Things I Am Not

Theatre doesn’t exist in a vacuum and the attitudes, cliches, and prejudices we see on stage and in creative practices simply mirror our society. In this episode, we invite back two Things I Am Not artists - Yasmeen Ghrawi and Lanna Joffrey - for a conversation with Zrinka Bralo, CEO of Migrants Organise. Topics include attitudes towards refugee women, the difference between solidarity and charity, and the need to create space in society and the arts for mutual listening

#bonusepisode #refugeewomen #migrantsorganise #solidarity #refugeeswelcome 

Zrinka Bralo was born in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where she worked as a journalist and came to the UK as a refugee. She is now CEO of Migrants Organise, an award-winning, grassroots organising platform for dignity, justice, and welcome for all migrants and refugees. Under the banner of Solidarity Knows No Borders, Migrants Organise is leading the grassroots coalition building the Fair Immigration Reform Movement for systemic change of the UK’s current hostile environment immigration policy. Zrinka is a refugee from Sarajevo, where she was a journalist during the siege in the1990s. She is a founder of the Women on the Move Awards that celebrates the achievements of migrant and refugee women and the winner of the 2011 Voices of Courage Award by the Women’s Refugee Commission in New York.  

Find Yasmeen’s and Lanna’s bios and monologues on https://thingsiamnot.com/

Producing Artistic Director: Lara Parmiani

Concept: Emmanuela Lia

Director: Becka McFadden & Lara Parmiani

Website design: Daiva Dominyka

Social media: Catharina Conte

Original Music: Angelina Rud & Martin Bakero

Has this conversation resonated with you? Please send us your responses via www.thingsiamnot.com/responses Over the coming weeks and months, our interactive website will gradually morph into a digital gallery featuring audience responses. 

You can also reach us via email [email protected], on Instagram at @legalalienstheatre or on Twitter and Facebook at @LegalAliensITC 

LegalAliens’ Lara Parmiani and Becka McFadden sit down for a chat with Tamara Rojo, artistic director of the English National Ballet. We ask how migration and artistry intersect in a field dominated by the expressivity and technical ability of the dancing body. What acts of translation might still be necessary? And what’s it like to lead a national company in a country you arrived to as a foreigner? This discussion is part of an interview series with migrant women in leadership positions in the UK. 

Tamara Rojo was born in Spain and trained as a dancer in Madrid. In 2012 she was appointed Artistic Director of English National Ballet in 2012. She combines this role with her dancing career, performing as Lead Principal with the Company.

She won a Gold Medal at the Paris International Dance Competition and a Special Jury Award unanimously given by a judging panel led by Natalia Makarova, Vladimir Vasiliev and Galina Samsova, who asked her to join Scottish Ballet.

Within six months of joining English National Ballet, Tamara was promoted to Principal, and went on to dance the full range of the Company’s principal roles. Derek Deane created the roles of Juliet (Romeo & Juliet) and Clara (The Nutcracker) for her. Her performances as Clara broke all box office records at the London Coliseum and The Times named her “Dance Revelation of the Year.”

Tamara joined The Royal Ballet as a Principal at the invitation of Sir Anthony Dowell shortly after her highly acclaimed Guest Artist debut with the Company in Sir Peter Wright’s Giselle, and danced there for 12 years.

She is a member of the Board of Creative England and Creative Industries Federation, the Anglo-Spanish Society, a Patron of the Ipswich-based DanceEast Academy, Patron of the Flamingo Chicks and Adviser to Spain’s Superior Council of Artistic Studies.

Find out more about Tamara here: https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=660961344

https://www.tamara-rojo.com/

#bonusepisode #migration #womeninthearts #ballet #englishnationalballet #tamararojo

Producing Artistic Director: Lara Parmiani

Concept: Emmanuela Lia

Director: Becka McFadden & Lara Parmiani

Website design: Daiva Dominyka

Social media: Catharina Conte

Original Music: Angelina Rud & Martin Bakero

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You can also reach us via email [email protected], on Instagram at @legalalienstheatre or on Twitter and Facebook at @LegalAliensITC

We Zoom in for a chat with Nastazja Domaradzka, director, theatremaker and force of nature. We ask Nastazja how her migrant experience and the theatre she grew up watching in Poland have shaped her practice today and delve into British theatre’s seeming pursuit of apoliticality. 

