – We’ve run two pilot workshops with Poplar Union and have plans for regular sessions. The idea is to bring together musicians from a range of cultures and backgrounds to learn music from each other and play together.
EAST brings lovely stories for our members and children and we like how their storytelling involves our community.
– S M Zakir Hossain, chair, BSK London
How East came about…
The East group of community storytellers first shared their work at Rich Mix in February 2014 as part of National Storytelling Week and SPOKE, a programme of spoken word for East London supported by Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in collaboration with Apples and Snakes. Photos from our first performance at Rich Mix can be seen here. They also featured at East End Golpo Bola and Boi-Lit (Bangla literature festival), also at Rich Mix. This followed a series of workshops in which Shamim, Sef and Paul provided coaching and helped create a group performance.
The group then developed their work further, before featuring in A Season of Bangla Drama in Tower Hamlets for the first time in November 2014. This took place at Queen Mary, University of London, and consisted of a packed schools’ performance and workshop, followed by an evening public performance with food.
Due to the great enthusiasm of its members, the East has continued to meet, share stories and songs over food, and perform publicly, and has gained some further Arts Council funding to develop the various strands of its work, including the East Archive, an ongoing online archive of their stories and songs. Our storytellers have run workshops for Tower Hamlets at the Brady Centre and, over several years, a storytelling tent in Victoria Park.
Over the different stages of this project we’ve had support, both financial and in kind, with various organisations, and worked in partnershop with many others. Thank you to them all!
