OffScript

The second in our mini-series of episodes about our Dido's Bar project delves into the creative process of the three artists at the heart of this production.Hear about how director Josephine Burton, playwright Hattie Naylor and composer Marouf Majidi crossed paths and came to collaborate on this project, and how our recent music and creative writing workshops with communities in London and Oxford have inspired and fed into the production.Dido’s Bar is an immersive multi-lingual gig theatre production that reimagines Virgil's Aeneid planned for Autumn 2022 in London, exploring this timeless tale of migration through the lens of the current migrant crisis. Music creditsIntro music: Fakiiritanssi by Marouf Majidi Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

80 years ago this autumn, Nazi occupying forces murdered more than 33,000 Jews in the ravine of Babyn Yar in the suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine, over just two days. In the following two years of Nazi occupation, Babyn Yar became the site of over 100,000 deaths.This month, Dash Arts marks this anniversary by premiering a new music theatre production, Songs for Babyn Yar, in London and Ukraine with a work-in-progress sharing in Berlin. This performance sees three Ukrainian musicians explore the legacy of these massacres, drawing on survivors' testimonies, traditional Yiddish and Ukrainian folk songs, poetry and storytelling, and asking how we can move forward.This podcast episode reveals the story of the making of the show, its vision and the creative journey we have experienced as we explore how to commemorate atrocity through the medium of performance. Featuring interviews with the show's director Josephine Burton; musicians Yuriy Gurzhy, Svetlana Kundish and Mariana Sadovska; and Dr Uilleam Blacker, Associate Professor of Comparative Russian and East European Culture at UCL.Music creditsSongs featured: Mipney Ma and Rabbi Yuriy's Dance from Songs for Babyn YarAll the music was created and recorded in the rehearsal room with Yuriy Gurzhy, Svetlana Kundish and Mariana Sadovska for Dash ArtsIntro music: Fakiiritanssi by Marouf Majidi Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the first in a mini-series of podcast episodes dedicated to the creation of our upcoming show Dido's Bar, planned for autumn 2022.Dido's Bar is an immersive site-specific gig theatre production set in a cabaret bar on the borders of Europe that reimagines Virgil's Aeneid, exploring this timeless tale of migration through the lens of Europe today.In this podcast episode, discover the myth of Aeneas, his dramatic flight from Troy, his doomed love affair with Dido and his founding of Rome, and how the myth has retained so much resonance and significance in the context of the questions facing society today. Delve into the inspirations behind the production itself, its origin story and its theatrical vision.Featuring interviews with Josephine Burton, Dido's Bar creator and director; Shadi Bartsch, Guggenheim Laureate and award-winning translator of Penguin Random House's edition of The Aeneid; Liv Albert, creator, host and producer of popular Greek and Roman mythology podcast Let's Talk About Myths, Baby!; and Kurdish Iranian musician Marouf Majidi, Dido's Bar composer whose migration story partly inspired the production. Music creditsMusic from Dido's BarLyrics by Hattie NaylorMusic was created and recorded in the rehearsal room with Marouf Majidi, Samira Brahmia, Tuukka Leppänen, Riku Kantola and Josephine Burton at Meidän Festivaali with Globe Art Point for Dash Arts.Songs featured: Love Spell; Sour CherriesIntro music: Fakiiritanssi by Marouf MajidiLink notesThe Aeneid, translated by Shadi Bartsch: https://shadibartsch.com/books/the-aeneid/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the final episode of The Identity Series, our investigation into what happens to identity during moments of great national change brings our attention to Brexit and its impact on our own national identities in the UK. What does Europe mean today? What do we want from Europe, post-Brexit? This podcast series forms part of EUTOPIA, our multi-year project that emerged as a direct response to the 2016 EU Referendum; as the UK voted to leave the EU, we felt the need to explore what it means to be European.Speakers include Maria Alberg, founder and director of theatre company Projekt Europa, which makes work by migrant theatre makers in the UK; author and academic Timothy Garton Ash, Professor of European Studies at the University of Oxford; and David Furlong, theatre director and Artistic Director of Exchange Theatre, who presents an excerpt from his monologue Un-Settled.LinksFind out more about and participate in European Moments: https://europeanmoments.com/momentsMusic creditsAlger Alger, by Samira Brahmia (before David's Un-Settled monologue) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this third episode of The Identity Series, we deepen our investigation into fractured national identity across Europe, through one of its most contemporary and violent examples: the collapse of Yugoslavia and subsequent wars that ripped across the former country.Hosted by Josephine Burton, a range of artists and historians discuss the tensions leading up to the collapse and its heartbreaking aftermath. Together, we explore how this shaped the artists born out of it and changed the artistic output of a nation, what Yugoslavia meant to its artists and how that spirit endures today. Speakers include Milena Dragićević Šešić; professor of cultural policy and cultural management and former president of the University of Arts, Belgrade; Alma Ferovic Fazlic, a Bosnian singer and music producer; Maja Milatovic-Ovadia, a theatre director from former Yugoslavia and PhD researcher on devised comedy theatre in the context of post-war reconciliation; and Albanian-born Rigels Hallili, a lecturer in modern history and Balkans culture at Warsaw University's Centre for East European Studies.Music creditsSrebrenica by Fun-Da-Mental, featuring Alma Ferovic Fazlic Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this second episode of The Identity Series, we delve into the fraught and complex topic of empire, examining the decline and collapse of various empires across Europe, their aftershocks and their impact on the identity of their citizens.Speaking to experts and artists from a range of backgrounds, we discuss topics including the legacy of empire, the impact of colonisation, how different cultures and nationalities have shaped British music, and the power of music to shape identity and express displacement.Speakers include Sathnam Sanghera, journalist and best-selling author of Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain; Lloyd Bradley, one of the UK's leading black music experts and cultural commentators; and Samira Brahmia, a French-Algerian musician. