We had a very successful day running an East storytelling tent at Great Day Out in Victoria Park. Here are some lovely photos by Rehan Jami of tellers Alia Alzougbi and Sef Townsend in action.
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!
We’ve been talking to the inspiring Kinsi Abdulleh about adding some Somali storytelling to the East Archive, and she invited us to the launch event of this year’s Numbi Festival. Numbi is “a platform for collaborative cross-cultural exchange for artists working in theatre, visual arts/photography, music/dance, and film, that draws from the experience of Somali communities around the world.” And, like us, it’s based in Tower Hamlets. We have great neighbours!
Last night’s event focused on a discussion of Hadrawi’s Baladweyn. Sef (one of East‘s professional storytellers) and Paul (our artistic director) went along. It was a really inspiring evening, and eye-opening for those who didn’t know a great deal about Somali literature. There are two more days of the festival to go. Details are here.
Thanks to Sef for the photo.
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.
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.
It’s here. We had a lovely launch event at Rich Mix last night (photos to follow) and the East Archive, featuring videos of stories and songs from our East storytelling project, is now live. You can find it at www.eastarchive.com.
It’s all very new, so please let us know if you spot any teething problems.
It’s an ongoing project too, so if you have any stories that are linked to East London, and you’re interested in sharing them, drop us a line.
We’re pretty excited about it all! Big thanks to the Arts Council, Rich Mix, Tower Hamlets, Apples and Snakes, and our generous crowd-funders. And congratulations to all our contributors!
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.
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.
Rich Mix, which made possible our East community storytelling project, is under threat of closure by London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Your help is needed to tell Tower Hamlets just how important this venue is to the local community, audiences and artists alike.
For more information and to sign the petition, click here: http://chn.ge/1F0tOQU