Unpicking this political allergy, we ask Nastazja to help us imagine a better and more engaged future for the work we all love. And - of course - we ask Nastazja to share some things she’s not. Follow Nastazja on Twitter @NastazjaDom

Guest: Nastazja Domaradzka in conversation with LegalAliens’ Lara Parmiani and Becka McFadden.

#bonusepisode #migration #womenintheatre #politicaltheatre #easterneurope 

Producing Artistic Director: Lara Parmiani

Concept: Emmanuela Lia

Director: Becka McFadden & Lara Parmiani

Website design: Daiva Dominyka

Social media: Catharina Conte

Original Music: Angelina Rud & Martin Bakero

Has this conversation resonated with you? Please send us your responses via www.thingsiamnot.com/responses Over the coming weeks and months, our interactive website will gradually morph into a digital gallery featuring audience responses. 

You can also reach us via email [email protected], on Instagram at @legalalienstheatre or on Twitter and Facebook at @LegalAliensITC 

10 weeks, 10 voices, 10 stories. Now that all 10 episodes of Things I Am Not have been released, the creative team behind the podcast gets together to talk about what’s surprised us, what’s stayed with us and where we might be going next. This episode is the first in our series of bonus discussion episodes inspired by themes emerging from Episodes 1-10 of Things I Am Not. 

Guests: Catharina Conte, Daiva Dominyka, Emmanuela Lia, Becka McFadden & Lara Parmiani

Producing Artistic Director: Lara Parmiani

Concept: Emmanuela Lia

Director: Becka McFadden & Lara Parmiani

Website design: Daiva Dominyka

Social media: Catharina Conte

Original Music: Angelina Rud & Martin Bakero

Has this conversation resonated with you? Please send us your responses via www.thingsiamnot.com/responses Over the coming weeks and months, our interactive website will gradually morph into a digital gallery featuring audience responses. 

You can also reach us via email [email protected], on Instagram at @legalalienstheatre or on Twitter and Facebook at @LegalAliensITC 

“When a Black African migrant woman is in a relationship with a white man, the organ on her body that society gives its highest attention to is her vagina. On the one hand, everytime me and my 'white lover' make love, I am not me and he is not him. I am Africa allowing itself to be taken by settler Europe.”

Rich, complex and fearless, “Way To Becoming” by Sabrina Richmond deals with the black woman’s body as a site of pleasure and contestation. Charting the journey - physical, professional and personal - of a life lived in many countries and their attendant assumptions, Sabrina’s perceptive and deeply human work is an embodied investigation of what we lose, what we bring with us and how important it is to keep asserting - and embracing - the many things we are, not just for ourselves, but for the societies in which we live. 

Find out more about Sabrina here

Written and performed by: Sabrina Richmond
Producing Artistic Director: Lara Parmiani
Concept: Emmanuela Lia
Director: Becka McFadden
Visual Art: Laura Rouzet
Website design: Daiva Dominyka
Social media: Catharina Conte
Original Music: Angelina Rud & Martin Bakero

“I’m not into politics / naively I used to say / not realising that everything is political or - a better way to put it - politicised.”

Intense and personal, “I’m Not Into Politics” by Mai Weisz navigates an uneasy terrain of geopolitics and interpersonal relations. Shot through with love and fear, the monologue contends with divisions and the quest to overcome them in a world increasingly invested in labels and categorisation. As individuals, can we swap seemingly intractable opposition for an alternative, more liminal space full of possibilities? Could London be a place that makes that possible? 

Find out more about Mai here

Has this story made you think, smile, cry or even smirk? Please send us your responses.  Over the coming weeks and months, our interactive website will gradually morph into a digital gallery featuring audience responses to thingsiamnot.com/responses. 

