“I love her in this role – the heat and passion are easy, but [Candis] Nergaard lights up the uncertain corners of Carmen’s personality.”
“A vital element is Allum’s magnificent original music, arranged by James Fortune. The bravado of a Flamenco guitar is balanced by songs, some sung in Romany, as sweet as they are sad.”
Moira Petty – The Stage
New tour coming soon…
OUR BIG LAND is a provocatively dark atmospheric piece of theatre with the culture clash between Romany and non Romany communities at its core. The style has a poetic beauty mixed with gritty realism, while the songs and movement transport us to a world rarely seen on stage before. The themes of family bonds, cultural loyalty and love crossing culture boundaries are to be found at its centre, while echoes of yearning for freedom, choice and lost love resonate throughout.
Romany Theatre Company sends out Christmas best wishes and good luck in the 2013.
Why not join us on 12 January 2013 at either the matinee or evening performance of Our Big Land at the New Wolsey Studios in Ipswich. Tickets are just £5 – more information about the productions is in our last blog. Tickets are available from : The Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich t:Box Office +44 (0) 1473 295 900 or e: tickets@wolseytheatre.co.uk
Kushti Bok
Romany Theatre Company’s Dan Allum will be appearing at Museum of East Anglian Life alongside other Romany writers and poets on Sunday 13th October – see flier
WORDS OF THE WHEEL
Recently, I was reminded about the need for ‘breaking down the barriers of ignorance’. Following the shocking news of 24 men in Bedfordshire being kept as slaves on a traveller site, I overheard a couple of people I consider as friends only 4 feet from me talking about the arrest of 4 Traveller men for being gang masters. They looked at me and dropped their voices so I could not hear the rest of what they said. What I did hear said was ‘A lot of this goes on with them; more than we know!’ and about Dale Farm I keep hearing people say ‘If they are Travellers why don’t they travel?’
The first incident shocked and saddened me because these were people who consider themselves to be open minded and not racist and yet they can come out with comments and generalisations for a whole race of people like this. However, these two incidents have made me realise how important Romany Theatre Company’s work “improving the wider community’s understanding of what it means to be Gypsy, Romany, or Traveller” is. Our Atching Tan Project has made several contributions towards this work including the Atching Tan Radio Drama series and our Atching Tan Education Pack both of which are available on our web-site
The next step of the Atching Tan Project is research. We want to carry out research on Gypsy, Romany, Traveller Women and the 2 World Wars. To undertake the research we are looking for volunteers who are able to work on their own to look at one of two different topics:-
We will be asking volunteers to decide which topic they would like to research and to carry out that research. Carry out the research using the Internet, books, libraries any sources that they have access to. The volunteers will need to give at least 20 hours to their research and writing a report of what they find. As part of their volunteering there is an opportunity to gain the OCN Developing and Using Research Skills accreditation as part of their research.
We still need a few more volunteers and for those interested we are holding a volunteer meeting at our office in Cambridge on Wednesday 5th October 2011 at 3pm. If you are interested, please contact us and we will give you further information of what you will need to do and can give you directions to Llandaff Chambers.
Today is Daniela’s last day with Romany Theatre Company including her holiday. We wish her well with her new project and hope that she will stay in touch. It has been great to work with you Daniela, you are always so professional in you attitude to work. Like you we have learned a lot from the Atching Tan Project, the people we have met through the project and each other. Thank you Daniela for the fantastic work that you have done, the education pack would not have been half what it is without you.
Hello. Sorry it’s been so long. I’ve been incredibly busy for RTC since the launch of the education pack, but there hasn’t really been very much to tell you all. Now, on my last day working on the Atching Tan project, there’s some news to report and some goodbyes to say.
Since the education pack launched, I’ve been working on preparing everything that the Atching Tan project has produced over the past two years – from the education pack through to press releases – for archiving with Cambridge Records Office. My office has been swamped with pieces of paper, CDs, and cables. It’s been a feat of organisation, but it’s just about done.
Read the rest of this entry »After two years, weeks spent writing, days spent listening to audio material, hours spent in meetings, and nights spent worrying, Atching Tan: an educational journey into the world of Gypsies, Romanies, and Travellers, our education pack for use at Key Stages 2 and 3, has seen the light of day.
Read the rest of this entry »We hope that you didn’t miss Atching Tan, which was BBC Radio 4’s afternoon play on Tuesday. We’re utterly delighted by the positive feedback that it has received so far, but please do tell us what you think here, too.
If you’d like to take a peek at the script, BBC Writersroom have thrown it up on their site for general perusal, and you can read a blog post by Dan, our director and Atching Tan’s writer, there as well.
I’ve just noticed that four of my most recent posts have had titles punctuated by an exclamation mark. Obviously there is too much excitement and drama going on at RTC. I have attempted to restrain myself for this entry and maintain a modicum of decorum. Read the rest of this entry »
