Future Arts Centres is announcing six international co-commissions, which celebrate new relationships and new approaches to international working. The commissions will result in performances and events taking place from March 2019 into 2020.

The commissions are the culmination of a three-year project, aiming to encourage UK arts centres to think and work internationally and to experiment with new approaches to international collaboration. The project was funded by Arts Council England’s Ambitions for Excellence programme and involved 18 UK arts centres working with partners in Canada, USA, South America, Europe, South Africa, Japan and Australia.

Gavin Barlow, Co-Chair of FAC and CEO/Artistic Director of the Albany, Deptford comments:

“The commissions represent not just new collaborations but new models of international working for arts centres in the UK. The project as a whole has had a transformative effect on the 18 UK arts centres involved and has led to a range of new partnerships which will bear fruit over the next few years.”

Annabel Turpin, Co-Chair of FAC and CEO/Artistic Director of ARC Stockton, comments:

“The range of work commissioned is a true reflection of the diversity that exists within our programmes, and demonstrates some of the models of working we have identified through the project. It shows how possible it is to embed work within local communities whilst at the same time reaching around the world.”

The six commissions are:

MINE (UK/Canada)
Commissioned by artsdepot, Cambridge Junction and Future Arts Centres in association with The Cultch Vancouver, produced by Theatre Replacement (Canada).
Inspired by the real-life relationship between Theatre Replacement’s Artistic Director, Maiko Yamamoto, and her 11 year old son Hokuto and his obsession with Minecraft, MINE uses a digital lens to explore mother and child relationships.
The computer construction game Minecraft becomes a kind of theatre, as narratives are enacted live by a group of gamer/performers between the ages of 10 and 45, including four young gamers from local communities.
These stories become myths, as MINE opens us up to expansive and strange new territories in an intergenerational performance that both interrogates and recognises the role technology plays in our modern parent-child relationships.
Performance dates: artsdepot 21 -23 March, Cambridge Junction 29-31 March

What Protects Us (UK/Netherlands)
Commissioned and produced by the Albany, Stratford Circus Arts Centre, Future Arts Centres, and Stichting Likeminds (Amsterdam), and created with artists from London and the Netherlands.
What Protects Us is an interdisciplinary piece, devised from stories collected in Deptford, Stratford and Amsterdam. It has been created by artists Sebastian Hau-Walker, Leila Sahir, Gabriel Jones and Urielle Klein-Mekongo, working both together and separately in their communities. They were supported by artist/mentors Libby Liburd and Caleb Femi, with the final production directed by Milone Reigman.
Performances dates: The Albany 11-12 April, Stratford Circus 13 April, Likeminds Amsterdam 20 April

Welcome Town by Natasha Davis (UK/Ireland)
Commissioned by ARC Stockton, Lincoln Drill Hall, Live Collision Dublin and Future Arts Centres
Participatory and playful, Welcome Town is an open installation with a porous, fluid structure – a public interactive provocation in the High Street, a conversation, a learning site, attempting to re-imagine how towns could provide truly humane care for displaced individuals.
Welcome Town invites you to spend ten minutes in bed with a refugee – create your own floor plan of a place you once occupied, fill up a box with everything you have with you on the day to tell a story about you, listen and watch people’s tales of migration, join a lively panel, taste some great refugee-made food, listen to songs and music, and even join the band if you like!
Performance dates: Live Collision Dublin 22-27 April, Lincoln Drill Hall 21-22 June, ARC Stockton 28-29 June

The Home by Christopher Green (UK/Japan)
Commissioned by the Albany, ARC Stockton, Entelechy Arts, Future Arts Centres, and the Saitama Theatre Japan
The Home, described as ‘an entertainment mini-break in residential care’ is a new approach to theatre with elders and audiences of all ages, a unique performance experience devised and created by writer/performer Christopher Green. The Home is a knowingly eccentric and highly adventurous site specific piece. Set in a care home over 48 hours, it pushes boundaries of audience experience and of immersive theatre making. Audience members may take the roles of a variety of groups, providing a number of different audience experiences/events within one performance. Through the course of the piece, the narrative will shift gradually from a dystopian view to a utopian glimpse at what ‘care’ could be.
The Japanese version of The Home will be produced in Tokyo in 2021.
Performance dates: 13-15 September in Lewisham, late September (dates tbc) in Stockton

The Little Prince (UK/USA)
Commissioned by Stratford Circus Arts Centre, the Albany, Z-Arts, Warwick Art Centre, Future Arts Centres and ASU Gammage (Arizona), produced by Fuel and Inua Ellams
The Little Prince is a brand new adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince for family audiences. It will be Inua Ellams’ first show for young audiences, following huge successes with the National Theatre’s production of Barbershop Chronicles and Inua’s solo piece about his personal experiences in An Evening with an Immigrant.
Performance Dates: TBC in early 2020

CitySkin designed by Stephanie Singer and Freyja Sewell (UK/Canada)
Commissioned by Rich Mix, mac (Midlands Arts Centre), Future Arts Centres, Milieux and the Centre for Sensory Studies at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.
The CitySkin is a reactive suit which gathers sound, environmental and sensory information about cities around the world and the wearer(s) as they explore the urban landscape. Designed by Freyja Sewell and Stephanie Singer it is intended to make the invisible parts of the environment (air pollutants, bacteria etc.) visible to us. Culminating in a performance which has been created from the data gathered, CitySkin encourages audiences to, see, smell, feel and understand the varying environments of different participating cities (London, Birmingham, Montreal and Delhi) and for this process to encourage a new way of thinking about our environments.
Performance Dates: TBC March / April 2020

For further information, images or to arrange interviews, please contact: Kate Farrell, Head of Marketing and Communications at the Albany on kate.farrell@thealbany.org.uk
T: 0208 692 4446 ext 267 / 07538 324 690