CONFESSION

NATASHA HYMAN

THE PROMISED LAND

RHIANNON BRACE

Rhiannon is thirteen and has a recurring dream about the end of the world. She is not like her classmates; there are no birthday parties, Christmas trees, pop music or make-up. She can recite all the books of the bible, the Ten Commandments, the twelve sons of Jacob and is fearful of being possessed by the devil. Despite her fears she is beginning to find her voice and her own identity and she secretly loves peering at the twinkly Christmas lights in wintery windows. Written and performed by Rhiannon Brace with Scott Swinton

ALL AT SEA

RACHEL GADSDEN

A creative collaboration between visual and performance artist Rachel Gadsden and composer Freddie Meyers featuring renowned Syrian oud player Rihab Azar. The artistic enquiry focuses on the plight of refugees who have settled in the UK, Germany and Jordon. Migration narratives have been explored with refugees to stimulate powerful evocative responses. It is hoped the emerging performance will express the challenges and hopes of diaspora, and will consider how individuals not only survive harrowing migration journeys, but also how these cataclysmic experiences authorize future existences and can ultimately empower individuals. Rachel Gadsden - Visual & Performance Artist & Artistic Director. Freddie Meyers - Composer & Music Director. Rihab Azar - Musician.

KERENSKY BOULEVARD

TOM MANSFIELD

It’s 1989 and the Berlin Wall has fallen. In the tiny nation of Grusinia, revolution is in the air. This is a time for new leaders: you. How will you shape your nation’s future? Will it become a land of peace and freedom, a socialist utopia, or a devastated warzone? The first playtest of a new theatre game from the co-creator of The Situation Room (★★★★ “Immersive theatre at its very best…stirring, involving and highly original” Whatsonstage.com)

HEAR HERE

CHANGE OF ART

A flatmate who tells you not to give money to homeless people. A teacher who denies that colourism exists. A boyfriend who spends money like it’ll never run out, because technically it won’t, for him. The end of friendships. The start of arguments with people who just don’t like being wrong. Change of Art share a multitude of stories about difficult conversations with friends, family and colleagues, gathered through door-knocking in the local community in Shoreditch. Dramaturg: Sarah Siga, Sound Designer: Mark Webber, Outreach Facilitator: Tom Godwin, Door-knocking Team: Sarah Sigal, Hannah Tookey, Stephanie Ellis and Caroline O'Grady. Hear Here is supported using public funding by Arts Council England.

#THEBABYQUESTION

PAULA VARJACK, LUCA RUTHERFORD & CATRIONA JAMES

A devised research based performance by three female performers, investigating how the decision of whether or not to have a child impacts women differently than men, and the pressure it can create on career and relationships. Why are contraception, parenting, and fertility still so often seen as "women's issues"? In 1974 the contraceptive pill was made available by prescription to single women for the first time on the NHS. What has changed since then in the way we discuss not when or how but *whether* a woman has or wants to have children?

SURGE

CHANNIE B

What would happen if I stripped you of everything you knew, to rebuild us? I want to let you know that it's not just about me, or people like me, it's about all of us, because who knows who will be next. Channie B's new work combines poetry and sound design to create an evocative exploration of humanity and brutality.

Written and performed by Channie B.
Sound engineering by Curtis Arnold Hammer

FIGHT. FLIGHT. FREEZE. FUCK

RIA DAVIS, AMELIA BROWN & COCO JACKSON

We have fought. We have flown. We have frozen. And we have fucked.

Three people have stories to tell. These are stories of smeared consent, sexual violence, rape. Let’s create a space in which to hear them. Let’s create a space in which they can respond to them. This is a play about voices and spaces and sexual violence. It is also a play about kindness.

SLUTS

DON'T BE ABSURD

Two women. Both dead. Hanged; jumped down a well. Two writers: Goethe and Hebbel - who condemned them. But this time, they won't stick to their stories. Welcome to The School of Womanhood, a chance to learn from those who have died for their sexual transgressions. This school will form you (all of you) into real women. Text by Goethe, Hebbel and devised by the company. Directed by Kesia Guillery. Cast: Atilla Akinci, Stef Brückner, Judith Von Orelli, Rebecca Phillips

DISCUSSION

CROSSING BORDERS

In a time in which walls seem to be going up across the continent and borders closing, what can artists and societies learn from one another by working together? For this discussion, we bring together a group of theatre and performance makers to talk about the possibilities, frustrations, challenges and joys of creating art across international and cultural borders.

ATLANTIC

EMMA CLARKE & PJ STANLEY

We've been told that the world is drifting. Ideologies, societies, people. Even our planet is slowly tearing itself apart year by year, the steady accumulation of history piling up like the garbage patch in the middle of the sea. So there's only one thing for it. We're headed out to the middle of the ocean to pull everything back together again. Nations, cultures, tectonic plates. After all, there are no rules in international waters, just two people and an open horizon.

CAN YOU SEE INTO A BLACK HOLE?

THOMAS RYALLS

Epileptic seizures are like black holes, we don't know a lot about them and we can'tt really observe what's happening inside them. Can You See Into a Black Hole? puts feelings of shame, power and love back in to the scientific timeline of a seizure and tries to understand how they might be part of this little-understood phenomenon. It's also a pretty mint disco. Tom is going to take you to a proper northern (epileptic-friendly) party, the walls are covered in EEG charts and the strobes have been smashed. We might not see into a black hole but we'll have a good time trying! Written and performed by Thomas Ryalls. Sound and Music by Christian Czornyj.

HERE, QUEER AND MENTALLY UNCLEAR

IZZY JOAN

A verbatim music and theatre piece featuring stories from people in the LGBTQ+ community who suffer from mental illness. This work focuses on education and healing while supplying the audience with both heartbreaking and heartwarming stories, humour and music. Aimed at breaking down the stigma our society carries towards these things, while also examining the interconnected nature of queerness and mental illness. This piece asks why the LGBTQ+ community is 3 times more likely to experience mental health disorders, and what can we as a society do to help ease this crisis. Writer/Producer/Performer - Izzy Joan. Co-producer/Performer - Bradley Birkholz

DO WHAT YOU DARE

HEATHER LONG

Do What You Dare is an end-of-festival celebration of the creativity and bravery of DARE artists and audiences! To close out this year’s Festival, we’ve invited all our DARE artists, and several other creatives, makers and adventurers, to get up and do something outside of their comfort zone. Whether they’re a dancer who wants to try singing for once, or a director who’s courted a secret penchant for magic tricks, or perhaps a writer withe zero rhythm who fancies a bash at a tap dance, this is a chance for them to Dare themselves to try something a little bit daunting. Here’s the twist: in and amongst the programmed Dares there will be open slots for any festival-goer, should the spirit move you, to Dare yourself! It’s a chance for all of us to celebrate trying something new and a bit scary, so feel free to step up and take a risk.

DARE 5 2021

DARE 2 2017

DARE 4 2019

DARE 2016

DARE 3 2018