Calm Down Dear 2015 - Camden People's Theatre
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
CALM Down Dear, Britain’s first and only festival of innovative feminist theatre, returns for a third time (September 15 to October 11), with a line-up including porn industry refuseniks, a celebrated 15th century cross-dresser, a Bruce Springsteen loving male alter ego, a mother and baby performance duo, outspoken teenage activists and much more.
Louise Orwin returns following her 2013 Calm Down Dear hit, Pretty Ugly, with the London premiere of A Girl and A Gun (September 16 to October 3 at 9pm), a new work exploring the prevalence of images of girls with guns on film, challenging Jean-Luc Goddard’s assertion that ‘all you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun’.
Racheal Ofori and Fuel Theatre’s Portrait (September 22 to September 26 at 7.30pm), which also receives its first London run, is a frank, funny and provocative look at the trials and tribulations of modern life as seen through the eyes of a young black woman. Inspired by Racheal’s own experiences, Portrait uses music, poetry, humour and dance to challenge cultural stereotypes, examine identity and role models and ask the critical question: how do you navigate today’s world?
Performed offsite at Crossroads Women’s Centre, Hula House (Dates and times tbc) from Permanently Visible is inspired by true accounts and stories obtained from interviews with sex workers and women at The English Collective of Prostitutes. The show is an immersive, interactive performance featuring dark comedy, physical theatre and audience participation.
During the festival, CPT will be exhibiting Nicola Canavan’s Raising the Skirt, which documents the artist’s project empowering participants to reclaim their sex organ, in a stunning series of portraits of women exposing their vaginas. Further details on accompanying events to be announced.
Several shows touch on themes of gender identity, drag and transgender. None of Us Is Yet a Robot presents Rituals for Change (September 18 at 9pm), a trans-feminist work looking at the physical issues surrounding transitioning. In Break Yourself (October 1 at 8pm), Ira Brand experiments with what constructing a male alter ego allows her to say and do, and Joan (October 8 to October 10 at 7.30pm), by Derby Theatre and Milk Presents, features Drag Idol UK Champion 2014, Louis Cyfer, in a one-woman show inspired by the story of Joan of Arc.
The Festival concludes with Tomorrow’s Feminists Today (October 11 from 3pm), an afternoon of new feminist theatre by and using teenaged voices.
Happy Girl by Crowded Nest (St Marylebone CE School, London) explores the ways in which teenage girls behave towards one another, and what this means for their relationships as women. Boys Will Be Boys by Kidbrooke Theatre (Corelli College) takes inspiration from the Everyday Sexism Project to confront the sexism teenage girls face as they go about their business in school, at home and in the street. And Broken Windows by Più Theatre sets verbatim interviews with teenagers from across the UK to song.
For the the full Festival schedule and to book tickets, visit www.cptheatre.co.uk/festival/calm_down_dear_2015.
Calm Down Dear is part of Camden People’s Theatre’s Autumn 2015 Season.