As Kinetika’s incredible Silk River project moves on to Greenwich, here’s a blog about yesterday’s events, for which we advised on music and facilitated the involvement of The Black Smock Band. The band supported young people from A Team Arts in their street performances as the Silk River walk passed through Tower Hamlets.
Here’s a photo of the band in action (credit Payam Torabi).
We’re excited to be part of Kinetica’s Silk River Project, linking the Thames with the Hooghly River in India in an international celebration of the silk trade. We’ll working with our regular collaborators The Black Smock Band to support young people from Tower Hamlets’ A Team Arts with street performances as the project passes through the borough tomorrow.
More info below…
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!
Shamim Azad, Sef Townsend and Paul Burgess from East will be sharing stories, poems, songs and some instrumental music in the East storytelling tent at the Great Day Out event in Victoria Park tomorrow. It’s mainly aimed at families with kids 5+ but everyone’s welcome to come by.
Details from the Tower Hamlets Council’s website are here. It’d be lovely to see you!
The photos above come from the last time the “East Three” performed together, which was at Boi-Lit 2016 Children’s Day,at Rich Mix. They’re by Shoayeeb Chamak from BSK.
The East Archive is an ongoing project and we’ve just added two new pieces by the celebrated local poet, novelist and storyteller Shamim Azad. Shamim’s also one of the key figures in our partner organisation for the project, BSK.
We have also re-organised the Archive so you can search by genre, teller/singer etc (using categories and tags).
Take a look, and please share it too!
We were honoured to be invited, as partners in the East project, to participate in BSK’s Boi-Lit Festival, the annual Bangla Literature Festival at Rich Mix. It’s a wonderful event, which combines creativity and intellect.
On Day 1, Families Day, Sef Townsend, Shamim Azad, Farah Naz and Paul Burgess presented an interactive programme of stories and songs. On Day 2, which focussed on the Bangla Renaissance, Paul presented a segment on the Illiad, as part of a section directed by Khadijah Rahman that explored the links between Valmiki’s Ramayan and Homer’s epic.
BSK’s official photographer, Shoayeeb Chamak took lots of great photos: here are a selection.
We had a really delightful launch for the East Archive at Rich Mix. Here are some photos from Farah Naz. And don’t forget to take a look at the archive itself: www.eastarchive.com!
We had such a great time with our Easter holiday storytelling workshops, led by Sef Townsend, Shamim Azad and Paul Burgess: very keen and creative kids, supportive parents, and a lovely visit from the young cast of Rapture to support their younger colleagues. Big thanks to everyone involved!
Here are some pictures from Farah:
These workshops were part of the East storytelling project, a partnership between Daedalus Theatre Company and Bishwo Shahitto Kendro. They were 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
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.
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.
