Tag Archives: Tower Hamlets

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

We’re looking forward to a great event in Tower Hamlets. We were asked to provide some live musical support for A’ Team Arts 40th Anniversary – Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow. And it’s all happening tomorrow afternoon!

A’ Team Arts runs a range of Youth Arts programmes across Tower Hamlets, and we worked with them last year on the Silk River project. This year, as with Silk River, we’re getting our long-term collaborators The Black Smock Band involved. And, also as before, the project involves various sites across the borough.

This time, however, the focus is on estates, a nod to the early days of ‘A’ Team Arts. There’s dance, parkour, puppetry, physical theatre (created by a practitioner from Frantic Assembly) and music, and it’s held together by two themes; one is the described by the title Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, and the other is the environmental crisis we face.

Come down and join us. We’ll be starting from Shandy Park at 2pm. There’s more info here: http://www.towerhamletsarts.org.uk/?cid=70475.

‪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.

Mobile Incitement in Poplar – it’s tomorrow!

Yes, it’s tomorrow, May 6th at the lovely Poplar Union! For best results (and free entry) come to the tea party first, hang out with the team, and maybe create some new material for the show. But of course you can just come to the show too.

The E5 Roasthouse cafe, which is part of the venue, is great by the way. And naturally there’ll be time for a spot of luncheon between the workshop and the show.

“OK”, you say, “that all sounds lovely but, in this uncertain and ever-changing world, I need facts and detail.” Well, here you go:

More info and booking (no need to book for the tea party)

How to get to the venue (it’s easy)

Facebook event (because nothing is real unless it’s on Facebook, right?)

The E5 Roasthouse (great food and drink and supporting refugees)

Unsure about about what you’re letting yourself in for? Read about how we work with our audiences.

And if you have any more questions, you can of course just ask!

Stand up now, Diggers all!

After an amazing few months, with a commission from Ovalhouse, followed by performances at Brixton City Festival, and then a residency at Queen Mary uni to develop ways to work with locals to create a bespoke version of the show in each place we visit, here we are, running the whole thing, tea party and all, for the public, for the first time, on our home ground of Tower Hamlets.

And breathe.

Frankly, we couldn’t be more excited.

Booking and info here: https://poplarunion.com/event/gerrard-winstanleys-true-and-righteous-mobile-incitement/

Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/2094865110749439/

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Mobile Incitement: back in Tower Hamlets in May

We’re so excited to bring our Mobile Incitement project, made with The Black Smock Band, to the wonderful Poplar Union in May. Fresh from test-running our ideas with the support of Queen Mary uni, we’re looking forward to hearing local stories of protest and dissent in Tower Hamlets and sharing a bespoke version of the performance.

Key links:

☞ Facebook event here

☞ Info/booking on the Poplar Union website here

 

Thanks, QMUL!

Our official Mobile Incitement residency at Queen Mary uni is over, though we’ll be working with Ali Campbell and some of his students again after Easter as we share the work at Poplar Union and possibly also back on campus. We had a great time, and the student ‘think tank’ has given us loads of great ideas, which we’ll be digesting and testing over the coming months, as we and The Black Smock Band plot how to take our revolution nationwide!

Big thanks to Ali and his students, to everyone at QMUL that helped make it happen, to our lovely audience yesterday, to the various organisations who’ve supported us so far, not least Ovalhouse, and all the generous community members who came to our tea parties and shared their stories and their wisdom!

Photos from the final sharing: credit Ali Getz

In the pics: Rhiannon Kelly, Sarah Jeanpierre, Dan Cox, Andy Bannister and Paul Burgess