RAT LAB cohort 2 open for applications - and we reflect on why we do it
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Hello. Nell here. I don't write in the first person all that often on this blog, though it's always been me writing it so far. But as we open applications for our next RAT LAB cohort, and prepare for this year’s associates to present some of what they've been working on at RAT LAB LIVE next month, I find myself needing to call on my own voice.
Because, walking alongside our current associates as they prepare to let an audience into the processes we have shared with them since November, I am reminded of the first time I presented 15 minutes of my first completely self-designed project.
I felt physically sick the whole day. Performance anxiety is one thing, but this was more like trying to stay afloat on a rickety boat between two totally opposite worlds: the one in which my truth was inexpressible, and the one in which it wasn’t.
What does that other world look like? Is it less or more kind than this one? Is anyone going to feel the difference other than me?
When the time came, that all completely disappeared, and a wave of real clarity came over me. I delivered, I spoke to audience members, I got on the tube home, feeling like the skin on my bones and the organs in my body were a little more solid than they had been just hours ago.
And then, coming on suddenly and for most of the journey back, my whole chest burned. I fought for breath. I was convinced I was having a heart attack.
I wasn't. I got home. I developed the script more. I shared more of it at other scratch nights. I finished the script. Got a grant. Assembled a creative team. Did an R&D. Got another grant. Did a small tour. That project was NoMad: RAT’s first ever show.
I look back at that process with a huge amount of love and pride. But several memories from that time make me physically wince. The rehearsals before I had any money for collaborators, stretches of which were spent hiding under tables, sobbing and shaking. The walks I went on to clear my head for script writing, and ended up having no idea where I was. The nights on tour spent half-dissociated in strangers’ spare rooms, knowing I didn't know anyone in that city and nobody would be able to remind me who and where I was if I lost myself completely.
All in all, the process probably took years off my life. It was worth it - but it didn't have to be that way.
RAT LAB
Our RAT LAB professional development programme supports 4 survivors per year who are in early stages of developing theatre or storytelling arts-based projects through which they aim to affect change in a topic that matters to them. Its structure was originally designed around what I think I would have needed before, or while, starting to do it myself, that didn't exist at the time.
Each artist gets 12 coaching sessions with me across the programme: enough to maintain individual support across the year, so nobody finds themselves alone for too long with the complex thoughts, emotions and indecisions that can send survivors to frightening places in their minds and bodies. So they can not only identify, but also start practising and embodying the strategies they find within themselves to self-regulate, self-evaluate, strategise and decide.
There are monthly in-person RAT LAB days. The mornings are just for the four associates, and are group mentoring sessions on topics specific to the needs of survivors trying to navigate the industries and cultures we encounter when trying to get self-led work out there. Deciding how much of “your story” to make public. Figuring out what “success” looks like to you, and how to navigate others’ definitions of it while pursuing it. Finding collaborators, identifying what you need from them, your negotiables and non-negotiables. Managing impostor syndrome. Finding your balance between learning to speak the language that seems to get people respected, and embracing your own language for your work.
In the afternoons, we open sessions up to our whole community. Anyone who identifies as a survivor or an ally can come and participate in exploratory creative sessions (“R&D workshops”, if we’re speaking ‘the language’), led by our associates, in which they get to play with a creative concept or bit of material on which they're working at the time. That might look like getting a bit of script on its feet, or trying out an idea for a participatory element, or seeing what a movement sequence that's been brewing in their heads looks like in practise, or improvising/creative writing around a theme or character.
This, to me, is the most special, unique and important part of the programme. For the associates, they are never long away from a community of survivors who are in it with them. For the participant survivors, they get to follow the artistic processes of four survivors each year, inform their decisions, be part of whatever the stories of those projects turn out to be. Whether they want to apply in future or not, whether they’ve already done the programme or not, they see multiple faces of survivor-led storytelling and multiple versions of what is possible. And those doing it aren't far-off, caped and masked superheroes who spat in the face of adversity to get there. They're peers. And they're making it up as they go along just the same as them.
In advance of the final sharing, in which each associate has 15/20 minutes to share an extract of or presentation about their project followed by facilitated feedback and networking, each associate is funded for two days of rehearsal with two collaborators each to put it together. No deathly silence in lonely rehearsal rooms. No assuming that everyone can work for free. No expectation of professional results without professional treatment.
Those sharings, like the R&D workshops that invite the wider community in, aren't just about the artists. They're about building the network. The associates aren't pitting themselves against each other, they're working together to build a picture of what things could look like if survivors led on how stories like ours are told and learned from. I have been saying for a long time that the only way to make bad art is to prioritise what you think someone else wants you to make over what what authentically comes from you. Every associate is making something only they could make. There is no more generous, nor more necessary task, for this movement.
I have written from the perspective of my story here, because that is the one I have a right to tell, and because enough years have gone by for me to be able to find the words. The programme hasn't allowed the associates to bypass all the struggles I mentioned, and one day I imagine they'll all recount this time as full of challenges. But they’ll also remember having each other, and us. They’ll remember having toolkits with which to face those challenges. And they'll remember offering their work to a growing movement, not off a cliff edge.
Applications for our second cohort have now opened: if you think this might be for you, please find the details here. If you are curious about what our first cohort has come up with, book your free ticket to our first RAT LAB LIVE on Friday 11th September here.
We're also running three whole-day introductory sessions over the next three months, to give the wider community a sense of what the programme is about and what to expect. They are all happening at Old Diorama Arts Centre, 11am-5pm, on the following days:
Sunday 30 August - checklist for developing a theatre/arts project with an activism element Sunday 27 September - how to talk and write about your work
Sunday 25 October - facilitation skills and finding your style
There are two parts to each of these days. The earlier session, 11am-1pm, is largely theory and discussion-based. The later one, 2-5pm, is more practical. You are welcome to come to all or just part of as many or few of these sessions as you like.
You're welcome just to turn up - but if you would like to let us know you're planning to come, and be put on our mailing list for participants to get reminders and extra information, please do fill out our participation form.
How else can I get involved, or help?
If you want to be right at the beating heart of what we are building, we are currently recruiting trustees, including a Chair or two Co-Chairs as well as general board members: find out what we are looking for and how to apply for that here.
We are hopeful that there will be yet more ways to get involved with us soon, whether you're a survivor yourself or otherwise passionate about the cause. Meanwhile, if you just want to help us out with a boost, remember you can make either a monthly or a one-off donation through our Give as you Live page.
Quite a lot of links in this post! So you don't get lost in them all, here they all are again:
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