I’ve been ask to deliver a training workshop for male staff at Lambeth Council for International Men’s Day
This highly practical hands-on workshop is an experiential learning session for those looking for CPD development in using creative activities to engage and explore issues they face working within challenging contexts.
We are pleased to welcome back the amazing arts practitioner, agitator and creative producer Tony Cealy who will be delivering this workshop.
Who is this for?
- People interested in using creative action methods as a tool to explore personal and social issues, and for people who want to gain new CPD skills to fulfil their obligation and commitment to the people they serve. The workshop covers exercises with explanations, instructions and suggestions to help you develop your own style and approach. The creative action methods can be readily adapted to a wide range of settings with adults and young people.
- No previous creative experience is necessary however a willingness to actively explore new methods of working is an essential requirement. This will also be an opportunity for professional development, networking and skill sharing so as to enable continued high standards of good practice.
I have just been commissioned by Age UK to produce a 12 week summer community theatre project for their members coming out of lockdown.
I’m working with a large mixed group of Windrush Elders and their Kin to produce a interactive performance event for Lambeth Heritage Festival & Black History Month in October and November. Catch the performance here:
Currently working with a group of women (aged 50-80) called Lambeth Theatricals Drama Group aka the Autumn Glories. I am making a performance with them about their thoughts and feelings about ‘lockdown’. The show will be ready for Black History Month in October
When COVID19 kicked in I created 2 Interactive Theatre Performance & Community Dialogue events to explore:
- How can Black Men survive COVID 19 and remain proactive during these challenging and uncertain times?
- How do we ensure that Black Men are not the first to die in this ongoing pandemic ?
- What are the current obstacles Black Men face in the time of lockdown?
- What can Black Men do collectively to look after their Mental Health & Wellbeing and address our current reality?
- How can Black Men support and guide the next generation so that we are better prepared (when?) for civil action?
Register here: https://jus-tickets.com/events/kwame-and-the-lockdown
Just been commissioned by Public Health in Lambeth to create a performance for middle aged black men on the issue of male Suicide. You can catch the performance by here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/black-mens-theatre-performance-about-mental-health-suicide-tickets-86263978883
Currently in Berlin Germany at the Aesthetics of Solidarity Kuringa Festival.
http://www.kuringa.org/en/april-in-kuringa-forum-theatre-festival.html
Absolutely honoured and delighted to be commissioned again to deliver a solution focused workshop for practitioners to unload their personal and professional frustrations in arts engagement.
I will also aim to provide them techniques to take away and utilise when they are working in challenging contexts.
If organising meetings, conferences, workshops and networking events is your thing? then you will find this event worthwhile and value for money!
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/peoplezone/293210
Very excited to announce I was successful in a partnership bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund for our Celebrating Dark & Light (Brixton’s first Black Theatre Company) Theatre at Longfield Hall.
I am now looking for around 15 local residents aged 50+ to participate in a free drama/heritage course in September and October. If you have memories of living in Brixton in the early 1970s and want to build skills in drama, performance and interviewing then do get in touch!
About to start work with https://onca.org.uk/event/the-food-journey/ as part of the https://rapportfestival.com
Watch this space!
Older men’s 50+ drama project
The project has an interactive drama performance that highlights solutions to stigma and mental health. The project uses improvisation and storytelling to alleviate isolation, anxiety, depression and stress. It also acts as a catalyst to promote health and wellbeing and strengthen skills and local knowledge.
In less than a 5 days time I return back to Slovenia to train teachers in the use of drama and theatre with vulnerable groups. I will also work collaboratively with 3 schools in the region of Konjice to make new shows about vulnerable groups.
Currently touring around London with a intergenerational street theatre performance group creating interactive-participatory stories around the issues coming from the 70th Anniversary of the Windrush Generation.
A Matter of Life and Death
Proud to part of this event that will raise questions about how we use prison, the purpose of punishment, its impact and the ways in which the idea of ‘exile’ and exclusion do and do not effect positive change.
There will be performances and panel discussions asking how we got here and where do we go from here? Check out the details here:
Busy rehearsing and preparing with the amazing ensemble cast from ‘so you think i’m craZy?’ for ‘a deaths in custody‘ show at Oval House Theatre.
