Guest post by Shakespeare’s Globe
From 17 – 24 June we will be marking Refugee Week 2018 with a festival of performances, discussions and storytelling sessions exploring Shakespeare’s response to refuge and refugees.
Opening Refugee Week on 17 June, Syrian Canadian artist Dima Karout will lead a hands-on woodcut print workshop, Fingerprints, encouraging you to be inspired by personal experiences and contribute to a collective artwork on identity.
Also on 17 June, our Read Not Dead staged reading of Sir Thomas More, first performed in 1600, depicts the plight of the refugees and the May Day riots of 1517.
In the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse on 20 June the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse will play host to a two-part dance performance, Fragments of a Journey, an informal showing of work performed by refugees which will explore the theme of displacement.
In Safar: Journey, female refugees, working with Hawiyya dance company, draw on traditional Arab-Dabke dance to celebrate the resilience of refugee women.
Performed by male refugees, Fragments depicts journeys to the unknown, memories and the shattering and reintegration of cultures. Created in collaboration with Single Homeless Project and Palestinian theatre-maker Mo’min Swaitat.
Premiering at the festival, Nanjing, is a monologue telling the story of the Nanjing Massacre of 1937, a tale of identity, dispossession and war written and performed by Jude Christian.
Taking as its starting point, an examination of the global importance of imagination and empathy, panel discussion Whither Would You Go on 23 June will include members of the Globe to Globe Hamlet tour and director Jessica Bauman who will speak about their work which includes performances with and for refugees, migrants and asylum seekers.
Blanche McIntyre returns to the Globe to direct The Winter’s Tale, opening on 22 June. Shakespeare’s great play of the irrational and inexplicable is a universe full of monsters, gods and natural disasters. Its colossal sweep takes us from stifling courts to unbuttoned festivals through a maelstrom of emotions, across gender, class, country and age. Look out for a casting announcement soon.
Refugee Week festival closes on 24 June with two family events. Meet children’s author Nicola Davies who will discuss her new book The Day War Came depicting the plight of child refugees and join a special storytelling session focusing on Twelfth Night casting a new light on the displaced Viola and Sebastian.
Book tickets to events during Refugee Week.