Online Events
Our autumn tour of BIRTH is postponed and new dates in 2021 will be announced very soon.
In the meantime we will keep collaborating with nationwide charity Aching Arms and Josephine Tremelling (who works with creativity & wellbeing) in raising awareness of the lasting impact the death of a baby has on parents and their family across generations.
This autumn we will be organising two free online events:
In the meantime we will keep collaborating with nationwide charity Aching Arms and Josephine Tremelling (who works with creativity & wellbeing) in raising awareness of the lasting impact the death of a baby has on parents and their family across generations.
This autumn we will be organising two free online events:
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Discussion
On Monday the 12th of October, we hosted an online live discussion focusing on the value of staging sensitive and taboo subject matters. This discussion was part of Baby Loss Awareness Week 2020 and took our production of BIRTH as a starting point. Theatre offers a space to understand and navigate the impossible but what is the legitimacy of portraying these difficult experiences and what is the relationship between imagination and real life? It is curated by Karen Quigley (Senior Lecturer in Theatre, York University) with Leanne Turner (CEO and Founder Aching Arms), Guillaume Pigé (Director Theatre Re), Eygló Belafonte (Associate Artist Theatre Re) and Josephine Tremelling who works with creativity and wellbeing. This discussion is open to all but is especially relevant for creatives currently (or in the future) making their own work which focuses on sensitive subjects. Participants Karen Quigley: Karen is Senior Lecturer in Theatre at the University of York. Her first book, Performing the Unstageable: Success, Imagination, Failure, was published in February of this year and explores, amongst other things, staging violence, blood, ghosts and seemingly unstageable stage directions. Her research on a range of other subjects including site-specific performance pedagogy and solo spectatorship has been published in European Drama and Performance Studies, Journal of Contemporary Drama in English and Theatre, Dance and Performance Training. Leanne Turner: Leanne is the Founder of Aching Arms. In June 2010, a year after her son James died, she set out, to support the mental health and emotional well-being of parents who experience the loss of their much loved baby. When the charity gained its registration with the Charity Commission in 2013 the trustees appointed Leanne as part time Charity Coordinator. In January 2019 she was appointed full time CEO. Leanne’s role is to provide effective leadership and management of the charity’s strategic and operational aims. James remains at the heart of all the work she does for Aching Arms. Prior to founding Aching Arms, Leanne was an Education Consultant for an Inner London Education Authority for 8 years and teacher of secondary English, Drama and History for 11 years. Josephine Tremelling: Josephine co-founded Anyone Everyone Inclusive Theatre Company in 2014. With her drama therapist co-founder Lisa Harmer she runs creative workshops for children and adults, also running specialist projects for pregnant women and their families. She ran a project called the Silent Trimester which questioned the silence surrounding pregnancy loss. In 2017, she was invited to become an external advisor for Theatre Re and their production of BIRTH. Josephine’s other current Theatrical projects include working with Ephemeral Ensemble, Invisible Ensemble and The Little Angel Theatre. She also runs cabaret and alter ego workshops, and a weekly life drawing class. Eygló Belafonte: Eygló studied contemporary dance at the Icelandic Dance Academy and graduated from the International School of Corporeal Mime in London. She has performed at the National Theatre of Iceland and for award-winning choreographer Helena Jonsdottir in her Rite of Spring. She worked with the international touring company Theatre de l'Ange Fou and extensively for Theatre Re, performing in The Nature of Forgetting and Birth. Eygló has taught at The International School of Corporeal Mime, Icelandic Academy of the Arts, Icelandic Film School and Fourth Monkey. She is a co-founder of Ephemeral Ensemble and co-directed its recent productions Carsick and OFFSTAGE. Guillaume Pigé: Guillaume is an actor, director, mime and magician. He established Theatre Re in 2011 and has directed each of the company's productions to date. Originally from France, he has been living in the UK for the past 13 years. He trained with theatre makers and directors such as Andrew Visnesvski, Steven Wasson, Corinne Soum, Daniel Stein and Thomas Leabhart. He is an associate teacher at Rada, head of devising at Fourth Monkey Actor Training and a tutor at E15 Acting School. He is regularly invited to give workshops throughout the UK and internationally. |
Creative Task
