A space to explore our relationship to tradition through moving, discussion and devising.
This Collab is facilitated by Artistic Director of New Earth Theatre Ailin Conant and SDS’ Co-artistic director Annie Pui Ling Lok. It takes as a starting point shared questions around:
- what traditions/rituals sit with me and seep into my practice?
- what can power and agency over cultural heritage look like?
- can respect and irreverence sit side by side?
- how do/can we value the fragmented memories and fractured knowledge of cross-cultural nomads, third-culture kids, 2nd and 3rd generations (etc.)?
Re-making/Breaking Traditions offers space to continue personal journeys: questioning what power and agency we have over our cultural heritage, and how un/consciously ritual, rules and gesture are passed down to us and embodied. Ailin and Annie will offer simple frames to un-archive gesture, movement, emotion and unearth questions that may have been sitting with each of us for a long time, knowingly or otherwise.
This is a space exclusively for dance artists and theatre practitioners of global majority who are already with their own ideas, questions and existing practices – and feel able to go on an individual exploration in parallel to others. Raw findings, inconclusive answers, undefined questions are all welcome.
We are inviting free participation through a short application form (in either audio or text, max 5 minutes or 500 words) to ensure a generative diversity and positive collision of positions and approaches in the room. In the form please tell us:
- why are you interested in attending?
- what traditions or rituals sit with you and seep into your practice?
- briefly, how would you answer one of the other starting point questions above?
This collab is our first attempt of many to gather a group and dive into this conversation. If these questions burn for you like they do for us, keep an eye out for future labs paired with our cultural gatherings.
This collab happens in the same week as our annual free Autumn Moon Festival, from 5.30 – 8pm on Fri 3 Oct with food, fire pit, and crafts with Carolina Rieckhof. Everyone is welcome!
In the Research Studio
Free to attend via a short application.
Applications for this opportunity are now closed.
This event is exclusively for people of the global majority.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Ailin Conant
Ailin Conant is a Japanese-American director now based in London. As a freelance director, she has directed for New Earth’s Typhoon Festival, and has also worked for the RSC, The Royal Court, Bush Theatre, Theatre503, Kansas City Rep (USA), Ayyam Al-Masrah (Gaza), Clown Me In (Lebanon), and The Catalyst (Switzerland). Ailin is currently the Senior Associate Director on My Neighbour Totoro with the RSC and Improbable
She is also the founding Artistic Director of Theatre Témoin, a company creating visually compelling and socially urgent works of new theatre. With Témoin, she has directed commissions from organisations including The Lowry, Cheltenham Everyman, and Without Walls, as well as productions in Rwanda, Israel, Kashmir, Lebanon, France, and the USA. As a twice-migrant and dual-heritage nomad, Ailin is passionate about cross-cultural and intercultural creative exchange. She is a board member of SDUK and Projekt Europa, and is passionate about working towards a more representative and equitable industry.
Annie Pui Ling Lok
Annie has been a freelance dance artist since 1999 and qualified as a biodynamic craniosacral therapist (BCST) in 2014. She specialises in dance and choreography making live performances in processes that are experimental and collaborative. She has directed over 40 works with professional and non-professional performers in the UK and abroad.
Teaching and facilitation are a key part of her practice, and she has taught choreography and improvisation in numerous community, professional and Higher Education settings where difference of age, experience, ability and artform are welcomed and invited into positive collision. Her approach to facilitation combines her work across artistic, clinical, educational and leadership roles supporting individuals to find agency, power and self-awareness through creative inquiry.
She is Co-Artistic Director of Siobhan Davies Studios job-sharing and in collaboration with independent producer Kat Bridge, both on a part-time basis. She continues to freelance and parent her 6-year-old.
ACCESS AND AMENITIES AT SDS
Siobhan Davies Studios is mostly accessible, with lifts to all floors. There are two accessible parking spaces available on site which can be booked in advance. Blue Badge parking is also available nearby on West Square and Garden Row (for a full map visit the Southwark Council website). Our main door is power assisted.
Amenities include:
- Changing facilities*
- Communal showers*
- Toilets / wheelchair accessible toilets
- Kitchen: tea and coffee making, fridge, and microwave
- Snack Bar: We have a small selection of bars, drinks and food available to buy from the front desk.
- Shops: The closest shop is Superway Supermarket on Garden Row (4 min walk), the closest supermarket is Sainsbury’s on New Kent Road (7 min walk). We also recommend the Art Cafe which serves sandwiches, jacket potatoes and meals (3 min walk).
* Our changing facilities and showers are not fully accessible. Our closest publicly available and fully accessible changing facility is at The Castle Centre, a leisure centre 0.3 miles away from the studios. You can find full details of their features here.