Dynamic performers and non-performers of African/ African/Caribbean background for live interactive street-theatre performances in public spaces in Brixton for the forthcoming festival Rapport Festival http://www.rapportfestival.com/
The performances will be memorable, fun, rewarding and created by the group (teenagers, adults and older people) covering a range of themes like ‘change’, ‘memories’, ‘journeys’, & ‘the future’ and involve different art forms e.g. poetry, musicians, song, dance, puppets etc.
We will be rehearsing at Brixton Road Youth Club (143 – 145 Brixton Road SW9 6LZ) Wednesdays 5.30pm – 8.30pm & Saturdays 11.00am – 4.00pm. These workshops* will all lead up to the festival performance.
The project aims to bring people of different ages together to increase awareness and understanding between the generations leading to improved communication, mutual understanding and respect.
*During the workshops, you will be given the opportunity to develop your creative ideas and though games, character, narrative and plot; the essential grammar of dramatic improvisation. The participants will develop skills in research, interviewing, writing, devising and rehearsing. Tony Cealy will guide, support and mentor you throughout the whole process in group work and in one-to-one sessions.
We draw from the past to live in the present for the benefit of the future.
In less than a 5 days time I return back to Slovenia to begin kick start a series of interactive and improvisational drama based projects that vary from applied theatre training to performance.
• Devise two new theatre shows with Staff & Users at a Drug & Alcohol rehabilitation centre http://www.projektclovek.si/
• Teach Social Pedagogy Students at Faculty of Education drama and social change techniques https://www.pef.uni-lj.si/377.html
• Lecture to post – graduates studying Arts Therapy http://www.pef.uni-lj.si/818.html
• Train Teachers and educators in primary and secondary schools in http://www.aemanet.eu/en/users/sic
Please help me this year to create 70 Windrush acts of exuberance!
In less than three days’ time I return back to India to work with Artists on Citi’s Entertainment Network Cultural Exchange Programme. I will also be working in local schools and colleges.
www.cityentertainmentnetwork.com
I’m currently in the process of exploring the potential scope of a large scale cultural programme in 2021 to commemorate/ celebrate/ consider the contemporary impacts of the 1981 Brixton Uprisings at it’s 40th year anniversary. The aims of the programme are to:
- Provide a lens on our contemporary experience of equity in the area
- Catalyse collaboration between disparate, diverse grass roots organisations
- Engage the changing demographic in the area’s rich activist heritage
- Explore, discover and champion new modes of shared creative advocacy, enabling hidden voices to be heard and championed within the collective experience
- Create 81 acts of exuberant defiance and incite future radical responses*
The community-led programme will ideally happen in cultural and public spaces across Brixton, be inclusive & accessible and champion social action inspired by collective research and artistic programming. It will provide an opportunity for our community to re-think the strategies of resistance and resilience currently being employed.
The working title for this programme is 81 Acts of Exuberant Defiance
If you are interested in attending the one of the idea labs then please purchase your free ticket here:
In less than a weeks’ time I return back to Slovenia to complete the final phase of a community based theatre in education tour:
- Teach Social Pedagogy Students at Faculty of Education drama and social change techniques https://www.pef.uni-lj.si/377.html
- Devise a new theatre production with staff at a Drug & Alcohol rehabilitation centre http://www.projektclovek.si/
- Lecture to post – graduates studying Arts Therapy http://www.pef.uni-lj.si/818.html
- Train Teachers and educators in primary and secondary schools in http://www.aemanet.eu/en/users/sic
- Implement ‘Migration & Accepting Others’ workshops to Teachers and Students at http://www.podgoro.si/
Phew!
I will be travelling to Kingston Jamaica to implement a social innovation programme through Drama on behalf of the Ministry of National Security & Department of Correctional Services.
I will also be guest lecturing a series of workshops to 3rd year students and sharing my practice with applied theatre Lecturers at the Edna Manley College.
With a meeting schedule in with British High Commission, I also hope to generate other threads of work whilst I am on the island.
The 2 videos below express what this means to me.
I’ve been invited to delivering training sessions to explore psycho-emotional health in the context of social justice for a week in Berlin.
