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 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!
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!
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!