Ankur Productions
Encyclopedia
Ankur Arts Productions (Ankur: pronounced "un-khoor" means "sapling" or "seedling") is a Glasgow
-based charity which has played a pioneering role in developing Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic arts in Scotland
. Set up in 2004, it mounts professional theatre productions, music and literature events and runs an extensive programme of community workshops.
Described by Joyce McMillan as “one of the few Scottish companies committed to working across all the cultures now represented in Scottish society” , Ankur works towards encouraging greater dialogue and exchange between people from different cultural backgrounds, whether they come from Lerwick or Lahore, Mogadishu or Mumbai. We aim to involve a lively mix of people from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds, thus acting as a bridge between Scotland’s various communities, as participants and audiences, and between the mainstream arts sector and BAME practitioners.
With plays such as Roadkill, Playback, The Trial, Fewer Emergencies, and Detainee A, its Mehfil poetry events and the Scotland United music events, it has attracted a growing and loyal following from all communities to venues such as the Citizens Theatre, Tramway
, The Arches
and the Centre for Contemporary Arts.
Ankur's original vision was to transform the representation of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic artists and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities in the production, consumption and enjoyment of arts and culture in Scotland. Ankur aimed to change the expectations, aspirations and perceptions of audiences and funders.
Ankur’s first Mehfil brought together three well-established poets, Jackie Kay, Liz Lochhead
and Kishwar Naheed (from Pakistan), along with a number of emerging poets and musicians from Scotland’s Black and Minority Ethnic communities. Mehfil
is the Urdu word for an artistic gathering, which often mixes poetry, song and music.
Jackie Kay
has received great acclaim as poet, novelist and playwright. Her poetry collection The Adoption Papers Won a Forward Prize, a Saltire Award and a Scottish Arts Council Book Award. Other Lovers won the Somerset Maugham Award and her first novel, Trumpet, won the Guardian Fiction Prize. She wrote the libretto for Mark Anthony Turnage’s opera, Twice Through the Heart.
Liz Lochhead
’s first collection of poems, Memo for Spring, won a Scottish Arts Council Book Award in 1972.
Her plays include Blood and Ice, Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off, Dracula, Cuba and Perfect Days,
and her adaptation of Euripides' Medea won the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award in 2000.
Her collections of poetry include Dreaming Frankenstein & Collected Poems 1967-1984 True Confessions & New Cliches, and The Colour of Black & White: Poems 1984-2003. Educating Agnes, her version of Moliere’s School for Wives, was produced by the Scottish National Theatre in 2007. In 2011 Liz Lochhead was named Scotland's new Makar
.
Kishwar Naheed is Pakistan’s most celebrated feminist poet. Since 1968 Kishwar has published 9 volumes of poetry,
8 books on women’s issues, 8 books of her translations of resistance and international literature and has also written 12 books for children. She is the recipient of numerous literary awards, including the Sitare-Imtiaz, which is the highest literary award in Pakistan. She published her autobiography in 1994 and in 2001 saw her collected poems published in a 1300-page volume entitled Dasht-I qais men lail’a. Kishwar is perhaps the most prolific poet of her generation.
Other local performers included Daljeet Singh Dilber, Rahat Zahid, Ghazi Hussein & Mahmood Farzan.
's Fewer Emergencies. This trio of loosely linked plays portrayed a bizarre, distorting-mirror vision of contemporary life, ranging from the private disappointments of a loveless marriage to a world where random terror may break out at any moment.