Yesterday, Tomorrow, Today by Josephine Tremelling Ongoing Visit Josephine's website This is for anyone who has experienced the loss of a baby. No writing experience necessary! You are invited to write about the past, present and future. This is a space for you to tell your story in full in as much detail and with as much rambling as you like, wherever you are with it now and your hopes and fears about the future. This piece of writing can either be kept to yourself or can be shared via the website if you feel comfortable doing so. There are no rules about the style or content should be. The format is the only parameter. This writing is for you. don't write something to be read... Write for yourself. Use the techniques from the warm ups, continuous writing, visual aides, repeating words. All the details here. Let Go! Yesterday: Can literally refer to yesterday or can be a place to talk about the past. I think I floated between the two talking literally about yesterday and using the space to tell the story in full from todays perspective. This could be a place to write down everything thats happened, to tell your story. To describe every moment. Tomorrow: Again can literally refer to tomorrow or to the Future. Future plans, future hopes and fears. This is the place to ponder and dream. Don't worry if what you write feels dark or pessimistic. This is a place to embrace those feelings and give them a voice, let them be heard. We often forget to allow those feelings out, but how will we be healed and nurtured if we are hiding them? Today: The present. Again this is open to interpretation but a nice starting point could literally be to talk about where you are as you write, what you can see, hear, taste, how you feel, what you are thinking about? This is also a place to talk about where you are on your journey. How pregnancy loss is affecting you in real time. How is it different from yesterday and tomorrow? |
Organisations
Theatre Re:
Established as a professional ensemble in 2011, Theatre Re has garnered a national and international reputation for creating world class, deeply moving, and visually striking poetic theatre. The company’s name comes from the prefix re and symbolises its guiding principles: to rediscover, to reinvent and to reveal. Rooted in Etienne Decroux's Corporeal Mime, our productions use movement, music and design to communicate. We engage with a wide range of disciplines such as science, philosophy, psychology, public health and education to address global human challenges, bring people together and develop empathy with strength and delicacy. Collaborations with community groups throughout the creation process are central to the company’s work.
Aching Arms:
Aching Arms helps bring comfort following the loss of a baby during pregnancy, at birth or infancy. They supply comfort teddy bears to parents via hospitals, hospices, support groups and funeral directors in the UK. The charity asks health professionals to offer an Aching Arms bear to every bereaved parent and discuss the emotional support available to them after they leave hospital. As the bears are donated from one bereaved family to another, each bear also reminds parents they are not alone and there are others who understand. The charity also runs free awareness training programmes for health professionals and hosts a telephone befriending service for bereaved parents.
About Baby Loss Awareness Week:
Baby Loss Awareness Week (happening every year from October 9th to 15th) aims to raise awareness about pregnancy and baby death in the UK. Throughout the week bereaved parents, their families and friends, unite with each other and others across the world to commemorate the lives of babies who died during pregnancy, at or soon after birth and in infancy. Baby Loss Awareness Week is also a collaboration between charities and organisations working together for change and tangible improvements in policy, research, bereavement care and support available for anyone affected by the death of a baby at any stage.
Theatre Re:
Established as a professional ensemble in 2011, Theatre Re has garnered a national and international reputation for creating world class, deeply moving, and visually striking poetic theatre. The company’s name comes from the prefix re and symbolises its guiding principles: to rediscover, to reinvent and to reveal. Rooted in Etienne Decroux's Corporeal Mime, our productions use movement, music and design to communicate. We engage with a wide range of disciplines such as science, philosophy, psychology, public health and education to address global human challenges, bring people together and develop empathy with strength and delicacy. Collaborations with community groups throughout the creation process are central to the company’s work.
Aching Arms:
Aching Arms helps bring comfort following the loss of a baby during pregnancy, at birth or infancy. They supply comfort teddy bears to parents via hospitals, hospices, support groups and funeral directors in the UK. The charity asks health professionals to offer an Aching Arms bear to every bereaved parent and discuss the emotional support available to them after they leave hospital. As the bears are donated from one bereaved family to another, each bear also reminds parents they are not alone and there are others who understand. The charity also runs free awareness training programmes for health professionals and hosts a telephone befriending service for bereaved parents.
About Baby Loss Awareness Week:
Baby Loss Awareness Week (happening every year from October 9th to 15th) aims to raise awareness about pregnancy and baby death in the UK. Throughout the week bereaved parents, their families and friends, unite with each other and others across the world to commemorate the lives of babies who died during pregnancy, at or soon after birth and in infancy. Baby Loss Awareness Week is also a collaboration between charities and organisations working together for change and tangible improvements in policy, research, bereavement care and support available for anyone affected by the death of a baby at any stage.