nature – Daedalus Theatre Company

Dysbiosis Creative Nature Workshop

By DaedalusAdmin on Monday, October 21, 2024

Come along to a relaxed, creative workshop exploring our relationship with nature, part of A Season of Bangla Drama 2024. The theme for this year’s festival is hope. Nature has long been a source of endless inspiration for creativity. It inspires a lot of emotions and brings hope to many of us; something we look forward to exploring in this iteration of DYSBIOSIS.

Discover unknown pockets of nature within Tower Hamlets’ cityscape. This can unlock stories old and new about our multifaceted relationship with nature. Hosted at Mile End Park’s Ecology Pavilion, this workshop offers a chance to explore your creativity. Interdisciplinary artists Paul Burgess and Tasnim Siddiqa Amin will guide the session. There will also be a discussion around how local issues such as air pollution connect with global challenges like climate change. You’ll create a personal artistic response and collaborate on a group piece. A light lunch is included.

Join us to be guided through a creative process that explores your own responses to the themes. No experience necessary!

We are a cross-disciplinary, queer-led theatre company that explores big ideas. We manage intergenerational, cross-cultural projects and activities in Tower Hamlets and beyond. This workshop is part of the larger Dysbiosis project exploring our social and personal relationships with nature and has mainly been developed with the support of Queens Theatre Hornchurch and the Havering Changing.

Cultural Dysbiosis: A Personal Essay by Ruth Kettle-Frisby

By DaedalusAdmin on Thursday, March 28, 2024

Above photo: Ruth, far left, looking out at the view from Wennington Church.

We invited Havering local, environmental activist and writer Ruth Kettle-Frisby to write a guest blog article on DYSBIOSIS after attending some of our DYSBIOSIS Creative Nature Workshops in Havering this month.

What is nature to me?

When I first saw the term Dysbiosis – the title of the creative workshops here in Havering by Daedalus Theatre Company – my mind began to juxtapose discordant thoughts that seemed nevertheless to harmonise. Funnily enough, it is this very paradox that encapsulates nature.

Nature functions to such a finely tuned degree that the earth spins on its axis around the precise gravitational force to sustain life; and this mechanical harmony extends to our localised experiences here on earth, which can be beautiful to behold.

There are few things I enjoy more than an enchanted stroll around Warley Place when it’s sprinkled with clumps of dewy snowdrops glistening in the morning sun, sporadically dissected by ancient trees, some even thriving in supine slumber after great storms…or treating fluffy ducklings, flapping feral pigeons, and tame grey squirrels to veritable feasts at Langtons Gardens on a crisp Spring afternoon: scenes of comical unrest annually reverberate from the resident cob, angrily chasing persistent Canada geese from the lake; loss and sadness rippling in the still air as it becomes apparent on returning children’s fingers, that numbers no longer add up, and he’s attacked some of his own cygnets.

Nature continues to inspire artists, photographers and musicians; it provides us with sustenance, shelter, oxygen and medicine; it grinds our remains deep into its geology, and it contains coded messages of hope, regeneration and resilience, much like the Gingko trees that survived after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nature also has the ability to overwhelm with its might, brutality and caprice; blithely indifferent to some of our deepest instincts and desires.

Events Major Projects Participation

DYSBIOSIS: Creative Nature Workshops – call for participants

By DaedalusAdmin on Monday, January 29, 2024

Calling all Rainham and Wennington residents!

Our latest community programme is now live for DYSBIOSIS: Creative Nature Workshops.

Join Daedalus Theatre Company for some fun and relaxed drop-in workshops and contribute to a collaborative artwork that will be displayed at Rainham Royals and Queens Theatre Hornchurch. Sign up via Google Forms here. If you need support with the form email tasnim@daedalustheatre.co.uk or if you prefer to do it on the phone, call Tasnim on 07942 476053

Sign up here!

Location: Rainham and Wennington, East London

Dates:
Session 1. Saturday 24 February 2024, 11AM-2.30PM
Nature Walk at Rainham Marshes, Purfleet
Meeting point: Rainham Library, 6 Celtic Farm Road, Rainham RM13 9GP
Session 2. Friday 1 March 2024, 6-8.30PM
Creative Workshop, Royals Youth Centre, Viking Way, Rainham, RM13 9YG
Session 3. Friday 8 March 2024, 6-8.30PM
Creative Workshop, Royals Youth Centre, Viking Way, Rainham, RM13 9YG
Session 4. Friday 15 March 2024, 6-8.30PM
Creative Workshop, St Mary & St Peter’s Church, Wennington Road, Wennington, RM13 9DX
Meeting point in Rainham for those who need transport to Wennington TBC.

Plus follow-up sessions later in the year!

You do not need to attend every workshop.

Be part of a fun and relaxed project to explore how we relate to nature and the natural world. Havering is one of London’s greenest boroughs! It’s rich in nature and history. For example, did you know that 400,000 years ago, the Anglian ice sheets reached as far as Hornchurch, forcing the Thames into its present course, or that if you’re lucky, at low tide, you can see the remnants of an ancient forest from the Neolithic age?

This is an opportunity to explore your creativity with the support of interdisciplinary arts professionals from the Dysbiosis project. You’ll be guided through the process of making a personal creative response to the theme, then work with the rest of the group to make an installation that combines everyone’s work. The work will then be showcased at Rainham Royals and Queens Theatre Hornchurch. No experience necessary.

Who is it for? All residents of the Rainham and Wennington area are welcome. Aimed at adults but children are welcome if supervised by an adult.

