ON the day the UK is scheduled to leave the European Union, six of Scotland’s most acclaimed artists and theatre-makers will present their responses to the end of an era.
The six – including Outlander actor Tam Dean Burn, Angus Farquhar of pioneering arts organisation NVA and award-winning performance artist Nic Green – were invited by the National Theatre of Scotland (NTS) to make new pieces of work exploring their relationship with Europe.
Whether Dear Europe, an evening of performances, food, film and music at Glasgow’s SWG3 is “a party, a wake or simply the last blowout”, no-one knows say the NTS. All that is certain, they say, is Dear Europe is for one night only.
Theatre-maker Gary McNair will host the evening, which will include a dance performance, a sci-fi musical, a choir of Scotland-based European migrants and Moving Through Shadows, a film by Nima Sene and Daniel Hughes exploring the experiences of people of colour in Poland and those of the Polish community in Scotland.
Sene and Hughes worked with Polish-Nigerian singer Ifi Ude on the film, which is based on a concept by theatre-maker Adura Onashile.
“Adura Onashile brought me on board and entrusted me to lead with her concept and I brought one of my intrinsic collaborators and dear friend Daniel Hughes, who is a filmmaker among many other things, with me,” says Sene.
“It was her idea to look at the Polish community in Scotland, the black experience in Poland and US civil rights activists who went to Scotland and Poland around the late 1940s. It’s a collage of all these topics.”
The pair spent a week in Poland with Ude, and also spoke with members of the Polish community in Scotland, including those persecuted in their homeland for their sexuality. Sene says the common themes and connections between these different stories quickly became clear.
“It’s the human experience of moving; of people having to move somewhere else in order to experience some sort of acceptance and most of all in order to survive,” Sene says.
“It’s the idea of having to leave home in order to get closer to become the person you are, and everything that comes with that, in another place.
“We have a history, as human beings, of migrating, or emigrating. It’s part of being human to do so,
to move.”
March 29, Galvanizers Yard, SWG3, Glasgow, 7.30pm to 11pm (doors 7pm), £15/12, £5 tickets for Futureproof Passport holders. Tickets: www.nationaltheatrescotland.com
One night, many voices: The six performances at Dear Europe
A Good Start Is Half The Work
Focusing on Ireland’s relationship with the UK, National Theatre of Scotland’s artist-in-residence Nic Green and choreographer Ruairí Ó’Donnabháin present a dance performance re-imagining the customs of boundaries.
Aquaculture Flagshipwreck
Musician Rachel Newton and artist Tom Morgan-Jones help keep actor Tam Dean Burn afloat as he wades into Scotland and Europe’s fisheries policies.
Cadaver Police In Quest Of Aquatraz Exit
Alan McKendrick and Jules Buchholtz’s sci-fi musical follows Cadaver Police, a band who become the first international export from a blockaded country after decades of embargo.
Death Becomes Us
A community chorus of Scotland-based European migrants led by Leonie Rae Gasson (above) consider the obsession with taking back control.
Moving Through Shadows
Nima Sene and Daniel Hughes’s film draws parallels between the lives of black civil rights activists in Poland in the 1940s and the Polish LGBT community in Scotland.
Second Citizen
Angus Farquhar, of arts organisation NVA, tells of how he wrote to every EU member state seeking adoption. Accompanied by from musicians Cameron Sinclair and Scott Twynholm.
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