Tag Archives: Paul Burgess

Announcing the lineup for Ten Years East!

Paul Burgess, Andy Bannister and Michele Chowrimootoo. Image credit: Tasnim Siddiqa Amin

As part of A Season of Bangla Drama, Sunday 19th November 2023, 5:30PM we return to the iconic East London venue Rich Mix, where the East storytelling started in December 2013.

We have an exciting evening of stories and live music for you, and are thrilled to announce the incredible talent that will be taking the stage this Sunday. Farah Naz makes a return to EAST with the story of ‘The Queen of Sheba and Solomon’, we will hear the tale of ‘Rochael the Gossip’ from John Heyderman, Andy Bannister of The Black Smock Band singing ‘The Water is Wide’ and a reimagining of ‘The Sultana’s Dream’ from EAST newcomer Tasnim Siddiqa Amin. We’re also joined by musician and singer Hasan Ahmed and percussionist Michele Chowrimootoo.

Congrats to all for an amazing festival!

We had a great time performing Mobile Incitement at the Freedom and Independence Theatre Festival, with some amazing audience feedback. We feel deep gratitude to the many people who made it happen but especially Kazi Ruksana Begum, Tower Hamlets Arts Development Officer, who is an absolute force of nature, making amazing things like this festival happen on tiny budgets, while calmly dealing with the Herculean task of coordinating lot of artists and companies, both professional and amateur. Big thanks also to Mushahed Ahmed, Jules Deering, Ali Campbell and everyone else.

Mobile Incitement on Channel S

Our artistic director, Paul, was on Channel S last night to talk about bringing Mobile Incitement to Freedom and Independence Theatre Festival, along with representatives from some of the other companies involved. You can watch it on Facebook here:

You can book your tickets for Mobile Incitement here:

We hope to see you there, for a unique combination of gig, theatre and celebration!

East Voices: a preview

Thanks to our generous crowdfunders, we’ve made some great plans for East Voices, the next stage of our ongoing East storytelling project. We’re particularly excited to be partnering with BSK London and Numbi Arts to bring storytelling and story-sharing to an even wider range of people. The big idea behind East Voices is to test and then make available ways of working online, something we’ve never done with East outside of documenting our work on the East Archive. This approach allows us to continue doing our work of using stories to connect people and build bridges between communities, even as the pandemic drags on. That will all get underway soon. Watch this space!

‪Tomorrow is Boishakhi Mela 2019! ‬

East 3 (Shamim Azad, Sef Townsend, Paul Burgess) will be sharing stories and songs in the Family Zone as part of our East Storytelling project with BSK. 1pm, 4pm and 5:30pm. Plus there’s so much else happening, of course! Its a huge event, and we know it’s going be a great day!

More info here: www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/mela

Hope to see you there! Weavers Fields in Bethnal Green.

The East 3 return…

Our collaboration with Bangladeshi literature group Bishwo Shahitto Kendro continues. The leaders of our East Storytelling Project will be performing as East 3 at this year’s Boishaki Mela in Weavers Fields, Bethnal Green on Sunday 30 June, and Great Day Out in Victoria Park on 3rd August – details to come.

East 3 are internationally renowned storytellers Shamim Azad and Sef Townsend, supported by musician and theatre-maker Paul Burgess, pictured below at last year’s Mela.

In other news, with several London venues and a Latitude Festival performance behind us, we’re now tour-booking for our gig-theatre/art/protest piece Gerrard Winstanley’s True and Rightous Mobile Incitement Unit. (You can call it Mobile Incitement for short, by the way.) We’re mainly looking 2020 but dates later this year are possible too. Get in touch if you want us!

East Storytelling at this year’s Boishakhi Mela

We’re excited to be part of this annual festival: it’s real flagship event in the East London calendar. The “East Three” –  Shamim, Sef and Paul, who’ve been leading our East storytelling project – will be sharing stories and songs in the Family and Arts Zone, doing three 25 min performances between 12 and 6:30.

There’s lots more information on the Mela here. Come along – it’s going to be a great day!

Here’s Shamim, Sef and Paul at another festival, a couple of years ago.