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Home Truths: The Body as Home

A day of workshops, performances, poetry and a special talk exploring feelings of displacement, looking at the body as a medium to form a sense of belonging.

Sarah 2 Sarah Poekert

This Home Truths will explore the body as home through a dance workshop, series of performances and poetry, and a panel talk. The day will be held into two parts.


Part 1: Workshops by Thrive Dance Team (1pm / 1.30pm / 2pm)

Expect improvisation and creative dance classes looking at textures and landscapes, with a mix of contact and partner tasks.

Uncovering movement coupled with sensory images, music and text, this workshop will encourage participants to take ownership of the space while also giving them impetus and room to play within it.

All levels and ages welcome.

Part 2: Performances, poetry and panel talk

  • Dance performances by Thrive Youth Dance Company.
  • It Just Sort of Happens One Day... dance solo by Sarah Poekert.
  • Poetry reading by Rupinder Kaur Waraich of new work and of The Yak Dilemma by Supriya Kaur Dhaliwal.
  • A conversation between Sarah Poekert and Rupinder Kaur Waraich, hosted by Gaynor Tutani, discussing and contextualising discoveries of the day.

Tickets are £3 for the workshop only, £5 for performances only, or £8 for both workshop and performances.

About Home Truths

Home Truths is Museum of the Home’s socially engaged initiative and commitment to discuss current issues of home and home beyond the physical space. 

The programme brings together writers, creatives, artists, and academics to investigate what impacts individual experiences and understanding of home in the 21st century.  Homelessness, discrimination, racism, decolonisation and what they mean for today’s society are just some of the topics past Home Truths have reflected on. 

The ideas behind Home Truths centre around discussions some often find difficult to face – but which are central to the experience of home, and the human experience. The idea of “truth” is often contested and subjective. Through reflection, talks, performances and more, we will amplify and highlight how these ideas of belonging vary from person to person.  

Home Truths creates a deeper understanding of our society and inspire action. It is a place to learn more, take part in discussions and for us all to find ways of living better together. 

Thrive Youth 159

About Thrive Youth Dance Company

Thrive Youth Dance Company provides classes in North London where young people ages 12 - 19 can study contemporary dance and choreography in a creative and supportive environment. The company helps to inspire young people along their journey to becoming young dancers, artists, and performers. Thrive educates and supports future generations of young dancers by enabling creative thinking and inspiring self-confidence.

Sarah 3 Head Image

About Sarah Poekert, Artistic Director of Thrive Dance

Sarah, originally from America, has an MA in Creative Practice from Trinity Laban and has been based in London for 14 years. She has had her work shown in the UK at The Place, Ugly Duck, RichMix, MK Gallery, with Motus Dance, The Point, the Shunt Lounge, the Brick Box and Trispace Gallery. She was also selected for the Barbican Theatre’s Open Lab and for her work to be presented at the V&A. Sarah has been Artist in Residence at Space Clarence Mews in London since 2016 and recently received an Arts Council grant to tour Thrive’s triple bill and develop new work.

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Sarah has worked internationally with Lisa Colette Bysheim in Norway (duet, oh and one more thing...) and with Angie Moon Dance Theatre in New York City (film, Places Between selected for Movies by Movers and Art of Brooklyn film festivals).

Teaching and project development is also at the heart of Thrive Dance’s work and Sarah’s practice. She has worked with Siobhan Davies Dance developing dance curriculum for primary schools and training their teachers on how to use more movement in their classrooms. She also directs Thrive Dance’s youth company and mentors recent graduates. She has also made work for Roger Williams University, Middlesex University, Derby University and the Royal Academy of Dance. Recently she directed a program in Milton Keynes which worked with a community cast from low socio-economic backgrounds to make a performance piece that was performed alongside Thrive Dance’s professional company at their local community centre.

About It Just Sort of Happens One Day...