You can also reach us via email [email protected], on Instagram at @legalalienstheatre or on Twitter and Facebook at @LegalAliensITC 

Written and performed by: Mai Weisz

Producing Artistic Director: Lara Parmiani

Concept: Emmanuela Lia

Director: Becka McFadden

Visual Art: Laura Rouzet

Website design: Daiva Dominyka

Social media: Catharina Conte

Original Music: Angelina Rud & Martin Bakero

“I miss my mom. I can’t sleep. 

I can feel my tears running down my cheeks.

The English sentence I speak most frequently is ‘I’m sorry’. 

But you know what? I’m not sorry.

It’s not my fault.”

As migrant women, how often do we feel forced to pretend that we are fine when we are actually hurting inside?

Inyoung Lee’s moving and ironic piece is both a quiet explosion of anger and a love letter to a country that, like a duplicitous lover, has first enticed and then rejected its protagonist. Her clear, simple prose goes straight to the heart, also touching on the stereotypes and racist assumptions specifically directed at East Asian women.

Find out more about Inyoung here

Has this story made you think, smile, cry or even smirk? Please send us your responses.  Over the coming weeks and months, our interactive website will gradually morph into a digital gallery featuring audience responses to thingsiamnot.com/responses. 

You can also reach us via email [email protected], on Instagram at @legalalienstheatre or on Twitter and Facebook at @LegalAliensITC 

Written and performed by: Inyoung Lee

Producing Artistic Director: Lara Parmiani

Concept: Emmanuela Lia

Director: Becka McFadden

Visual Art: Laura Rouzet

Website design: Daiva Dominyka

Social media: Catharina Conte

Original Music: Angelina Rud & Martin Bakero

Things I’m Not is funded by Arts Council England.

“This is the ultimate act of compassion and our bravest encounter. To be and bear witness to our being.” 

Yasmeen’s monologue isn’t for the faint-hearted. Her raw, honest, and fierce prose evokes a painful and shocking journey - real and metaphorical - into the darkness and beyond. A young woman’s encounter with the violence of war, and a refugee’s encounter with daily stupidity, xenophobia and bigotry, in search of a place to breathe. 

***TRIGGER WARNING: Contains noise of explosions, bombing and sexual references.

Written and performed by: Yasmeen Audisho Ghrawi. You can find out more about Yasmeen here. 

Has this story made you think, smile, cry or even smirk? Please send us your responses.  Over the coming weeks and months, our interactive website will gradually morph into a digital gallery featuring audience responses to thingsiamnot.com/responses. 

You can also reach us via email [email protected], on Instagram at @legalalienstheatre or on Twitter and Facebook at @LegalAliensITC 

Producing Artistic Director: Lara Parmiani

Concept: Emmanuela Lia

Director: Becka McFadden

Visual Art: Laura Rouzet

Website design: Daiva Dominyka

Social media: Catharina Conte

Original Music: Angelina Rud & Martin Bakero

Things I’m Not is funded by Arts Council England.

“Somebody once told me people who migrate are like tortoises, struggling under the weight of that home they take with them everywhere they move to. I’m not sure it’s right. I think we leave bits of home along the way, we shed them like skin, scatter them and in the end, we just have a skeleton left. Bones. Random bits, mixed with new bits we have picked en route without noticing. And one of those bits we shed is words.”

Language shapes us from the moment we’re born, offering us concepts and tools for articulating who we are and what kind of future we’ll have. What happens, though, when the bond between native language and speaker loosens enough to let another language in?  Passionate and frank, Lara Parmiani’s “Shapeshifting” explores the freedom and fragmentation of a life lived in a state of limbo, where one is never fully here nor there.

Find out more about Lara here

Has this story made you think, smile, cry or even smirk? Please send us your responses.  Over the coming weeks and months, our interactive website will gradually morph into a digital gallery featuring audience responses to thingsiamnot.com/responses. 

You can also reach us via email [email protected], on Instagram at @legalalienstheatre or on Twitter and Facebook at @LegalAliensITC 

Written and performed by: Lara Parmiani

Producing Artistic Director: Lara Parmiani

Concept: Emmanuela Lia

Director: Becka McFadden

Visual Art: Laura Rouzet

Website design: Daiva Dominyka

Social media: Catharina Conte

Original Music: Angelina Rud & Martin Bakero

Things I Am Not is funded by Arts Council England.