It’s part a radical, international gathering of conversation, ideas and practises around/for psycho-emotional health in the context of working for social justice. There will be workshops, discussion spaces, info exchange, collective & self-care tools, networking of support and solidarity.
The aim is to learn and share in order to dismantle the alienation that can accompany emotional struggles and step towards destigmatizing the subject. In the process of creating this event together the organisers have noticed that we lack the time, language, courage and supportive surroundings to give space and appreciation to the inner struggles that many of us experience and the ways in which we stand with each other through emotional distress. This gathering is an attempt to make that time and space and to discover and practice languages that can describe our experiences together.
for more information: https://gpeh.noblogs.org/
5 New Low-Cost Creative Arts Practitioner training workshops now available this autumn 2017!
See my training page for more information.
Each training workshop uses harmonizing techniques for a range of group work applications from theatre of the oppressed techniques, devising, managing resistance, working with difficult groups and individuals, running sessions in closed settings likes prisons and secure estates, performance techniques, facilitation, improvisation, and much much more.
These trainings are for people who are in related professions such arts practitioners, social care, therapy, mental health, education, community arts or personal development as well as students and trainees in such professions. The training courses are a resource for: performers, youth workers, social/health workers, PSHE specialists, drama graduates, project managers, community workers, artists, workshop leaders, teachers, theatre practitioners, creative art therapists, counsellors, mental health workers, team builders, special needs workers and people who work in closed institutions with difficult and awkward groups and individuals.
These courses empower you to reflect, practice and develop your own style and approach. The techniques can be readily adapted to a wide range of settings with adults and young people.
Free training manuals provided on completion!
Breaking Barriers A (3-day) creative arts Training course specialising in:
Beyond Resistance A training course for Facilitators in dealing with Resistance
Augusto Boal’s Rainbows of Desires, Cops in the Head, Theatre of the Oppressed, Therapy as Theatre
Robust Games & Exercises for difficult groups & individuals.
The Mechanics & Science of Dramatic Improvisation
I’ve been invited teach my applied theatre training courses in Vilnius, Lithuania tomorrow at the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre by Lithuanian Council of Culture and Arts Agency Artscape
Applied Theatre Week (ATW) is a one-week event for professional theatre artists, theatre educators and applied theatre professionals from all over Lithuania: these include actors, teachers, trainers, and social workers.
ATW is about continuing professional education for theatre and performing arts professionals, to empower them professionally, inspire, build international networks, refresh and enhance their skills.
In less than six days I will be travelling to the Czech Republic to work with teachers, trainers, practitioners and youth workers to share with them practical tools and skills for sustainable work with young people.
We will explore the concept of “wellness” as a state of complete physical, mental, social & spiritual well-being and introduce practical & fun tools, games, strategies of promoting holistic health and personal development in young people & professionals who work with youth.
My work is to:
Support the professional development of those who work in education, training and youth with a view to innovating and improving the quality of teaching, training and youth work across Europe with the introduction of the concepts connected to “wellbeing, fun and sustainability” and its different dimensions, and concrete suggestions and activities to reach it;
Raise participants’ awareness and understanding of other cultures and countries, offering them the opportunity to build networks of international contacts, to actively participate in society and develop a sense of European citizenship and identity,
Increase the capacities, attractiveness and international dimension of organisations active in the education, training and youth fields so that they are able to offer activities and programmes that better respond to the needs of individuals;
Reinforce synergies and transitions between formal, non-formal education, employment and entrepreneurship.
Currently delivering Youth-Police facilitative training workshops across 10 London Boroughs this year, which will include; developing empathy through shared experiences; exploring trust, perceptions, stereotypes, peer pressure and problem solving.
The aim is to build a roundtable team of youth facilitators and ambassadors to work across London in communities to:
•engaging youths to conduct round table discussions
•speak the truth to authority figures
•understand how Ubuntu applies to conflict resolution
For more information check out:
http://www.tutufoundationuk.org/news/100k-funding-ubuntu-police-youth-project
Been invited to attending workshop in Berlin discovering: Systems Thinking and U Theory at https://www.presencing.com
Will be working with Unlock Drama on their prison training day in Milton Keynes. The Training includes dealing with challenging behaviour, example games and workshops, the exercise benefits of theatre in prison and much much more http://www.unlockdrama.com/
Currently working with www.unlockdrama.com to deliver a Violence Reduction Programme at HMP Werrington in Stoke On Trent.