It brought together over 60 Scottish based performers whose roots lie in Brazil, India, Somalia, Russia, Palestine, Caribbean, Ireland, England, and Scotland, and elsewhere. For five hours the Arches crowd was entertained by Performers including Tigerstyle and Dhol Infusion, Mosa Funk Club, Fugees United, Eletricat, Group Abolicao Capoeira, Moishe's Bagel, Frances Healy, Bigg Taj, Dance Ihayami, Mc SoomT, Sirens of Titan, La Sonera Calaveras, Ghazi Hussein, Joyce Falconer
, and Cora Bissett. There was everything from stand-up comedy to Afro-Cuban funk, beatboxing to Scottish Balkan jazz, Capoeira to Bharatanatyam
dance. There was also an exhibition by the late Robin Taudevin documenting the lives of asylum seekers and refugees in Glasgow. the event raised funds for Positive Action in Housing's Destitution Fund.
- Detainee A, by V Adams, dir. C Bissett, The Arches, 2007.
- Clarisa, by I Allende, dir. C Bissett, Scottish Storytelling Centre, 2007.
- A Festive Fairytale, dir. D Singh, G12, 2007.
, Gaelic singer Catriona Watt, Iranian poet and musician Vida Kashizadeh, and Bangladeshi poet and storyteller, Shamim Azad
.
& Dhol Infusion, Mungo's Hi-Fi, Bigg Taj & Loki, Future Pilot AKA with Kim Edgar, Senzala Scotland Capoeira, Zuba Bassa Beat, Jenn Butterworth, and Eilidh's Daily Ukulele Ceilidh. The event was hosted by actor Sanjeev Kohli
and broadcaster Shereen Nanjiani
and raised funds to support the Refugee Survival Trust (Destitution Fund) and Scottish Detainee Visitors.
- Feast, dir. C Bissett, Cafe Arta, 2008.
- Think Tank, dir. G Crichton, Out of the Blue, Drill Hall, 2008.
of India and Pakistan, relocating it from the fields of the Punjab to the streets of Pollokshields
in Glasgow and taking a sharp look at inter-communal relations. Nalini Chetty played Heer, the daughter of a Sikh restaurant mogul, who falls in love with Mohammed Nazeer's Muslim Kitchen worker, with tragic results. The intimacy and intrigues surrounding their romance were set against big dance numbers inspired by the Bollywood tradition which keeps the story alive in the popular imagination.
The production played for nine nights in Tramway's main theatre space, attracting a large audience from the local South Asian community as well as the wider community.
- Love's Time's Beggar, dir. C Bissett, Tron Theatre, 2009.
- Danny 306 + Me (4Ever), by D Greig, dir. X Maclean & P Chaal, Tron Theatre, 2009
plenary meeting in November. This explosive production, combining direct, chilling performances with video, animation and music, explores the brutal , hidden world of sex-trafficking. The audience is picked up at the theatre and taken by bus to a tenement flat where they share the experiences of a young girl trafficked to Scotland from Nigeria. Audiences at the sold-out Glasgow previews left visibly shaken by the evening's events: word of the production spread quickly and tickets for the 32 performances in Edinburgh and the 14 performances during IETM
were sold out within a fortnight of going on sale. This co-production with Pachamama Productions was presented in association with the Tron Theatre
and the Traverse Theatre
.
Roadkill won several awards during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, including a Herald Angel Award, Scotsman Fringe First Award, Total Theatre Award, Amnesty Freedom of Expression Award, the Stage Best Actress Award and the Edinburgh International Festival Fringe Prize. Roadkill is expected to tour internationally through 2011-2012.
Playback was the culmination of Ankur's Pangaa project, an 18 month participatory project involving young people from across Glasgow, supported by the Scottish Arts Council Inspire Fund. Performed in October 2010, Playback was a site-specific, promenade performance, transforming the previously disused space behind the Briggait arts complex into the streets of Glasgow and hurtling its audience through a spectacle of swirling video projections, urban beats and high-energy performance by an ensemble of professional performers, including Bigg Taj (champion beat boxer) and singer Nikitta Angus (X Factor star 2006), along with the Pangaa Young Company.
Part gig, part road movie, part theatre, Playback presented six young Glaswegians on the cusp of adulthood: Harun, Rhia, Ajay, Alicia, DJ Vu and Shakil. Playback is a fast-paced exploration of the quest to find oneself in a city teeming with opportunities and threats.
