Sheroes: the e-zine has landed!
Once upon a time - approximately a year ago, in fact - two theatre-makers, a musician and a group of social workers trod the mysterious woodland path incongruously opposite Finsbury Park station, piled high with drums, bunting, lanterns, sandwiches and cupcakes. In just an hour or two, they were to be met by a group of women just like, and totally unlike, any other.
Is that a riddle…? Don't worry, I'll skip to the good bit. What I mean is, like any other woman, each of these women held deep intuition and creativity inside themselves, and had countless stories to tell. And because of this, each woman was both like and unlike any other woman, because each of her stories was one that only she herself could tell.
Their stories were precious, hilarious, harrowing, bold, gentle, poised, playful, wild - so why hadn't we heard them before?
Some of these women knew they were storytellers, but had been silenced so often that their tales were buried deep to protect them from others' cold words. Some had had others' words forced into their mouths so often that they seemed frightened, when they went to speak, about what words might come out.
What would pass over the next ten weeks was a process of finding words, sounds, gestures, images that took us ever closer to the stories in their purest forms, all inspired by the stories told by that powerhouse authority on female intuition, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, in her tome of a collection of female-led folk tales, Women Who Run With The Wolves.
These women all had in common that they had experienced having children taken into care. They engaged in the tasks alongside us as facilitators, their social workers from Pause Islington, and our two welfare leads.
One of our guest facilitators said she couldn't tell who was "staff" and who was "participant", which we take as proof of the generosity of all in the space in leaving power structures at the door and daring to be vulnerable with each other - and of course, of the potential of the arts to make anyone their own greatest authority.
Now, for the first time, we can share some of the creations with you.
If it brings you even a fraction of the joy it brought us to make, it will make your day.
This was a co-production between Islington People's Theatre, Pause Islington, and us. This is the first time any of us has created an e-zine like this, and we would love your feedback! Please do fill in this quick and simple survey once you've had a look.
And don't forget to sign up to our mailing list to keep up to date with our developments - we have some more gems in store for you very soon.
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