In less than a weeks’ time I will travelling to Istanbul and Gaziantep to:
• Train prison staff and arts organisations working in prisons with the creative use of drama and theatre in closed settings. I will base the training on my Breaking Barriers course.
• Train social pedagogy students using drama to work in prisons at http://www.boun.edu.tr/en_US
• Arrange and conduct meetings with several NGOs that require my services for future partnerships and collaboration work.
In less than a weeks’ time I return back to Slovenia and Italy to:
- Teach Social Pedagogy Students at Faculty of Education Theatre of Oppressed techniques https://www.pef.uni-lj.si/377.html
- Devise a new theatre production with staff at a Drug & Alcohol rehabilitation programme http://www.projektclovek.si/ Lecture to post – graduates studying Arts Therapy http://www.pef.uni-lj.si/818.html Deliver circus workshops for pedagogy http://cirkokrog.com/ focusing on “working on impulses, looking at classic routines, slapstick, gags and pratfalls, and the elements needed to create funny physical routines through improvisation”
- Train Theatre of Oppressed practitioners with a some Rainbows of Desire Techniques at https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jul/24/metelkova-ljubljana-abandoned-barracks-europe-squat
- Design a Forum Theatre play with http://www.mgl.si/sl/o-gledaliscu/izobrazevanje/ then tour to Smlednik, Zgornje Pirniče and Barka, Divača
- Travel to Italy (Sežana) and deliver workshops with a theatre troupe and workshops for teachers and educators
- Implement Anti-Violence training workshops to Teachers and Students at http://www.podgoro.si/
Phew!
I will be launching the
Afrikans Street Performers Project
For more info https://lnkd.in/eaFhmhf
In less than a weeks’ time I will be in Florina Greece to:
- Share with youth workers and leaders on how to gain the benefits of international youth projects via creative intercultural learning activities
- Build their motivation, skills and confidence for this type of work
- Share my experience of creative international youth projects in intercultural environments so that participants will go home with action plans
In less than two weeks time I will be touring Slovenia (again) to:
· Teach Social Pedagogy Students at Faculty of Education Theatre of Oppressed techniques https://www.pef.uni-lj.si/377.html
· Devise a new theatre production with Adults on Drug & Alcohol rehabilitation programme. http://www.projektclovek.si/
· Lecture to post – graduates studying Arts Therapy http://www.pef.uni-lj.si/818.html
· Deliver week long theatre workshops at Koper Summer Arts Festival http://www.jskd.si/gledalisce-in-
lutke/delavnice_gledalisce/2015_16/koper_mentorji_16.htm
Currently working with www.rideout.org.uk
to deliver creative action sessions at HMP Warren HILL in Ipswich. Over the next 6 months I will provide socially creative sessions to offenders with personality disorders in high secure estates who are on the Psychologically Informed Planned Environments (PIPE) treatment programme.
The aim is to help offenders reflect upon and manage their PIPE through socially creative and structured sessions that offer offenders opportunities for relating and addressing issues that may be affecting progression through their pathway of intervention. The socially creative or ‘informal’ sessions will have an emphasis on ‘process’ over ‘content’.
The socially creative sessions provide the opportunity to interact and socialise, whilst retaining focus on a ‘task’. The sessions will also provide staff with an opportunity to observe and monitor resident interactions in a less formal/ structured environments.
