Migration inspired show opens at art centre attended by Sophie Okonedo
Wac Arts InFlight From Home at the Old Town Hall, Hampstead - Credit: Archant
A new aerial show is set to explore topics of displacement and movement of people.
A new aerial show is set to explore topics of displacement and movement of people.
Produced by Wac Arts, InFlight From Home takes over Hampstead’s Old Town Hall on Saturday July 23, with three performances staged throughout the afternoon and evening.
Each performance is an hour long and explores themes of home, migration and belonging.
“The piece was inspired by a desire to comment on the current worldwide displacement of peoples, be that through economic migration, forced migration or gentrification,” says Leo Kay, director of InFlight From Home.
“The work we’re making will be a collage of experiences, which invites an audience to explore the theme of journeying and provokes them to consider notions of home and what it is that humans may need to feel welcome and to belong.”
Wac Arts, which is based in the Old Town Hall, is an organisation that nurtures young talent, focusing on the belief that everyone deserves access to the arts regardless of background.
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“Our main remit is to offer training to those who traditionally struggle to access pathways into professional training or engaging in the arts on just about any level,” says Steve Medlin, Wac Arts’ Head of Drama.
Collaborating with two aerial companies – Scarabeus and Upswing – they created a partnership to tackle issues of diversity and underfunding.
“We started to develop a little bit of work with these two companies and what became clear was that aerials was an art form that seriously lacked opportunities and pathways into training,” he explains.
What transpired was InFlight, a development programme for people already involved in physical art forms looking expand their skill base.
The performers in InFlight From Home trained for three terms on a part-time basis, before being invited to take part in this presentation.
“We’re moving people around the spaces quite a lot,” says Medlin of the site specific performance.
“We’re recreating some of those experiences on a physical level to try to create some empathy with the confusion that surrounds being shifted en masse.”
Since inception nearly 40 years ago, Wac Arts has taught 30,000 students including Ms Dynamite and Undercover’s Sophie Okonedo.
InFlight From Home shows on July 23 at 2pm, 5pm and 8pm at the Old Town Hall in Hampstead.
Tickets at inflight.eventbrite.co.uk.
