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Ancient roots of community art
March was traditionally the month for hedge laying in the part of rural France where I have roots. The hazel hasn’t yet begun to bud nor the birds to nest. Cutting into the upright stems so that they can be pushed flat and woven together with stakes creates a stock-proof barrier that will last 20…
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Why Joan Littlewood Matters – possibly more now than ever
A guest post by Stella Duffy, theatre maker, novelist and Fun Palaces champion Joan was a working class actor and director when most actors, and especially most directors, came from privilege. She was a woman when most directors were men. She ran a major theatre venue when most people running venues were men. She worked…
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It’s alright not to know
Yesterday I talked with students taking a community art module at the University of Utrecht. They were an unusually diverse group from different parts of the world and an equally wide range of disciplines. Such conversations are always rewarding because they make me unsure of what I think. A generation apart, we not only know…
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Where do you stand?
Would you prefer to spend the next six months working on a project that would be artistically fulfilling but little more than a spectacle for the participants, or on a project that would have a deep and lasting effect on those participants but be artistically uninteresting? Everyone I ask answers this question in roughly the…
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Nothing but the best
I’ve often heard that high artistic standards are unattainable, or even unimportant in socially engaged work. Nothing could be further from the truth. Two experiences during my visit to Lisbon last week reminded me why. Chapitô is a circus theatre school established over 30 years ago by Teresa Ricou, better known as the clown, Tété.…
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François Matarasso 