Currently working with www.ubele.org to:
- Create and develop an arts strategy for our forthcoming intergenerational work with local communities throughout the UK
- Producing a performance at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/reclaim-our-spaces-tickets-25239102836
- Devising an interactive theatre show for our forthcoming conference ‘Afro-Pollinate’ on 1st October at the Conway Hall London
- Identify Young Emerging Leaders to build up the African Diaspora community of entrepreneurs, activists, creatives, youth workers and more
See the video here:
Throughout April and early May I will be touring Chicago and Milwaukee to:
- Work with Theatre of Oppressed practitioners http://ptoweb.org/
- Train practitioners and artists from http://www.stillpointtheatrecollective.org/event-schedule
- Train staff and workshop leaders from http://www.artsatlargeinc.org/
- Coach Ensemble Cast members from https://halcyontheatre.org/
- Teach students dramatic improvisation skills at https://theannoyance.com/
- Perform in a mini touring show with http://chicagoimprovstudio.com/
- Coaching young adults with Pastor Phil Jackson, Founder/Executive Director of The Firehouse Community Art Center (www.thafirehouse.com) and Lead Pastor of The House, A Christ Centered Hip Hop Worship Service (thahousechicago.org)
- Train staff and young people at http://www.kuumbalynx.com/
Check out our interactive Radio of the Oppressed series 492 Korna Klub
Noh Budget Films has been commissioned by Galaxy Radio 102.5FM www.galaxyafiwe.com to broadcast this series.
For further information visit www.492kornaklub.com
I have just been commissioned by http://www.janusenterprise.co.uk/creative-action/ to facilitate another group work programme for young people and adults who are, have been, or at risk of experiencing problematic alcohol and substance misuse.
I’m currently travelling across the UK visiting arts organisations and arts based trainers, examining how different arts forms can be used in working with resistance.
Touring with Fluxx, to catch me performing visit www.fluxx.co.uk
The re launch of ACTive INquiry News Group runs each and every Thursday evening 6.30pm – 9.30pm in South London …
24 hours a day the News is streamed to us through newspapers, television and the internet. Every week we are bombarded with thousands of words and images to process and try to understand. This project will be launched in 2013. The project will use a range of creative action methods and other techniques to analyse and current news stories and explore how we can become ACTive participants in current affairs rather than passive consumers!! We will also investigate and explore local community issues with a view to finding solutions to these problems.
The AI group carries out sketches, scenes, skits and other social commentary performances to raise awareness about problematic social issues. The stated goal of these performances is to make the public ‘think and ask questions’ and expose the lies around these injustices.
To find out more, book your place and register your interest go to:
Currently working with Social Pedagogy Students at Faculty of Education and Clients on a Drug rehabilitation programme in Slovenia.
Working in New Zealand with rural communities using drama to explore cohesion and consequences of conflict.
Working in Uganda creating theatre performances and delivering behavioural programmes in various prisons. I am also teaching drama at Makerere University’s Performing Arts and Film Department.
GLOBALSKILLSXCHANGE London, December 2017
I invite you to a weekend full of workshops in London in the run-up to the week of action against the G8, I believe learning from each other is crucial for our movements.
The events will focus on the following themes:
- Real democracy, assemblies and horizontal organising
- Economical, social and political alternatives
- Strategies of resistance and action
- Online platforms/resources/tools
I will run two training workshops, Beyond Resistance a training course on dealing with resistance and Invisible Theatre Workshop from the ‘theatre of the oppressed’ exercises, image theatre and role-play, aiming to devise a piece of invisible theatre that will be performed in public during the event without the public knowing its theatre!
For further information go to:http://globalskillsxchange.net/
I will be teaching in Slovenia throughout June & July 2017 on various projects and programmes. One of my favourite pieces of work out there will be at a winter residential. The project is about using bodies in theater, dance and movement, circus media, voice and other ways in connection and to make spontaneous interventions and dialogue in the public space.
It’s in a beautiful place in the Slovenian mountains; join me if you can, for further information clink this link: 3 Your Body or go to: http://www.kpn-smolnik.si/page/klub-prijateljev-narave-smolnik?redirect=2
The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (TOPLAB)
-founded in 1990-
451 West Street
New York, New York 10014
(212) 924-1858
toplabnyc@gmail.com
toplabinfo@toplab.org
http://www.toplab.org
The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (TOPLAB) presents
Two Special Workshops on Facilitation with Troubled and “Difficult” Populations
facilitated by Tony Cealy
1. Beyond Resistance: A Training Course for Facilitators in Dealing
with Resistance (October 11th – 15th 2017)
2. Robust Games and Exercises for “Difficult” Groups and Individuals (July 25th – 27th 2016)
[Note: Tony Cealy will facilitate “The Debate”: An Interactive Debating Forum to Explore the Role of the Artist and How Creativity Functions in a Conflicted Society” on 26th July at 7:30pm 2016. More info at
http://brechtforum.org/civicrm/event/info?id=12308&reset=1.]