Designed by Becky Minto, Sound Design by Guy veal, Musical Direction by Davey Anderson, lighting by Lizzie Powell, Video by Tim Reid and Choreography and Movement by Kally Lloyd-Jones.
and other drama schools; others have performed professionally in theatre, film and radio.
Drama Workshops
Ankur began running drama workshops for young people and adults in 2005, but from 2006 through 2009 most of Ankur's theatre workshop activities took place as part of our Quantum Leap project. As this programme came to a close, a new project, Pangaa, began, aimed at involving hundreds of young people in Glasgow in urban arts workshops.
In the course of the Quantum Leap project, Cora Bissett, Daljinder Singh and other drama workers ran workshops and summer schools for children, young people and adults in Glasgow and Edinburgh. We also worked with groups such as Sikh Sanjog, the Black Community Development Project, SCORE Scotland, and the International Women's Centre, and ran dozens of introductory workshops in schools.
The regular drama groups performed a wide range of plays in a variety of venues including Tramway, the Tron, The Arches, Out of the Blue and the Scottish Storytelling Centre
. Productions included Kafka's The Trial, Vivien Adam's Detainee A, an adaptation of Isabel Allende
's Clarisa, and devised shows such as Feast, Love's time's Beggar, and Think Tank.
Writing Workshops
Ankur has developed several schemes to encourage young people and adults to develop their interest in writing. These have included the Acts of Translation programme which introduced school children to a diverse range of poets and poetic traditions, and the Podcasting project, which involved young people in Springburn on creating their own drama podcasts.
Poetry in Schools
In 2008 Ankur worked in two primary classes and one large secondary class in Glasgow. Each week for seven weeks, the classes were introduced to a different poet from around the world. The poets performed live readings of poetry in English, Urdu, Persian
, Arabic, Shona, and Scots. Participating poets included Jila Peacock, Tawona Sitholé, Iyad Hayatleh, Rahat Zahid, Mahmood Farzan, Mary McCabe, and Julie Dawid.
After the readings, music and drawing, photographs and movement were used to inspire new work, and to discuss poetry and what it means to the pupils. Examples of the children's poetry were distributed at Mehfil 2008.
Ankur developed this project in partnership and with support of several organisations, schools and community groups, including Ignite, Shawlands Bi-Lingual Centre, Youth Community Support agency (YCSA), Prince's Trust, the Red Road Project, Streetlevel Photoworks, the West Arts Network and Govanhill Roma group, without which the project would not have been possible.
Through this project Ankur enabled over 500 people to experience at least one art-form they had not experienced before, produced one production, Playback which included the commission of the original play-script by Davey Anderson, ran 17 satellite projects, held 3 performance sharings, 2 live music events and made 4 short films with the participants.
The Playback story was developed by Davey Anderson who ran various writing workshops with the Young Co. as well as with a selection of Pangaa's facilitators and collaborators. Many of the stories and ideas that emerged in these workshops fed into his writing of the play. Similarly the lyrics to Playback's live music soundtrack, performed by beatboxer Bigg Taj and singer Nikitta Angus, were written by Davey.
Other achievements: the Pangaa Young Company emerged from the project; Ankur introduced the young participants to at least 6 major arts institutions in the city including the Tron, RSAMD, CCA, the Briggait, the Arches and Limelight Studios; of the overall number of people we worked with, over half were from BAME communities; Ankur held 246 workshops for 733 participants.
The Pangaa project has made it to the semi-finals of the National Lottery's 2011 Good Causes Awards. http://www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/awards/
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
-based charity which has played a pioneering role in developing Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic arts in Scotland
Scottish art
The history of Scottish art which we can take to mean the visual art produced within the modern political boundary of Scotland since the earliest times, forms a distinctive tradition within British and European art...
