This year, we are hosting ‘Happy Hour’ at our Festival Hub, Birmingham Black Box, from Thursday to Sunday. These two hours each day are free of other programming at the festival, excluding MANUAL and Softly/Tenderly. It’s one of the many ways we hope to foster a sense of community and is open to absolutely everyone attending, in whatever capacity. It will be a perfect opportunity for industry folk to catch-up, and to swap notes and numbers. Food and drinks will be available for purchase, too.

Click here for the full Festival Hub schedule.

Access

Birmingham Black Box is a wheelchair accessible space; all activity will take place on the ground floor. We will be hiring a wheelchair accessible toilet for this event in addition to the existing cubicle toilets.

There will be a range of seating including soft chairs and some couches.

All activity will take place in one large room so noise levels will likely be consistent throughout the space; we will mark out a quieter space where we will provide comfy seating and some ear defenders.

This year, we are hosting ‘Happy Hour’ at our Festival Hub, Birmingham Black Box, from Thursday to Sunday. These two hours each day are free of other programming at the festival, excluding MANUAL and Softly/Tenderly. It’s one of the many ways we hope to foster a sense of community and is open to absolutely everyone attending, in whatever capacity. It will be a perfect opportunity for industry folk to catch-up, and to swap notes and numbers. Food and drinks will be available for purchase, too.

Click here for the full Festival Hub schedule.

Access

Birmingham Black Box is a wheelchair accessible space; all activity will take place on the ground floor. We will be hiring a wheelchair accessible toilet for this event in addition to the existing cubicle toilets.

There will be a range of seating including soft chairs and some couches.

All activity will take place in one large room so noise levels will likely be consistent throughout the space; we will mark out a quieter space where we will provide comfy seating and some ear defenders.

This year, we are hosting ‘Happy Hour’ at our Festival Hub, Birmingham Black Box, from Thursday to Sunday. These two hours each day are free of other programming at the festival, excluding MANUAL and Softly/Tenderly. It’s one of the many ways we hope to foster a sense of community and is open to absolutely everyone attending, in whatever capacity. It will be a perfect opportunity for industry folk to catch-up, and to swap notes and numbers. Food and drinks will be available for purchase, too.

Click here for the full Festival Hub schedule.

Access

Birmingham Black Box is a wheelchair accessible space; all activity will take place on the ground floor. We will be hiring a wheelchair accessible toilet for this event in addition to the existing cubicle toilets.

There will be a range of seating including soft chairs and some couches.

All activity will take place in one large room so noise levels will likely be consistent throughout the space; we will mark out a quieter space where we will provide comfy seating and some ear defenders.

BUY TICKETS HERE

Common Salt is a performance around a table – a ‘show and tell’.

It explores the colonial, geographical history of England and India, taking an expansive and emotional time-travel, from the first Enclosure Act and the start of the East India Company in the 1600s, to 21st century narratives of trade, empire and culture.

Sue and Sheila activate insights into our shared past, laying out a ‘home museum’ of objects and stories; of the Great Hedge of India, of borders, and collections – all accompanied by original Shruti box laments.

Common Salt is a reckoning; the interconnectedness between history and global power, artefact and trade, nature and memory is hidden in plain sight.

Common Salt is included in our Bear (AKA Full Week) Pass. Click here for more information about our passes.

Credits

Common Salt is a collaborative work by artists Sheila Ghelani and Sue Palmer.

Common Salt is supported using public funds by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Developed with support from b-side and One Final Act by Rajni Shah Projects

Access

Audience are seated throughout but are free to move if needed. Salt, seeds and flowers are used in the performance.

BUY TICKETS HERE

‘No adoption show! Too private, too personal, too intimate, too triggering, too scary, and too many ramifications you can’t control!’

Writer has broken a promise: this show is the consequence(s).

Set in a forest of bloody eggs, ghost family members, vaudeville politicians and broken TVs, Twine is the story of how Seed, Sapling and Bark liberated themselves and each other from a legacy of shame, violence and silence.  Irreverent and full of yearning, Twine offers a unique odyssey into all that our families are, and all that they could be.

Fall into a forest of family trees haunted by Stuart Hall and bell hooks, Kat Slater (yes, that one) and Medea, where taboos are broken, and yearnings and desires grow deeper, richer and riskier than they could ever have imagined.

‘Abolish Adoption! Even if yours went well. Abolish the family! Even though we love them’

Twine is a story about love and loneliness, families and ghosts, and the way in which one shattering moment can transform multiple family trees for generations to come.

The 7pm performance of Twine on Saturday 19 October is included in our Bear (AKA Full Week) and Otter (Weekend Max) Passes. The 7pm performance of Twine on Friday 18 October is included in our Pup (Weekend Lite) Passes. Click here for more information about our passes.