All events take place at:
The Brecht Forum
451 West Street (West Side Highway, at Bank Street, one block north of
West Eleventh Street)
New York City
WHAT IS IT TO BE A UK CITIZEN?
A unique interactive theatre production exploring citizenship, Identity and Culture AND a place called London, England, British Isles, Great Britain and United Kingdom
An exploration of the dilemmas surrounding Citizenship. This show involves film, debate, performance and more. The audience become part of ‘what it is to be a citizen of this country.
We will rehearse during the World-Cup period for a week (dates & times tbc) and perform towards the end of the finals.
If you’re up for participating (you have to be quick!!) in it or can help out in any way get back to me ASAP with the following four things:
I am wondering what it is to be a UK citizen?
With the number of those countries being classified as democracies or dictatorships not being too closely scrutinised, coupled with the current Government’s attempt to drastically limit immigration numbers as well as tougher conditions for visiting foreign students, it is an interesting time to be looking at Life in the UK
UK CITIZENSHIP THEATRE PROJECT – What you need to do to take part in the show
1 – take the ‘Life in the United Kingdom’ test
Instigated in 2005 and administered by the Home Office, it consists of 24 online questions about what the Government sees as the important information to know about being able to live in the UK.
It covers its history; how the society has changed; UK current profile including population and religions; how the UK is governed; ‘everyday needs’ including housing, money, health and education; employment; knowing the law; where to go for sources of help; and finally responsibilities involved in ‘building better communities’.
For more info on what you are meant to know to pass the test goto: http://lifeintheuktest.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/htmlsite/self_10.html
2 – So what is it about being a UK citizen?
Are we still Great Britain? Are we the UK? The or are we a United Kingdom? Are we even a Kingdom?
Do I need to know my British Constitutional history or what CABs provide to be a citizen of this country that I live in? I don’t know – and do I want new citizens to know that? If not, what do I want people to know about Life in the UK? That we still go to Festivals and have a good time even if it’s raining the whole time and its freezing! That we are obsessed with property prices? That we don’t like queuing but always do it – even when we don’t need to!
YOU TELL ME and it will be used to create our show and even possibly put it in the new Life in the UK Handbook – would be great to get 200 things in total.
3 – What images come to mind when you think of a significant element for you of being a UK citizen? Of Life in the UK in 2016?
We are presented with many images to reflect contemporary society and its events – but more and more the media uses ‘agency images‘ to portray aspects of modern life and current issues – a model posing as teacher having a hard time in class; models posing as people sitting in deckchairs on an anonymous beach in the sun; models posing as people sitting in deckchairs on an anonymous beach in the rain! Etc. Stereotypes and clichés are endlessly traded though TV and newspapers and apparently Paul McCartney is going to close the opening ceremony of the Olympics by singing Hey Jude.
So what are the images YOU want people to have of Life in the UK in 2016? And if it’s Paul McCartney singing Hey Jude that’s fine!
TO TAKE PART IN THE UK CITIZENSHIP THEATRE PROJECT YOU NEED TO:
ONE – Take the PRACTICE UK Citizenship test and email me your pass or fail rate (info will be confidential) –http://www.ukcitizenshiptest.co.uk/
The 24 questions are randomly drawn from a database of all this information and you have to get 75% of the questions right – the practice test is free and you can take it as many times as you want – see how you do!
TWO – Now Think of one thing that you think is significant for anyone to know about ‘Life in the UK’? – It could that you can still buy Jammie Dodgers? Or that London isn’t really a 24 hour city and night buses aren’t really much fun – and they don’t come in threes.
Then email me that piece of information you think is a significant part of Life in the UK and we will use this information as a starting point in our rehearsal process.
THREE – Then Find or Create an image/photo that reflects what you have chosen as a significant or interesting for people to know about Life in the UK?