. Set up in 2004, it mounts professional theatre productions, music and literature events and runs an extensive programme of community workshops.
Described by Joyce McMillan as “one of the few Scottish companies committed to working across all the cultures now represented in Scottish society” , Ankur works towards encouraging greater dialogue and exchange between people from different cultural backgrounds, whether they come from Lerwick or Lahore, Mogadishu or Mumbai. We aim to involve a lively mix of people from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds, thus acting as a bridge between Scotland’s various communities, as participants and audiences, and between the mainstream arts sector and BAME practitioners.
With plays such as Roadkill, Playback, The Trial, Fewer Emergencies, and Detainee A, its Mehfil poetry events and the Scotland United music events, it has attracted a growing and loyal following from all communities to venues such as the Citizens Theatre, Tramway
Tramway
Tramway may refer to:* Tramway , a lightly laid railway for uses such as logging or mining * A system of trams * Aerial tramway...
, The Arches
The Arches
The Arches may mean:* The Arches , a theatre, arts venue and nightclub in Glasgow* The Arches , a nightclub in London* The Arches , a nightclub in Sheffield* The Arches is also a viaduct from EastEnders...
and the Centre for Contemporary Arts.
History
Ankur Productions was set up in 2004 by Lalitha Rajan. Rajan was born in India and grew up in America, where she studied art before moving to Scotland to do a PhD in avant-garde performance. During this period she attended all the main theatres, and too often was surprised to find herself the only person from an ethnic minority in the audience. Lalitha decided to create an arts organisation that would support Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) artists and address issues that concerned BAME communities in an attempt to draw in a diverse audience to cultural events.Ankur's original vision was to transform the representation of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic artists and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities in the production, consumption and enjoyment of arts and culture in Scotland. Ankur aimed to change the expectations, aspirations and perceptions of audiences and funders.
- Mehfil, Tramway, 2004
Ankur’s first Mehfil brought together three well-established poets, Jackie Kay, Liz Lochhead
Liz Lochhead
Liz Lochhead is a Scottish poet and dramatist, originally from Newarthill in North Lanarkshire.-Background:After attending Glasgow School of Art, Lochhead lectured in fine art for eight years before becoming a professional writer....
and Kishwar Naheed (from Pakistan), along with a number of emerging poets and musicians from Scotland’s Black and Minority Ethnic communities. Mehfil
Mehfil
A mehfil is a gathering or evening of courtly entertainment of poetry or concert of Indian classical music and dance, performed for a small audience in an intimate setting....
is the Urdu word for an artistic gathering, which often mixes poetry, song and music.
Jackie Kay
Jackie Kay
Jackie Kay MBE is a Scottish poet and novelist.-Biography:Jackie Kay was born in Glasgow in 1961 to a Scottish mother and a Nigerian father, Jonathan C. Okafor who later became a prominent tropical plant taxonomist...
has received great acclaim as poet, novelist and playwright. Her poetry collection The Adoption Papers Won a Forward Prize, a Saltire Award and a Scottish Arts Council Book Award. Other Lovers won the Somerset Maugham Award and her first novel, Trumpet, won the Guardian Fiction Prize. She wrote the libretto for Mark Anthony Turnage’s opera, Twice Through the Heart.
Liz Lochhead
Liz Lochhead
Liz Lochhead is a Scottish poet and dramatist, originally from Newarthill in North Lanarkshire.-Background:After attending Glasgow School of Art, Lochhead lectured in fine art for eight years before becoming a professional writer....
’s first collection of poems, Memo for Spring, won a Scottish Arts Council Book Award in 1972.
Her plays include Blood and Ice, Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off, Dracula, Cuba and Perfect Days,
and her adaptation of Euripides' Medea won the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award in 2000.
