Past Projects
"The actor makes a gift of himself"
-Jerzy Grotowski
PERFORMANCE PROJECTS
“This Being a Woman”
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A devised performance mixing ensemble work
with solo autobiographical theatre.
Performed on 5th July 2024 in Dartington Studio 6
to a community audience of 150.
An experimental, emergent, work-in-progress show.
An inquiry: What, on Earth, is being a woman?
Exploring our individual and collective stories, stereotypes and archetypes.
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A thought provoking, devised piece, blending elements of autobiographical storytelling and physical theatre, performed by an ensemble of seven local cis-gender women of various ages and backgrounds.
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Performers:
Justine Fitton/ Queenie
Kate Hubert
Kirsty Hurd-Thomas
Mim Ruth
Raisa Breslava
Rooh Star
Suzy Williamson
Directed by Agata Krajewska
"Menopausal Cabaret"
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7th July 2023, Ashburton Arts Centre, sold out
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An evening about all things menopause, with comedy, poetry and song.
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We hoped to educate and entertain, regardless of your age or gender- you will come in contact with menopausal women sooner or later!
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This is part of Stories for Change campaign “Menopause – the New Story”, raising awareness and starting a conversation.
The wonderful line up was: Jackie Juno: Stand-up Poetry Queen of Bitchin’ Doggerel. Rhyming ranter. Ranting rhymer. Jackie is so painfully hip that she needs a new one.
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Ceri Baker: An eclectic mash up of rhythmic frames to life’s poetic eruption. Coming from a ‘fuck it’ place following life changing medical trauma, she stitches feminist rage into body autonomy glee and procreative recovery. Mixing humour, anecdote and moving autobiographical content, she carefully regifts relatable stories allowing us to breathe out, where we might have been holding in.
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Rooh Star: Songs and truth speaking from menopausal hedge-witch.
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Suzy Williamson AKA Dilys Dalrymple: Lady-clown and stand-up brings her risqué exposé of the intimate indignities and titillating triumphs of our hormonal surges at mid life.
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Agata Krajewska AKA Witchy Bitchy: Autobiographical storytelling meets stand-up comedy, meets hormonal education, useful and entertaining for anyone in a vicinity of any menopausal beings.
2018 "The Witches Kitchen"
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Solo Performance by Agata Krajewska
Final Project for MA Performance Training, Plymouth University
“The Life/Death/Life nature is a cycle of animation, development, decline, and death that is always followed by reanimation. This cycle affects all physical life and all facets of psychological life.”
Clarissa Pinkola Estes
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I have been working with the theme of the transformational cycle, searching for it in the biology of the female body, in the kitchen and in stories that are both ancient and my own. Through this performance, I hoped to offer you insight into the experience of a menstrual cycle, as both lived experience and a metaphor for a creative process.
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This project has investigated the “outcast” feminine archetypes such as “the Witch”. My primary research question has been: What might be gained by exploring the outcast parts of the female psyche and moments of the creative cycle that feature disintegration?
I have played with several modes of performance such as ritual, storytelling, performance art, physical theatre and comedy, mixing them up like cooking ingredients in an attempt to create a performance experience that is nourishing.
In the creation of this piece I have been inspired by a British artist Marisa Carnesky, who blends styles of popular entertainment show, lecture demonstration and tang-in-cheek ritual to deliver her ‘research into the importance of celebrating the symbolic and cultural power of menstruation’.
Bobby Baker’s solo autobiographical work influenced me both in terms of form and content. Like her, I have examined my identity as a woman and explored my maternal ancestry through the use of food and cooking.
2014 "This Being a Woman"
Solo Performance by Agata Krajewska
The show explored identity in the context of being a woman. It wrestled with outdated female role models, sensing new and unknown emergence of the feminine principle into the world, finding its expression through my life.
“A stunning performance. Real, very touching and funny. Enjoyed every moment of it”
“You’ve articulated what I haven’t been able but always wanted to say, so moving and inspirational”
“I completely acknowledge you for a delicately powerful, precisely timed and insightful, deeply sensual performance. “
“That was such a thrilling performance, you are a pro on every level and such a great comedienne...... it is definitely a great gift to be able to touch on such discomforting truths in such a light way- genius.”
View Video extracts here.