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this first episode of The Identity Series, we explore the meaning and power of identity through the fascinating case of Polish-Lithuanian Nobel Prize-winning writer Czeslaw Milosz.Born in Lithuania, Milosz survived the Nazi occupation of Poland, became a member of the Polish Foreign Service under the communist regime, and was then exiled for being a strong critic of communism. His famous collection of essays, The Captive Mind, reveals his struggle with his own sense of identity and belonging as an artist under a communist regime and became symbolic of the Baltic-Eastern European cultural, national and geopolitical ‘borderlands’. We also explore other artists who were affected by the shifting of national boundaries during the first decades of the 20th century.Speakers include British singer-songwriter Katy Carr, known for her songs about Polish history; Katia Denysova, a researcher on the influence of socio-political factors on Ukrainian art in the early 20th century; Professor Clare Cavanagh, specialist in modern Russian, Polish and Anglo-American poetry and a biographer of Milosz; and Rigels Halili, lecturer in modern history and Balkans culture at Centre for East European Studies at Warsaw University. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode recorded from our online Dash Café in May, we return to the iconic 2009 Estonian documentary Disco and Atomic War and the topic of borders, propaganda and censorship.Audiences enjoyed excerpts from the film and conversation from speakers including Estonian TV journalist and Disco and Atomic War co-producer and co-screenwriter Kiur Aarma; Soviet-born British journalist and author Peter Pomerantsev; former ambassador of Finland to Estonia Kirsti Narinen; and political analyst and Counterpoint director Catherine Fieschi.Playful and provocative documentary Disco and Atomic War (Winner of Best Documentary at Warsaw International Film Festival) by Jaak Kilmi recounts the Soviet Union's repressive grip of Estonia in the 80s. Much of Soviet power derived from its ability to censor cultural life. Rock and roll was but a rumour and the only television shows on the air were dreary propaganda – until one day, a few miles across the border in Finland, a huge television antenna was built broadcasting Western signals into the heart of Tallinn, the Estonian capital.With thanks to the Embassy of Estonia in London and the Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland for their support of the live event featured in this episode. Part of Dash Arts' EUTOPIA series, investigating what it means to be European. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The fourth and final episode of our podcast mini-series, Breaking Silence, explores issues of censorship, self-censorship and cancel culture in the creation of art.Artistic Director Josephine Burton speaks to arts consultant Manick Govinda, who co-founded Brexit Creatives, about what he sees as the art world's censorship or 'cancelling' of pro-Brexit views; Samuel Beckett scholar Dr Jackie Blackman on Beckett's use of silence in his plays as a form of self-censorship; journalist Mayssa Issa, about the silencing of artists during the coronavirus pandemic with arts being considered 'non-essential'; and Turkey's 'standing man' Erdem Gündüz, whose 2013 silent protest against the Turkish government went viral.Through conversations with a range of acclaimed speakers across a range of disciplines, Breaking Silence explores ways in which voices, stories and cultures have been silenced both in current times and recent history, when silence can be a positive force for change, and what role the arts can play in breaking silences.LinksWatch the music video for Danser Encore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyBEMRyt6QgBuy Beckett and Ethics: https://uk.bookshop.org/books/1605839840_beckett-and-ethics/9781441151179 Find out more about Brexit Creatives on their Twitter @brexitcreativesPhoto creditErdem Gündüz, standing in Istanbul's Taksim Square in June 2013 as a silent protest against the Turkish government. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The third episode of our podcast mini-series, Breaking Silence, looks at the silencing of cultural identity across national, ethnic and religious borders and ways in which international artists are unearthing these issues in their work.Artistic Director Josephine Burton speaks to theatre-maker Krzysztof Czyzewski, whose Borderlands project aims to revive the multicultural heritage of Poland’s Sejny region in the aftermath of war; Kurdish singer Nawroz Oramari, who was forced to flee his homeland of Iraq for his politically-charged music and eventually seek asylum in Europe; and theatre director Athina Kasiou about the Cypriot endeavour to claim authorship of its own identity and how her work and that of her fellow artists navigates this.Through conversations with a range of acclaimed speakers across a range of disciplines, Breaking Silence explores ways in which voices, stories and cultures have been silenced both in current times and recent history, when silence can be a positive force for change, and what role the arts can play in breaking silences.LinksCitizens of the Word Choir: https://www.citizensoftheworldchoir.org/ Photo creditCast members in Borderland Foundation's 2008 production The Sejny Chronicles at La MaMa Experimental Theater Club in New York as part of the Borderlanders: Finding Their Voice festival. Photography by Jonathan Slaff. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.