Her collections of poetry include Dreaming Frankenstein & Collected Poems 1967-1984 True Confessions & New Cliches, and The Colour of Black & White: Poems 1984-2003. Educating Agnes, her version of Moliere’s School for Wives, was produced by the Scottish National Theatre in 2007. In 2011 Liz Lochhead was named Scotland's new Makar
Makar
A makar is a term from Scottish literature for a poet or bard, often thought of as royal court poet, although the term can be more generally applied. The word functions in a manner similar to the Greek term which means both maker and poet...
.
Kishwar Naheed is Pakistan’s most celebrated feminist poet. Since 1968 Kishwar has published 9 volumes of poetry,
8 books on women’s issues, 8 books of her translations of resistance and international literature and has also written 12 books for children. She is the recipient of numerous literary awards, including the Sitare-Imtiaz, which is the highest literary award in Pakistan. She published her autobiography in 1994 and in 2001 saw her collected poems published in a 1300-page volume entitled Dasht-I qais men lail’a. Kishwar is perhaps the most prolific poet of her generation.
Other local performers included Daljeet Singh Dilber, Rahat Zahid, Ghazi Hussein & Mahmood Farzan.
- Fewer Emergencies, by M Crimp, dir. D Singh, Citizens Theatre, 2005.
Ankur's first professional production was Daljinder Singh's production of Martin CrimpMartin Crimp
Martin Andrew Crimp is a British playwright.Sometimes described as a practitioner of the "in-yer-face" school of contemporary British drama, Crimp though rejects the label...
's Fewer Emergencies. This trio of loosely linked plays portrayed a bizarre, distorting-mirror vision of contemporary life, ranging from the private disappointments of a loveless marriage to a world where random terror may break out at any moment.
-
Scotland United, The Arches, 2007. In early 2007, when some of the media were in one of their periodic bouts of panic about the numbers of people coming into Britain, Ankur established Scotland United - a music/performance event that would highlight contributions being made to Scottish culture by people from across the globe.It brought together over 60 Scottish based performers whose roots lie in Brazil, India, Somalia, Russia, Palestine, Caribbean, Ireland, England, and Scotland, and elsewhere. For five hours the Arches crowd was entertained by Performers including Tigerstyle and Dhol Infusion, Mosa Funk Club, Fugees United, Eletricat, Group Abolicao Capoeira, Moishe's Bagel, Frances Healy, Bigg Taj, Dance Ihayami, Mc SoomT, Sirens of Titan, La Sonera Calaveras, Ghazi Hussein, Joyce Falconer
Joyce Falconer
Joyce Falconer, born in 1969, was raised in a housing scheme in Torry, which is across the River Dee from Aberdeen fish market. Educated at Tullos Primary and Torry Academy where her natural talents for performing and music were encouraged....
, and Cora Bissett. There was everything from stand-up comedy to Afro-Cuban funk, beatboxing to Scottish Balkan jazz, Capoeira to Bharatanatyam
Bharatanatyam
Bharata Natyam or Chadhir Attam, is a classical dance form from the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, practiced predominantly in modern times by women. The dance is usually accompanied by classical Carnatic music...
dance. There was also an exhibition by the late Robin Taudevin documenting the lives of asylum seekers and refugees in Glasgow. the event raised funds for Positive Action in Housing's Destitution Fund.
- Detainee A, by V Adams, dir. C Bissett, The Arches, 2007.
- Clarisa, by I Allende, dir. C Bissett, Scottish Storytelling Centre, 2007.
- A Festive Fairytale, dir. D Singh, G12, 2007.
- Mehfil II, CCA, 2008.
The 2008 Mehfil featured Palestinian singer Reem KelaniReem Kelani
Reem Kelani is a Palestinian musician, born in Manchester, England, and brought up in Kuwait. Initially influenced by the jazz music her father played on his record player, a family wedding Reem attended in her maternal home in Galilee in the seventies sparked her interest in Palestinian...