Sign up here!

For more information, email Assistant Producer/Director Tasnim at tasnim@daedalustheatre.co.uk or call 07942 476053

Organised by Daedalus Theatre Company in partnership with Havering Changing and support from Queens Theatre Hornchurch and Arts Council England.

Check out the Daedalus website and sign up for the Daedalus newsletter for more about the project Dysbiosis, the company and the latest Dysbiosis project updates or follow us on Instagram, X (formerly known as Twitter) and Facebook.

Creative workshops at Poplar Union, Tower Hamlets, for a previous project: Mobile Incitement

Major Projects Participation Partners and Collaborators The Company

Daedalus Theatre announce new partnership with Havering Changing

By DaedalusAdmin on Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Date: 16 January 2024

Daedalus Theatre Company has been awarded Creative Community Support by Rainham Change Makers, the local Havering Changing steering group in Rainham, to deliver creative nature workshops in Rainham and Wennington this Spring 2024.

The creative nature workshops are for local adults in Rainham and Wennington with an interest in nature and a curiosity for visual arts. Together, we will work on a collective response to probing questions about nature and local green spaces that will be showcased as a mobile installation. The project will also experiment with sustainable materials and look at ecological ways of thinking. Work with the group, along with the Queens Theatre Hornchurch young company programme, will feed into our next iteration of the DYSBIOSIS project.

The new work-in-progress project DYSBIOSIS began with an R&D at Queens Theatre Hornchurch in April 2023. Supported by Arts Council England, we delivered an R&D at Queens Theatre Hornchurch in Autumn with a group of exciting creative practitioners such as Zia Álmos Joshua and Havering local Kathryn Webb. The project seeks to explore our relationship with nature in the global north through a queer lens.

Artist Spotlight Major Projects Partners and Collaborators Research and Development

Artist Spotlight: Yael Elisheva

By DaedalusAdmin on Wednesday, December 13, 2023

We met up with the Dysbiosis team again for a second week of R&D at Queens Theatre Hornchurch two weeks ago. Our third spotlight is on theatremaker, physical performer, drag artist, drama facilitator and many more things Yael Elisheva. They often work in Jewish spaces and use their artistic practice as a means of examining Jewish culture and religion.

What is your relationship with nature?

In my work, I play with found objects and explore how they can be used unconventionally and with multiple purposes. I grew up observing the sabbath, which gave me a strong connection to nature and rest and play. In today’s Western society – our relationship with rest is often viewed as lazy. I’d love to challenge that and offer rest as a means of rejuvenation for our planet.

How do queerness and nature intersect?

When I first heard of different animals and plants that are constantly changing genders like oysters and mushrooms, I felt so validated in my own gender expression.

How does your heritage influence the way you view/value nature?

As a jew, I have rituals and prayers that revolve around nature and gratitude for nature. I have been specifically interested in how the Jewish sabbath embodies an attitude of rest which allows nature to rest as well.

Were any aspects of the project new to you (e.g. devising collaboratively, doing an R&D, working with a designer-led company) and if so, what did you expect coming in?

Major Projects Partners and Collaborators

Dysbiosis R&D Part 2 – A Quick Glimpse!

By DaedalusAdmin on Monday, December 11, 2023

We have lots more to say about this, along with some exciting news about how we’re working with local residents. But, in the meantime, Nabeela Zaman came along to our end-of-R&D sharing and made this lovely reel.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Daedalus Theatre Company (@daedalustheatre)

If you want to know more about the first part of the R&D, back in March, you can read about it here.

Artist Spotlight Associate Artists Major Projects

Artist Spotlight: Kathryn Webb

By DaedalusAdmin on Tuesday, July 25, 2023

While we prepare for the next stage of Dysbiosis, our journey through queer ecology and environmental justice at Queens Theatre Hornchurch, we’re introducing some of the amazing artists we’re privileged to work with on the project. First up is Kathryn Webb.

Tell us about yourself and your creative practice.

Hi! My name is Kathryn and I’m a queer, neurodivergent, working-class creative from Cranham. Ever since I can remember, I’ve always been into ‘making things’. In primary school, me and my bestie used to shoot our own version of Doctor Who, complete with ketchup blood, on a camcorder in his back garden. Nowadays my creative output spans theatre, film, poetry and anything in between. I’ve been mentored by Sky Arts, Creative England, Rianne Pictures, and made a short film for the BBC100 Project. My work stems from an interest in marginalised voices, folklore, and queerness. Previous theatre work has been staged at Theatre503, Arcola, Golden Goose, Pleasance, and Omnibus.

What does queer ecology mean to you?

To me, queer ecology is about questioning what we take for granted when we think of nature, science and reproduction. Unpacking the colonialism and white supremacy of the ‘truths’ we’ve been given and expanding our horizons to see beyond binaries. Nature is brimming with examples of queerness – it’s no joke that we’ve always been here and always will. Through this process, I’ve been empowered to challenge the notion that we exist to procreate.

Events Major Projects Partners and Collaborators

Woodland Walk – photos by Tan Nidhivir

By DaedalusAdmin on Thursday, June 2, 2016

A selection of some of the wonderful photos taken by visiting Thai photographer Tan Nidhivir of our Woodland Walk tryout the other week in Butcher’s Wood, Hassocks. Led by Dan Cox, the walk links natural history, folklore and mental health and is a collaboration with The Brightwood Project. We were very pleased with how it went and got some great feedback from our invited audience.

More about this rather exciting project as it develops…

Tag Archives: nature

Calling all Rainham and Wennington residents!