CURRENT PROJECTS
We invite you to take part in or see:
Combatants for Peace 21st to 30th July
A Little Patch of Ground 15th to 18th July
Seeing With New Eyes 17th July
find out more about other current projects:
Earthling
The Encounters Lab
Walking/Falling/Getting up again
and see how our recent projects went:
Encounters Shop in Dewsbury
The Shimmy at Wandsworth Arts Festival
Combatants for Peace in the UK
Warrington, Coventry and London 21st – 30th July 2010
In his dual role as a creative director of Encounters and UK representative of Combatants for Peace Ben Yeger has been working with partners in Israel, Palestine and the UK over the last few months to bring this remarkable group to England this July.
The Combatants for Peace movement was started in 2005 by Palestinians who had been part of the violent struggle against the occupation and Israelis who had fought in the Israeli army. Having put down their arms, Combatants for Peace members are engaged in a non-violent struggle against the Israeli occupation and for a viable peace in the area. They are committed to using dialogue and reconciliation as a way to promote the establishment of a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem, alongside the State of Israel.
Combatants for Peace is represented in the UK by 16 Israeli and Palestinian members of the Tul-Karem/Tel- Aviv group, one of the five bi-national local activist groups operating in Israel/Palestine. This unique group uses theatre as a tool for dialogue, action and transformation. Encounters are hosting a 10 day tour of public events for this group to share their personal stories and non-violent, creative methods for resolving conflict.
For an organisation whose bi-national members routinely risk arrest and resentment from within their own communities simply for meeting together, this extraordinary UK visit offers a safe space for Combatants for Peace members to deepen relationships within their group as well as take part in a series of public events.
Click to hear a recent BBC radio article on Combatants for Peace
Ben@encounters-arts.org.uk
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A Little Patch of Ground – Yorkshire
At The Point, Doncaster
in association with darts (Doncaster Community Arts)
April – July 2010
Since April we have been working with fifteen participants aged 12 - 60 from across Doncaster to grow a unique vegetable garden and create a multi – media performance. The group meet weekly to share time, food, reflections, ideas, fears and hopes and the Little Patch of Ground performance will reflect their personal stories and relationships with the wider natural world through a cross-fertilisation of soil, images, edible produce, objects, words and songs.
Visit the performance and see the Vegetables that are now bursting from a range of unexpected and playful containers on show around The Point.
The performance will be enhanced by darts’ own Quirky choir.
Public performance dates:
Thursday 15th July 7.00pm
Saturday 17th July 1.30pm (part of Seeing With New Eyes day)
Sunday 18th July 1.00 pm (part of The Doncaster Cultural Festival)
Venue : The Point, 16 South Parade, Doncaster, DN1 2DR
www.thepoint.org.uk
Performances are free
For info and to book contact 01302 341662 www.thepoint.org.uk
A Little Patch of Ground has been devised by Encounters’ creative director Ruth Ben-Tovim and project Associate Anne-Marie Culhane. It was first seen in Liverpool at the Bluecoat in 2009. Each year the project will take root in a different part of the country, heading for London in 2011.
A Little Patch of Ground is funded by Arts Council England, Yorkshire.
Click for images and more infomation about the Vegetable growing process,
Group creative process and the Performance.
ruth@encounters-arts.org.uk
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Seeing With New Eyes
17th July, 12 noon – 4.30pm
Venue : The Point, 16 South Parade, Doncaster, DN1 2DR
A day of free creative, environmentally focused activities for all. Café open for lunch.
Drop-in practical living workshops including:
- Forage and feast on wild food
- Grow your own food the natural way
- Seeing With New Eyes evolving art activities
- Learn the art of bee keeping & sample the diversity of bee products in our lives
- Green information stalls and awareness raising films
- 1.30 – 2.30pm A Little Patch of Ground Performance
- 2.45 – 4.15pm Creative family art workshop
The day is a creative exploration of how we can take small steps to make real changes in our lives. A day to grow your practical and imaginative skills to live more sustainably.
Click here to download flyer
ruth@encounters-arts.org.uk
Earthling
R&D March and June 2010, Sheffield
The co-creators of Earthling - Ruth Nutter, Anne-Marie Culhane, Ruth Ben-Tovim and Lucy Neal - spent five days in the School of Architecture at the University of Sheffield, to explore the creative framing of Earthling, a creative process designed for a community to reveal, reconnect and celebrate the essence of who they are and how they live now and in the future. We were joined by Martin Gent, Bob Levene, Jez Riley French and Toni Spencer to collaboratively experiment with the artistic form and content of Earthling. We are now exploring how to resource the next stage of developing this creative project in partnership with other groups and communities around the UK.
Funded by an R&D grant from Arts Council England, Yorkshire
ruthN@encounters-arts.org.uk or 07951 578208
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The Encounters Lab
An ongoing lab to evolve and join up existing practice and establish new practice at the intersections of art, ecology, placemaking, sustainability innovation, environmental education, conflict resolution and experiential learning. A space for the creative and professional development of the Encounters team in collaboration with others.
If you use experiential approaches to exploring these themes it would be good to hear from you.
Contact:
Teo Greenstreet: teo@encounters-arts.org.uk or 07939 083954
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Walking/Falling/Getting up again
A participatory process and professional/community performance available to communities and venues around the UK. Presented by Encounters
Walking/Falling/Getting up again is a new multi-media performance project that will explore how we raise our boys into men, how we are all impacted by this narrative, what happens if we continue to falter on this front and how this relates to the global crisis of disconnection we are all facing. It treads a delicate line through the contemporary male psyche in this searching examination of the impact of men and fatherhood on our communities and the planet at large.
The performance will combine compelling case studies and intellectual theory, with real-life accounts from men and their families. As well as working with 6 professional actors the process will incorporate an intensive community involvement process generating a wide variety of voices, images, narratives, questions and potential ways forward on this universal topic. The research and development for this project was funded by the Arts Council England, Yorkshire.
Led by Ben Yeger (Encounters).
Conceived and developed by Fatherspeak
Contact Ben Yeger: ben@encounters-arts.org.uk or 07977 449901
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Encounters Shop in Dewsbury
Read more about the Encounters Shop in Dewsbury >>
The Shimmy at Wandsworth Arts Festival
Read more about The Shimmy at Wandsworth Arts Festival >>