, Gaelic singer Catriona Watt, Iranian poet and musician Vida Kashizadeh, and Bangladeshi poet and storyteller, Shamim Azad
Shamim Azad
Shamim Azad is a British bilingual poet, storyteller and writer.-Career:Shamim Azad’s work ranges from Bangladeshi to European folktales. Her performance fuses the lines between education and entertainment and her workshops are rooted in Asian folk, oral traditions and heritage.Azad has published...
.
- Scotland United II, The Arches, 2008.
Scotland United in 2008 was supported by the Scottish Refugee Council as part of Refugee Week. Performers included Moishe's Bagel, TigerstyleTigerstyle
Tigerstyle are a Scottish bhangra group from Glasgow from a British Punjabi background. They are made up of two brothers, Raj and Pops, trained in classical tabla, gurmat sangeet and various forms of Punjabi folk music and instrumentation...
& Dhol Infusion, Mungo's Hi-Fi, Bigg Taj & Loki, Future Pilot AKA with Kim Edgar, Senzala Scotland Capoeira, Zuba Bassa Beat, Jenn Butterworth, and Eilidh's Daily Ukulele Ceilidh. The event was hosted by actor Sanjeev Kohli
Sanjeev Kohli
Sanjeev Singh Kohli is a Scottish Asian comedian, writer and actor. He is most famous for his role as Navid Harrid in the sitcom Still Game and as Rajesh Majhu in the radio sitcom Fags, Mags and Bags.- Early life :...
and broadcaster Shereen Nanjiani
Shereen Nanjiani
Shereen Nanjiani is a radio presenter with BBC Radio Scotland.Before launching her radio career in 2006, Nanjiani was the chief news anchor at STV Central, having presented the news programme, Scotland Today since 1987...
and raised funds to support the Refugee Survival Trust (Destitution Fund) and Scottish Detainee Visitors.
- Feast, dir. C Bissett, Cafe Arta, 2008.
- Think Tank, dir. G Crichton, Out of the Blue, Drill Hall, 2008.
- Heer Ranjha (Retold), by S Khan, dir. D Singh, Tramway, 2008.
In 2008 Ankur commissioned Shan Khan to create a contemporary adaptation of the classic Punjabi romance of Heer and Ranjha - the Romeo and JulietRomeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
of India and Pakistan, relocating it from the fields of the Punjab to the streets of Pollokshields
Pollokshields
Pollokshields is a district in the Southside of Glasgow, Scotland. It is a conservation area which was developed in Victorian times according to a plan promoted by the original landowners, the Stirling-Maxwells of Pollok, whose association with the area goes as far back as...
in Glasgow and taking a sharp look at inter-communal relations. Nalini Chetty played Heer, the daughter of a Sikh restaurant mogul, who falls in love with Mohammed Nazeer's Muslim Kitchen worker, with tragic results. The intimacy and intrigues surrounding their romance were set against big dance numbers inspired by the Bollywood tradition which keeps the story alive in the popular imagination.
The production played for nine nights in Tramway's main theatre space, attracting a large audience from the local South Asian community as well as the wider community.
- Love's Time's Beggar, dir. C Bissett, Tron Theatre, 2009.
- Danny 306 + Me (4Ever), by D Greig, dir. X Maclean & P Chaal, Tron Theatre, 2009
- Mwanawashe, by T Sitholé, dir. A Ritchie, CCA, 2009.
Rehearsed reading of a new play by Zimbabwean, Glaswegian writer Tawona Sitholé.- Vaisakhi Drums Behind Tenement Walls, by S Puri, dir. G Giesekam, CCA, 2009.
Rehearsed reading of a new play by Sheila Puri.- Roadkill, dir. C Bissett, Tron Theatre and Traverse Theatre, 2010.
