Theatre company seeks to empower women
Small Acts of Resistance – project to co-create a performance by ‘marginalised’ females
Friday, 28th July 2023 — By Erik Olsson
The Recoverist Theatre Project, one of Nicola Hollinshead’s previous projects
AN activist theatre company is looking for 30 women from marginalised backgrounds to join a research project in September.
The Islington-based group say its “Small Acts of Resistance” project will confront the experiences of women – many of whom will be recovering from substance abuse or leaving sex work – through a series of five-hour sessions.
Nicola Hollinshead, the founder of the Islington People’s Theatre, said: “The project will engage women from within the borough of Islington who have been marginalised and impacted by 13 years of austerity, Brexit and the cost-of-living crisis.
“Drawing on feminist performance practice and creative activism, the project will explore applied theatre and creative practices within this context, to co-create #SmallActsOfResistance.”
Participants will work in groups over three sessions to devise these “small acts of resistance” which they will then perform in public.
Nicola Hollinshead (left)
“So, we’ll look at storytelling [and] devising improvisation,” she said. “And then we’ll eventually produce a small piece of theatre, or performance, whatever it may be – we don’t know yet because it is co-created – which we will take out into a public space.
“It could be anything, actually, it could be a small piece of activism, which could mean people might stand in a line and not speak, but hold up some sort of poems or words or even a banner that they’ve made, or it could be silent protests.”
Ms Hollinshead hopes the sessions will build the confidence of participants and empower them to demand social and political change.
The company is looking to replicate the success of its first project last summer which gave recovering addicts in Islington the opportunity to engage with creative writing, drama improvisation and dance.
“So that went really, really well,” said Ms Hollinshead. “They were just really grateful to be part of a creative project… There were lots of positive creative outcomes for people.”
The group receives funding from the Cripplegate Foundation, and all participants will be paid an hourly wage of £11.95.
The company advises that participants should have “an interest in the creative arts” and “be keen to learn new skills”.