Following the 2pm performance of Twine on Saturday 19 October will be a free Open Discussion + Q&A from 4pm to 5:30pm. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Credits

Written by: Selina Thompson
In Collaboration with: Jennifer Tang (Director) & Naomi Kuyck-Cohen (Designer) 

Commissioned by Yard Theatre, Nottingham Playhouse, Live Theatre, Theatre in the Mill & Cambridge Junction with support from the Stobbs New Ideas Fund. 

With support from ‘Support Not Separation’ & the Foster Parents, Adopters, Social Workers, Academics, Artists & Activists that have shared their stories. 

Twine R&D was originally supported by an Arts Council of England (ACE) Project Grant; Selina Thompson Ltd is an ACE ‘National Portfolio Company’

Access

Please check back closer to the performance date for further access information.

BUY TICKETS HERE

Common Salt is a performance around a table – a ‘show and tell’.

It explores the colonial, geographical history of England and India, taking an expansive and emotional time-travel, from the first Enclosure Act and the start of the East India Company in the 1600s, to 21st century narratives of trade, empire and culture.

Sue and Sheila activate insights into our shared past, laying out a ‘home museum’ of objects and stories; of the Great Hedge of India, of borders, and collections – all accompanied by original Shruti box laments.

Common Salt is a reckoning; the interconnectedness between history and global power, artefact and trade, nature and memory is hidden in plain sight.

Common Salt is included in our Bear (AKA Full Week) Pass. Click here for more information about our passes.

Credits

Common Salt is a collaborative work by artists Sheila Ghelani and Sue Palmer.

Common Salt is supported using public funds by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Developed with support from b-side and One Final Act by Rajni Shah Projects

Access

Audience are seated throughout but are free to move if needed. Salt, seeds and flowers are used in the performance.

BUY TICKETS HERE

Batty Bwoy is a solo which doesn’t start with a question, or a critique, but from a place of play and desire, entangled in violence and charming cruelty. Through a reappropriation of the Jamaican term “Batty Bwoy” (literally, butt boy), slang for a queer person, the work twists and turns the myths of the black queer body, unfolding vulnerable possibilities in an interplay of consciousness and naivety. 

Scrutinizing the absurdity of a queer monstrosity, Batty Bwoy articulates through the porosity of bodies and languages, their mouths swallowing and regurgitating the corporal fictions projected onto their skins. 

In an odyssey of droning prog-rock, Batty Bwoy attacks and embraces sedimented narratives around the fear of the queer body as a perverse and deviant figure. The expression “Batty Bwoy” is used to evoke an ambivalent creature that exists in the threshold of the precarious body, liberated power, joy, and batty energy! The work has found inspiration in mythologies, disgusting stereotypes, feelings, and fantasies of the queer body and identities, homophobic dancehall lyrics, 70s Giallo films from Italy, resilient “gully queens,” and queer voices in Norway and Jamaica that have visited and taken part of the process.

The 9:30pm performance of Batty Bwoy on Thursday 17 October is included in our Bear (AKA Full Week) Pass. Click here for more information about our passes.

Credits

Choreography/Performance: Harald Beharie
Artistic collaborators/sculpture: Karoline Bakken Lund and Veronica Bruce
Composer: Ring van Möbius
Sound designer: Jassem Hindi
Outside Eye: Hooman Sharifi, Inés Belli
Producer: Mariana Suikkanen Gomes
Distribution: Damien Valette

Thanks to: Tobias Leira, Ingeborg Staxrud Olerud, Torbjørn Kolbeinsen and Phillip McLeod

Supported by: Kulturrådet, Fond for lyd og bilde, FFUK, Sandnes Municipality, Oslo Municipality and TOU.

Access

This show contains loud sounds.

BUY TICKETS HERE

‘No adoption show! Too private, too personal, too intimate, too triggering, too scary, and too many ramifications you can’t control!’

Writer has broken a promise: this show is the consequence(s).

Set in a forest of bloody eggs, ghost family members, vaudeville politicians and broken TVs, Twine is the story of how Seed, Sapling and Bark liberated themselves and each other from a legacy of shame, violence and silence.  Irreverent and full of yearning, Twine offers a unique odyssey into all that our families are, and all that they could be.

Fall into a forest of family trees haunted by Stuart Hall and bell hooks, Kat Slater (yes, that one) and Medea, where taboos are broken, and yearnings and desires grow deeper, richer and riskier than they could ever have imagined.

‘Abolish Adoption! Even if yours went well. Abolish the family! Even though we love them’

Twine is a story about love and loneliness, families and ghosts, and the way in which one shattering moment can transform multiple family trees for generations to come.

The 7pm performance of Twine on Saturday 19 October is included in our Bear (AKA Full Week) and Otter (Weekend Max) Passes. The 7pm performance of Twine on Friday 18 October is included in our Pup (Weekend Lite) Passes. Click here for more information about our passes.