It Just Sort of Happens One Day... is a contemporary dance piece exploring how one creates a sense of home for themselves. It confronts our perception of what home is and questions whether home is in the physical environment around us, in the items we can carry with us or if it’s found within our own bodies. The solo depicts settling and uprooting, and settling again to be uprooted again. It is a work of subtle nuance where the performer invites the audience into the chapters of her life; taking them on a journey through various times and places as she is displaced from her habitual surroundings and seeks to create her own version of what ‘home’ is.     

This is an immersive performance that allows participants to roam through the space as they choose and are given the instruction to change the position from which they are watching. 

Concept and choreography by: Sarah Poekert

Original Score: by Sebastian Lobbers

Rupinder 2024

About Rupinder Kaur Waraich

Rupinder is a multidisciplinary artist, her work often focuses on womanhood, language and history.  She is particularly interested in exploring the feminine narrative and gaze through the power of storytelling with her different artistic disciplines from poetry, writing, performing and acting. 

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Rupinder’s debut poetry book Rooh (2018) was published with Verve Poetry Press and she is currently working on her second collection. Rupinder’s poetry has been published in SPAKE Dialect and Voices from the West Midlands, Lumin Journal, Wild Court, Under the Radar Magazine, Wasafiri , 14 Poems and others.  Rupinder’s one-woman show Imperfect, Perfect Woman debuted at Wolverhampton Literature festival in 2022.  Rupinder has also been a BBC New Creative and developed audio piece ‘The Girls that Hide and Seek’.  She has also written a paper on predominant Panjabi Poetess Amrita Pritam (1919-2005) which has been published by Routledge India in their Writer Provocateur series. Rupinder is currently further working on experimenting with movement, dance and poetry through being awarded Developing your Creative Practice Grant. 

 

Supriya July 22 20 (1)

About Supriya Kaur Dhaliwa

Supriya Kaur Dhaliwal is a writer, translator and educator, and was born in Palampur, India. She studied at St. Bede’s College, Shimla; Trinity College, Dublin; and Queen’s University, Belfast. Her poems have been translated into Arabic, German, Italian; and have appeared in Ambit, Bad Lilies, Banshee, bath magg, Cyphers, Gutter, Oxford Poetry, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Jukebox, Poetry London, Rattle, The Irish Times, and elsewhere. Her criticism has appeared in Brixton Review of Books, Free Verse: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry and Poetics and Wasafiri. In 2018, she was one of the twelve poets selected for Poetry Ireland’s Introductions Series. Supriya was the 2021 Charles Wallace India Trust Fellow at the University of Kent. She was awarded the fellowship to develop a series of poems tethered to the life and work of Norah Richards, an Irish theatre practitioner who called the erstwhile Punjab and the Dhauladhars her home.

Gaynor T

About Gaynor Tutani

Gaynor Tutani (Art Adlib) is a curator, producer and writer who merges her various arts, culture, community and educational passions to produce exhibitions, events and commentaries on art and curating. Her speciality is in public programming – hosting live performances, talks, interviews and poetry programs, of which she extends as part of her practice as the Creative Programing Officer at Museum of the Home.

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Working across the Creative Programmes and Collections team at the Museum, as well as the Commercial and Campaigns division, her role centres on aligning the Museum’s programming within the core values and vision of engaging with the museum communities through fundraising and programming that interrogates critical societal issues through an artistic practice.

She is the Co-founder of EARTHworks [Artists], a curatorial duo that is dedicated to promoting creative collaborations through an intergenerational lens. Their work aims to raise awareness of the benefits of art and art making practices to health and well-being, alongside global issues such as climate change, equality and diversity.

Gaynor holds a BA in History and the History of Ideas from Goldsmith’s university of London, and an MA in Museum Cultures and Curating at Birkbeck University of London, specialising in African art, difficult histories, and decolonial approaches.

Date
Sunday 24 March 2024

Time
1pm-5pm

Cost
£3-£8

Location
Museum of the Home - 136 Kingsland Road, London E2 8EA

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