TOWN CRIERS
performance for public spaces, 2023
This year, we're the recipients of the ‘To The Streets’ outdoor performance commission from Old Diorama Arts Centre and Camden People's Theatre, as part of Developed on Drummond Street. This is the second year of Developed on Drummond Street, a partnership between neighbouring arts organisations exploring new ways of making work in Camden, with and for Camden residents.
Following an open call for proposals, and a selection process including local residents, we're very excited to be making a new outdoor performance piece: Town Criers.
Town Criers will be a choir of subversive town criers, made up of 5 Camden residents. Over a series of workshops, including a visit from Camden Stables Market crier Alan Myatt, we'll be co-creating this short piece to be performed 'pop-up' style at three different festivals across Camden this summer.
Donning traditional livery, with bells and paper scrolls, these performers will shout, on the streets, at the tops of their lungs. But these town criers don’t just deliver the news of the day. They may choose, instead of making top-down pronouncements, to ask questions, share secrets, crack jokes, demand things from the powers that be, tell the world how they feel.
For us this piece is circling the questions: What would people not used to being given a platform to speak choose to say? What means or methods of speaking in the streets are permitted What is unsaid or unprocessed in our society (especially in the wake of the pandemic)? Could the town crier’s crystal clear delivery be used to express fear, uncertainty, doubt?
Crucially, there is no microphone, no technology, no media to amplify the choir of criers - just a costume and the permission to make oneself heard.
Read more & find the call-out for performers HERE on Old Diorama Arts Centre's website.
Commissioned by the Developed on Drummond Street partnership (Old Diorama Arts Centre and Camden People's Theatre)
Lead artists Clara Potter-Sweet and Ben Kulvichit
Photos Clara Potter-Sweet and Ben Kulvichit
Upcoming dates:
1 July 2023 / Tolmer’s Square Festival
29 July 2023 / Regent’s Roots, Regent’s Park Estate Community Festival
3rd date TBC