Festivals
"I had a deep calling to tell the story of my journey with having a disability from birth. Performing at Drop the Story in 2019 was the first time I had performed in public. I couldn’t tell you why I felt the need to do this, but once I had, it became clear to me that I had reached a place of acceptance and joy in who I was, and the performance acted as a declaration of this to myself, I had drawn a line in the sand. It felt and still feels utterly liberating."
Holly
Solo Autobiographical Performances
Directed by Agata
2016 DROP THE STORY FESTIVAL
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Rooh Star “Undoing the Bad Spell”
Selena Mare “Days on the Dongas”
Jeannie Hodder “The Tram Lines”
Suzi Williamson “In their Hands”
Mothiur Rahman “Where two worlds collide”
2017 DROP THE STORY FESTIVAL
Phil Barber “Tomorrow I come home”
Marta Emmitt “Everything tries to be round”
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2018 DROP THE STORY FESTIVAL
Phil Barber “She”
Selena Mara “The Five Year Walk”
Sho Moskovitz “Homecoming”
Rooh Star “She Who Sings Her Own Song”
Sarah Heal “Coming Home”
Catharine Boothroyd “I Love the Flowers”
2019 STORIES FOR CHANGE FESTIVAL
Katheryn Trenshaw "Dying to Live By the Numbers"
Kate Hubert “Umbilical (Grandma Briant's War)”
Claire Jones "Rigger"
Sarah Heal “Everyday Adventures of the Superhero”
Solo Autobiographical Performances
Directed by Agata
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2019 DROP THE STORY FESTIVAL
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Claire Jones "The Girl in the Mirror"
Holly Tiffen "I Have Been Created"
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2020 ROUGH DIAMONDS FESTIVAL
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Gulara Vincent "Family Portrait from Azerbaijan"
Kate Hubert "Love and Loss on the Costa del Dole"
Hazel Love "Sensitive"
Kirsty Hurd Thomas "Falling"
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2021 ROUGH DIAMONDS FESTIVAL
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Gulara Vincent "In Search of Freedom -
Women's Journey to Power"
Kate Hubert "The Song of My Father"
Rough Diamonds Festival
of Solo Autobiographical Theatre
July 2020 and 2021
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The Angel Hall
Bowden House
Totnes
TQ9 7PW
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Agata and Phil invite you to works-in-progress community festival.
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This year's theme is: Exploring Gender Roles
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Our performers/players have been exploring, catching, crafting and honing significant stories of their lives in our workshops.Moving a stage further is to make a living theatre from the events and experiences that have shaped us - to bring artistry and raw experience together.
The result is a form of transformational theatre where an alchemical experience occurs for both the performer, and, the audience member.This work is about a celebration of humanity, of our unique quirks, the particular windy roads we travelled that made us who we are today.
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Every one of us is a rough diamond, being polished by life’s events.Have you ever seen African tribes dancing in the circle? Every now and then one person steps in and really shows off, then somebody else. They take turns and everyone has their central moment. We have a dream that we can experience this through solo autobiographical theatre and retrieve our sense of belonging.
Creating and sharing of the solo performance is a closing of a chapter, a ritual, completion of an initiatory process and being received back by “the village”.Stories shared often bring attention to important social issues, showing that “personal is political.”"You can’t help but fall in love with anyone, once you’ve heard their story."
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Festival Programme:
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Day 1: Friday 9th July
7pm shows:
Gulara Vincent directed by Agata Krajewska
In Search of Freedom - Women's Journey to Power
Young Gulara wants it all and she thinks she’s got what it takes. She soon discovers that being a woman in a patriarchal society doesn’t make it easy. She loses herself completely before she finally finds her strength by embracing it all: her shadow and her light.
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Kate Hubert directed by Agata Krajewska
"The Song of My Father"
tells the story of what it means to be a good man fighting the demons of illness, bereavement and dementia. When a man's life slips its moorings, he journeys down to the bottom of being human -- how can his suffering be redeemed? We'll see!
Friday night ticket link:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/rough-diamonds-festival-of-autobiographical-theatre-day-1-tickets-159868311423​
2020
Friday 10th July
7pm – Performance 1
Family Portrait from Azerbaijan – Gulara Vincent (30 min) directed by Agata
‘Tune into the stories of struggles and tribulations of three generations of women in Azerbaijan, which create a unique window into the time and world that remains unknown in the West.’