Conceived and directed by Cora Bissett, with text by Stef Smith, Roadkill was given a week of preview performances during Refugee Week in Glasgow in June 2010, prior to appearing at the Edinburgh Festival fringe in august and returning to Glasgow for the IETMIETM
An IETM or Interactive Electronic Technical Manual is a portal to manage technical documentation. IETMs compress volumes of text into just CD-ROMs or online pages which may include sound and video, and allow readers to locate needed information far more rapidly than in paper manuals...
plenary meeting in November. This explosive production, combining direct, chilling performances with video, animation and music, explores the brutal , hidden world of sex-trafficking. The audience is picked up at the theatre and taken by bus to a tenement flat where they share the experiences of a young girl trafficked to Scotland from Nigeria. Audiences at the sold-out Glasgow previews left visibly shaken by the evening's events: word of the production spread quickly and tickets for the 32 performances in Edinburgh and the 14 performances during IETM
IETM
An IETM or Interactive Electronic Technical Manual is a portal to manage technical documentation. IETMs compress volumes of text into just CD-ROMs or online pages which may include sound and video, and allow readers to locate needed information far more rapidly than in paper manuals...
were sold out within a fortnight of going on sale. This co-production with Pachamama Productions was presented in association with the Tron Theatre
Tron Theatre
The Tron Theatre is located at the corner of Trongate and Chisholm Street, in the Merchant City area of Glasgow, Scotland.From its early years as a theatre club, the Tron has grown into a thriving multi-faceted venue...
and the Traverse Theatre
Traverse Theatre
The Traverse Theatre is a theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was founded in 1963.The Traverse Theatre commissions and develops new plays or adaptations from contemporary playwrights. It also presents a large number of productions from visiting companies from across the UK. These include new plays,...
.
Roadkill won several awards during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, including a Herald Angel Award, Scotsman Fringe First Award, Total Theatre Award, Amnesty Freedom of Expression Award, the Stage Best Actress Award and the Edinburgh International Festival Fringe Prize. Roadkill is expected to tour internationally through 2011-2012.
- Playback, by D Anderson, dir. P Cunneen, the Briggait, 2010.
thumbPlayback was the culmination of Ankur's Pangaa project, an 18 month participatory project involving young people from across Glasgow, supported by the Scottish Arts Council Inspire Fund. Performed in October 2010, Playback was a site-specific, promenade performance, transforming the previously disused space behind the Briggait arts complex into the streets of Glasgow and hurtling its audience through a spectacle of swirling video projections, urban beats and high-energy performance by an ensemble of professional performers, including Bigg Taj (champion beat boxer) and singer Nikitta Angus (X Factor star 2006), along with the Pangaa Young Company.
Part gig, part road movie, part theatre, Playback presented six young Glaswegians on the cusp of adulthood: Harun, Rhia, Ajay, Alicia, DJ Vu and Shakil. Playback is a fast-paced exploration of the quest to find oneself in a city teeming with opportunities and threats.
Designed by Becky Minto, Sound Design by Guy veal, Musical Direction by Davey Anderson, lighting by Lizzie Powell, Video by Tim Reid and Choreography and Movement by Kally Lloyd-Jones.
Participation and Learning
An important part of Ankur's mission is to expand the opportunities available for people to actively participate in the arts. Ankur have run theatre workshops for all ages, poetry workshops for schools, writing workshops for adults and introductory courses on entering the screen industries. Former members have gone on to training at RSAMD, RADARada
Rada is the term for "council" or "assembly"borrowed by Polish from the Low Franconian "Rad" and later passed into the Czech, Ukrainian, and Belarusian languages....
and other drama schools; others have performed professionally in theatre, film and radio.
Drama Workshops
Ankur began running drama workshops for young people and adults in 2005, but from 2006 through 2009 most of Ankur's theatre workshop activities took place as part of our Quantum Leap project. As this programme came to a close, a new project, Pangaa, began, aimed at involving hundreds of young people in Glasgow in urban arts workshops.
