In Summer 2014 Implicated Theatre presented an immersive theatre event based on experiences of migratory hope, fear, despair and anticipation. The performance came out of several workshops, from stories of the members of Implicated Theatre. I was commissioned to film these rehearsals and the final performance.
In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Viola asked “What country, Friends, is this?” Travelling for refuge, change, and establishing new lives was as much a part of the world then as it is today.
This performance emerged from a series of workshops using Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. Deciding to leave your homeland implies a moment of hope in the future, as well, perhaps, as a time of desperation, fear and retreat. Invisibility, discrimination and injustice, achievement, change and aspiration, are all elements of the experience of going to live in a new place. Implicated Theatre have worked in collaboration with the Migrants Resource Centre and Justice for Domestic Workers.
Implicated Theatre has been working since October 2011 on a series of workshops and performances forming part of their residency with the Serpentine Galleries’ Edgware Road Project. Instigated by artists from no.w.here and working with theatre director Frances Rifkin, the experimental workshops explore the relationships between political speech and action, the self and the collective, voice and silence. Forming close relationships with migrant’s rights groups and unions, Implicated Theatre creates theatrical interventions inspired by real-life struggle, and highlighting issues of social justice.
