Our crowdfunding campaign raised £4850, thanks to you! So East Online is on! Information on events will be posted here and to our mailing list. Those of you who opted for rewards will get them soon.
Happy storytelling!
We had to stop everything at the beginning of lockdown, including our fundraising. We applied for emergency funding but didn’t get it. We’re holding fire on our touring show Mobile Incitement. But, with so many people isolated by coronavirus and its knock-on effects, this is absolutely the right time for our storytelling project, East.
The whole East project is about bringing people together, creating links between different communities, and sharing stories and songs. It’s about friendship, sharing and multiculturalism, and the way songs and stories can help us deal with what the world throws at us. It’s not on a huge scale and may not sound grand – it certainly doesn’t seem to appeal much to major funders – but we believe it’s very valuable work. East London is home to an extraordinarily diverse range of people, but many folks don’t really know others outside their own communities, at least not socially. It’s also a place where wealth and poverty, privilege and marginalisation, and indeed tolerance and bigotry, sit side by side. And it’s a place facing many threats and challenges that would benefit from greater solidarity and co-operation. The need to build bridges, share experiences and learn from others is clear. We think that the exchange of stories and songs, and, more importantly, the learning and re-telling of each other’s stories and songs, is a richly rewarding way to address this need.
But, although lockdown is easing, our normal format – bringing people together around a table with food and singing and stories – is still a long way from being viable. So we’ve come up with a plan to move the project online. Some of it is straightforward, such as adding to our online archive so as to make more material available in the absence of live events, but some is more exploratory. We’re not exactly sure how best to reconfigure our gatherings but we have lots of ideas to try, and by the end of this project we’ll be able to take our work forward in new ways that will be valuable even when live events are possible again. “Resilience” is a word that is perhaps overused at the moment, but that’s exactly what this particular stage in the life of East is about.
We’ve launched a crowdfunding appeal to make all this happen. It only seems right for a project so embedded in our communities to be supported by our communities. Please take a look at our video and then click through to our crowdfunding page.
If you can give, please do. But whether or not you donate, do please spread the word. It may sound like a cliche, but it really does make a difference!
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.
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!
Here’s Sef Townsend, Shamim Azad and Paul Burgess in the Family Tent. It’s such an amazing festival, we had a great time, and we feel privileged to be a part of it!
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.
We’re so pleased to have been a part of this year’s A Season of Bangla Drama. It was a fantastic month and, as ever, proved that art can be open and inclusive at the same time as being ambitious.
Here are some photos by Rehan Jamil of our East storytelling performance at Rich Mix London, which we produced in association with BSK.
You can see the whole album of photos from the rest of the season here.
As you probably know, East, the storytelling group we run in partnership with Bishwo Shahitto Kendro, will be performing at Rich Mix this Friday, as part of A Season of Bangla Drama 2017. A Season of Bangla Drama is a major event in the Tower Hamlets cultural calendar and it’s a huge privilege to be a part of it.
As ever, we’ll be sharing stories and songs, new and old, told and sung the mix of professionals and community members that comprise East. But this time we’ll also have guest appearances from two wonderful artists: Somali teller Kinsi Abdulleh and folk singer Dan Cox. It’s going to be a great evening.
This Friday, 10th Nov, 7pm, at Rich Mix.
Here’s the event on the Rich Mix website and here’s the Facebook event.
We really hope to see you there!
Here are some photos from rehearsals for East’s next performance, an evening of songs and stories from people living, working or otherwise connected to East London. It’s going to be a lovely night and we hope to see you there! 10th Nov, Rich Mix at 7pm, as part of A Season of Bangla Drama.
Here’s the Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/618550445201568/
And here’s the info on Rich Mix’s website: https://www.richmix.org.uk/events/theatre/east
Some of the group from East – the storytelling group we run in partnership with BSK – joined other theatre companies from A Season of Bangla Drama 2017 yesterday, to get to know each other and see extracts of work in progress. It was a great day and a great chance to meet some very lovely and talented people!
East will be performing at Rich Mix on Nov 10th at 7pm. More info here: https://www.richmix.org.uk/events/theatre/east
Photo: A Season of Bangla Drama