Create your own or plunder Google images and then again – email it to me – it could be Jammie Dodgers on a supermarket shelf or a London night bus timetable? Or people in the mud at a festival? Again we will use that information as a starting point in our devising process, feel free to suggest any ideas – you can stay involved from an outside distance.
I do hope you can take part in it, you don’t have to be a performer or have any experience in theatre (but it helps!) – email me your test rate, your piece of information and your image:
NOT FOR PROFIT
The UK Coalition Government is currently making huge public sector cuts to save 95 billion and reduce deficit. Although they are likely to that ‘we are all in this together’ the reality is that these cuts are hitting the most vulnerable in society the hardest AND what is not talked about is the effect these cuts will have on people’s lives – especially the less well-off and the vulnerable who will be disproportionately affected.
How have we got into this mess? Are these cuts necessary or ideological? What can we do to protect our public services?
We at ACTive INquiry decided enough is enough either we do something or we are part of it!
So during the next 6 weeks a group of local residents, citizens and visitors will be working with ACTive INquiry (Noh Budget Films) to develop pieces of forum theatre exploring this issue. Forum theatre encourages an audience to become actively involve by enabling them to change the action onstage!
The process will include research, interviewing, discussion, critical thinking, input from anti-cuts organisations, workshops, food, fun and laughter, emotions to develop the sketches and performances leading to an action plan.
This process is open to anyone anywhere interested in the issue.
“The decisions we make will affect every single person in our country. And the effects of those decisions will stay with us for years, perhaps decades to come.” David Cameron MP
POWER 2 THE PEOPLE!
Local Citizens Residents & Communities
A Forum Theatre in Brixton project asking
“Is Lambeth ready to join the Big Society?!”
A unique weekly on-going theatre project in the Stockwell area of London exploring the tricky concept of Empowerment: What is it? How can communities truly feel empowered on their own terms? How can we find alternatives to the Public Spending Cuts? How can the community take control and responsibility to help themselves and one another and find their own solutions to problems? How can residents deliver services and play active roles in their local community?
Have you something to say? Got ideas? Or simply want to find out what’s going on… THEN COME ON DOWN!!!
Developed through weekly workshops with members of the community, the performance will tell a story of a local community group who are struggling to make positive changes in their community.
Will their enthusiasm be enough to get other people on board and to challenge the agenda of those with power?
Together we will create Forum Theatre scenes around issues that concern us (you) under the broad themes. The project will culminate in a series of performances (see below) and a Day of Dialogue in March using the scenes as starting points to engage residents, workers, visitors and elected officials in developing an Action Plan.
When: Every Thursday evening 6.30pm – 9.30pm
PUBLIC WORKSHOPS
When: Every Thursday evening 6.30pm – 9.30pm
Where: 143 – 145 Brixton Road London SW9 6LZ
Price: £5.00 (suggested donation to help cover room hire costs and refreshments but we would hate cost to be a barrier to participation so please pay what you can afford)
Audience member of 2010 Forum Theatre piece: “I’ve never seen anything like it! It is such an interesting and dynamic way to explore issues. I really liked how the audience interacted with and influenced the play.”
NO PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE NECESSARY!
‘I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.’
Thomas Jefferson 1802
Check out my latest feature film:
http://www.amazon.com/Elvis-Pelvis/dp/B0080M2PL
Teaching my course ‘Breaking Barriers’ Training at Morley College http://www.morleycollege.ac.uk/courses/drama/1910-breaking_barriers/8312
Games & Exercises Design & Construction
I’m looking to develop a series of laboratories for the construction & design of Games & Exercises. The sessions will be explorative looking at the mechanics in building and testing games & exercises that can be used for difficult and challenging groups and individuals, with a focus of:
- Skills building
- Learning & awareness
- Engagement
- Problem solving
The laboratory is open to people who work with groups and individuals and want vigorous techniques that are fun to play and engaging
This is for you if:
- You want to make and invent your own
- You’re bored of the same exercises
- You desire ones that can work for reluctant groups
- You want participants to ‘see the point’ of an exercise
- You want games and exercises that can illicit skills, tactics and approaches to identify new ways of dealing with old problems
Please contact me explaining your skills and experience in using games & exercises and your interest in what you could offer/contribute to the laboratory