In the course of the Quantum Leap project, Cora Bissett, Daljinder Singh and other drama workers ran workshops and summer schools for children, young people and adults in Glasgow and Edinburgh. We also worked with groups such as Sikh Sanjog, the Black Community Development Project, SCORE Scotland, and the International Women's Centre, and ran dozens of introductory workshops in schools.
The regular drama groups performed a wide range of plays in a variety of venues including Tramway, the Tron, The Arches, Out of the Blue and the Scottish Storytelling Centre
Scottish Storytelling Centre
The Scottish Storytelling Centre the world's first purpose built modern centre for live storytelling, located on the High Street in Edinburgh's Royal Mile, Scotland, United Kingdom. It was formally opened on 1 June 2006 by Patricia Ferguson MSP, Minister for Culture in the Scottish Executive...
. Productions included Kafka's The Trial, Vivien Adam's Detainee A, an adaptation of Isabel Allende
Isabel Allende
Isabel Allende Llona is a Chilean writer with American citizenship. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the "magic realist" tradition, is famous for novels such as The House of the Spirits and City of the Beasts , which have been commercially successful...
's Clarisa, and devised shows such as Feast, Love's time's Beggar, and Think Tank.
Writing Workshops
Ankur has developed several schemes to encourage young people and adults to develop their interest in writing. These have included the Acts of Translation programme which introduced school children to a diverse range of poets and poetic traditions, and the Podcasting project, which involved young people in Springburn on creating their own drama podcasts.
Poetry in Schools
In 2008 Ankur worked in two primary classes and one large secondary class in Glasgow. Each week for seven weeks, the classes were introduced to a different poet from around the world. The poets performed live readings of poetry in English, Urdu, Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
, Arabic, Shona, and Scots. Participating poets included Jila Peacock, Tawona Sitholé, Iyad Hayatleh, Rahat Zahid, Mahmood Farzan, Mary McCabe, and Julie Dawid.
After the readings, music and drawing, photographs and movement were used to inspire new work, and to discuss poetry and what it means to the pupils. Examples of the children's poetry were distributed at Mehfil 2008.
Pangaa Project
Pangaa ('chaos'in Punjabi) was a Scottish Arts Council Inspire-funded project which invited young people from across Glasgow's diverse communities to engage in a broad range of urban arts. Over an 18 month period Ankur led projects in Govanhill, Pollokshields, woodlands, Knightswood, Maryhill, Shawlands and Red Road/ Springburn area of glasgow. From capoeira, filmmaking Djing, beatboxing and street dance to music production, Pangaa aimed to broaden the participants' experience of the arts and develop their abilities to engage creatively with issues of their concern.Ankur developed this project in partnership and with support of several organisations, schools and community groups, including Ignite, Shawlands Bi-Lingual Centre, Youth Community Support agency (YCSA), Prince's Trust, the Red Road Project, Streetlevel Photoworks, the West Arts Network and Govanhill Roma group, without which the project would not have been possible.
Through this project Ankur enabled over 500 people to experience at least one art-form they had not experienced before, produced one production, Playback which included the commission of the original play-script by Davey Anderson, ran 17 satellite projects, held 3 performance sharings, 2 live music events and made 4 short films with the participants.
The Playback story was developed by Davey Anderson who ran various writing workshops with the Young Co. as well as with a selection of Pangaa's facilitators and collaborators. Many of the stories and ideas that emerged in these workshops fed into his writing of the play. Similarly the lyrics to Playback's live music soundtrack, performed by beatboxer Bigg Taj and singer Nikitta Angus, were written by Davey.
Other achievements: the Pangaa Young Company emerged from the project; Ankur introduced the young participants to at least 6 major arts institutions in the city including the Tron, RSAMD, CCA, the Briggait, the Arches and Limelight Studios; of the overall number of people we worked with, over half were from BAME communities; Ankur held 246 workshops for 733 participants.
The Pangaa project has made it to the semi-finals of the National Lottery's 2011 Good Causes Awards. http://www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/awards/