SHEROES

A Co-Production with Islington People's Theatre and Pause Islington

July-October 2022

In July 2022, we began a 10-week project with our friends at Islington People's Theatre in which we were totally honoured to be able to work with women supported by Pause Islington, an initiative for women who have experienced or are at risk of having children taken into care, and their practitioners.

These are women about whom many in our society have made up their minds before they have even met them. Women whose stories so many people think they already know, without having listened. Women who have taken the blame, been held back by shame and hidden from themselves for far too long.

Taking inspiration from the female-led folk tales explored in Clarissa Pinkola Estes's classic work Women Who Run With The Wolves, we used applied theatre, creative writing, movement, music, art and crafts to look at how tales handed down from generation to generation bring out timeless wisdom and knowledge without exposing the speaker, and become identifiable in universal ways. The all-female space became a haven of safety, creativity, enlightenment, silliness and fun for us as well as for them and their practitioners.

The women made up their own silly stories, their own profound and moving poetry, told their own personal stories through metaphor, dance, sound and drama, and released sides of themselves they had not seen or felt in a long time, if ever.

Meeting in the Ecology Centre of the beautiful Gillespie Park, we were also able to take advantage of the surroundings to be at one with nature, and tend to the plants as we must learn to tend to ourselves. At the end of the project, we planted some evergreens at the entrance on St Thomas's Road, to grow strong and resilient just like these incredible women.

We would have loved to have been able to invite you along to see them in all their glory on the day they shared their performances with a live audience - but unfortunately, the world is not ready to receive these women and their stories at the same time yet. For their safety, their anonymity must be protected.

Nevertheless, the e-zine linked above contains their voices reading their works, as well as the written words and some of their poignant artwork.