Following the 2pm performance of Twine on Saturday 19 October will be a free Open Discussion + Q&A from 4pm to 5:30pm. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Credits

Written by: Selina Thompson
In Collaboration with: Jennifer Tang (Director) & Naomi Kuyck-Cohen (Designer) 

Commissioned by Yard Theatre, Nottingham Playhouse, Live Theatre, Theatre in the Mill & Cambridge Junction with support from the Stobbs New Ideas Fund. 

With support from ‘Support Not Separation’ & the Foster Parents, Adopters, Social Workers, Academics, Artists & Activists that have shared their stories. 

Twine R&D was originally supported by an Arts Council of England (ACE) Project Grant; Selina Thompson Ltd is an ACE ‘National Portfolio Company’

Access

Please check back closer to the performance date for further access information.

BUY TICKETS HERE

Batty Bwoy is a solo which doesn’t start with a question, or a critique, but from a place of play and desire, entangled in violence and charming cruelty. Through a reappropriation of the Jamaican term “Batty Bwoy” (literally, butt boy), slang for a queer person, the work twists and turns the myths of the black queer body, unfolding vulnerable possibilities in an interplay of consciousness and naivety. 

Scrutinizing the absurdity of a queer monstrosity, Batty Bwoy articulates through the porosity of bodies and languages, their mouths swallowing and regurgitating the corporal fictions projected onto their skins. 

In an odyssey of droning prog-rock, Batty Bwoy attacks and embraces sedimented narratives around the fear of the queer body as a perverse and deviant figure. The expression “Batty Bwoy” is used to evoke an ambivalent creature that exists in the threshold of the precarious body, liberated power, joy, and batty energy! The work has found inspiration in mythologies, disgusting stereotypes, feelings, and fantasies of the queer body and identities, homophobic dancehall lyrics, 70s Giallo films from Italy, resilient “gully queens,” and queer voices in Norway and Jamaica that have visited and taken part of the process.

The 9:30pm performance of Batty Bwoy on Thursday 17 October is included in our Bear (AKA Full Week) Pass. Click here for more information about our passes.

Credits

Choreography/Performance: Harald Beharie
Artistic collaborators/sculpture: Karoline Bakken Lund and Veronica Bruce
Composer: Ring van Möbius
Sound designer: Jassem Hindi
Outside Eye: Hooman Sharifi, Inés Belli
Producer: Mariana Suikkanen Gomes
Distribution: Damien Valette

Thanks to: Tobias Leira, Ingeborg Staxrud Olerud, Torbjørn Kolbeinsen and Phillip McLeod

Supported by: Kulturrådet, Fond for lyd og bilde, FFUK, Sandnes Municipality, Oslo Municipality and TOU.

Access

This show contains loud sounds.

BUY TICKETS HERE

‘No adoption show! Too private, too personal, too intimate, too triggering, too scary, and too many ramifications you can’t control!’

Writer has broken a promise: this show is the consequence(s).

Set in a forest of bloody eggs, ghost family members, vaudeville politicians and broken TVs, Twine is the story of how Seed, Sapling and Bark liberated themselves and each other from a legacy of shame, violence and silence.  Irreverent and full of yearning, Twine offers a unique odyssey into all that our families are, and all that they could be.

Fall into a forest of family trees haunted by Stuart Hall and bell hooks, Kat Slater (yes, that one) and Medea, where taboos are broken, and yearnings and desires grow deeper, richer and riskier than they could ever have imagined.

‘Abolish Adoption! Even if yours went well. Abolish the family! Even though we love them’

Twine is a story about love and loneliness, families and ghosts, and the way in which one shattering moment can transform multiple family trees for generations to come.

The 7pm performance of Twine on Saturday 19 October is included in our Bear (AKA Full Week) and Otter (Weekend Max) Passes. The 7pm performance of Twine on Friday 18 October is included in our Pup (Weekend Lite) Passes. Click here for more information about our passes.

Following the 2pm performance of Twine on Saturday 19 October will be a free Open Discussion + Q&A from 4pm to 5:30pm. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Credits

Written by: Selina Thompson
In Collaboration with: Jennifer Tang (Director) & Naomi Kuyck-Cohen (Designer) 

Commissioned by Yard Theatre, Nottingham Playhouse, Live Theatre, Theatre in the Mill & Cambridge Junction with support from the Stobbs New Ideas Fund. 

With support from ‘Support Not Separation’ & the Foster Parents, Adopters, Social Workers, Academics, Artists & Activists that have shared their stories. 

Twine R&D was originally supported by an Arts Council of England (ACE) Project Grant; Selina Thompson Ltd is an ACE ‘National Portfolio Company’

Access

Please check back closer to the performance date for further access information.