7:30pm – Performance 2
Red Woman- Kate Kulahan (7 min) supported by Agata
Autobiographical dance performance about being seen
8pm – Performance 3
Love and Loss on the Costa del Dole – Kate Hubert (45 min) directed by Agata
I’ve been thinking a lot about the many little lives lost to stillbirth, miscarriage and abortion in my ancestral line, and of the stains of grief and shame they may have left behind. In this show, with the divine assistance of a potent, eccentric female archetype called, mysteriously, The Dark, I attempt a bit of healing magic by telling stories from my own life in Brighton in the ‘80s and ‘90s.
Saturday 11th July
6pm – Performance 4
Grape picking for beginners – Alby Bruce (40mins) directed by Phil
A set of circumstances involving the wrong side of the law draw several friends together to start an adventure across France; but every journey has inherent problems, as well as humour and good times…
8pm – Performance 5
Sensitive (My Granny’s Secret) – Hazel Love (30 min) directed by Agata
At a family dinner Hazel accidently asks the wrong question and makes her grandmother cry. Who is John? Find out about his story and the hardships of sensitive men in the world.
9pm – Performance 6
Falling – Kirsty Hurd Thomas (40 min) directed by Agata
This story isn’t unusual … but what if there is another way for this story to be told, another way to live it even, a way that includes more.
Experience a woman’s journey through heartbreak and freedom to whole-ness.
A physical immersion into the age old story of feminine meets masculine.
Sunday 12th July
7pm – Performance 7
Entering the Dreamtime of Plants – Peter Neumann (30mins) directed by Phil
A young man sets off on the road of academia, and finds himself wrestling with confusion, doubt and depression. A spell in a leaky caravan on a remote hillside in Wales affords him a meeting with his creativity and a connection with something ancient.
8 pm – Performance 8
Summoning the son – Darren Ellis (30mins) directed by Phil
The road from boy to man has many influences, some helpful – and others? Well… it went something like this!
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Drop the Story
Festival of Solo Autobiographical Theatre
Anual: 2013-2019
Stories for Change Festival
of Solo Autobiographical Performances
29th – 30th June 2019 Bogan House, Totnes
Sat and Sun: 4pm and 7:30pm
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Community members sharing personal
stories through solo performance
Stories of trials and transformation to
inspire us all, viewing life
as a hero’s/heroine’s journey.
Festival Programme:
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Sat 4pm
*Phil Barber "Men's Hands"
Young men's quest for identity through work and adventure. He may find guidance from an unlikely father figure.
*Mark Bedford "Warming the Stone Child"
An exploration of abandonment and the reclaiming of the One who is lost. The child, surrounded in grief and yet the source of intimacy and joy. A weaving of autobiography and myth, stories old and new.
*Philomena Wynne "My Irish maternal line" (work in progress)
Honouring my maternal line by resurrecting their life through me. I acknowledge these women's strength against the oppression of patriarchy and Catholicism in Ireland. Weaving the threads together through my poems and songs.
Sat 7:30pm
*Katheryn Trenshaw "Dying to Live By the Numbers: work in progress”
We all know we are going to die. But do we really believe it?
Could a sudden Brush with mortality bring us closer to life and love?
An insight into one woman's encounter with the big C and all that surrounds it.
*Kate Hubert “Umbilical (Grandma Briant's War)”
Traveling back through my motherline I explore a dark family secret and its repercussions, which I inherited as the atmosphere of my early life. This is the old, old story of love and control, and men and women – transformed by being brought into the light of day, and, surprisingly, by divine intervention.
Sun 4pm
*Claire Jones "Rigger"
Runaway bride "accidentally" becomes a rigger on a tall ship.
When in hospital, facing her mortality, she makes a deal with Life to get back onto her beloved ship one more time. Will her wish be granted?
*Sarah Heal “Everyday Adventures of the Superhero”
*Michael Brown "Returning to home"
From boyhood's unasked for adventures in a foreign land, life's loves and loses and the return home.
Sun 7:30pm
*Darren Ellis "The lies adults tell"
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*Adam Rasmussen "Romanticism or Realism"
A man’s journey trying to bring himself into the best relationship with the feminine
*Rooh Star "Basket of Songs"
Songs and stories of what matters
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