Ella Mesma’s Updates (November 2018)

Welcome to our November update. We hope you are all well and enjoying the pumpkins and fireworks: autumn has truly arrived, and what better time for creating, reflection and some deep learning!

Above is the talented Dani Sands who performed at Roots of Rumba this summer. Photo by Ersen Ermis.

Below you can read all about this months workshops, Roots of Rumba and Papyllon updates and footage and all our recommends! Wishing you a beautiful month creating what you love!

Much love,

Ella

Told through the narration of our host Milton Lopes, Foreign Bodies is an interactive anonymous quiz show which we are developing with Gentlemen Octopus Limited that explores what it means to be a citizen of the world. In an age where tools like the web connect us, ‘Foreign Bodies’ crosses borders and oceans illuminating the enormity of time to tell the stories of individuals and echoing the bigger stories: ancestry, evolution and the haunting legacy of historical power structures.

Inspired by Jellyfish, Foreign Bodies is about the healing of trauma and the planet earth. We had some wonderful artists join us on a creative R&D across the UK: Franck Arnaud-Lusbec, Lucia Afonso, David Evans, Elsabet Yonas and Isaac Ouro Gnao as well as actor Milton Lopes and dramaturgy Luke Pell. We visited Metal in Liverpool, The Trinity Centre in Bristol and Shoreditch Town Hall via Dance Umbrella and Sadler’s Wells in London. Thank you Arts Council for your support and all the venues which hosted us. The interview about the process of this first phase of R&D is not quite ready but keep an eye out as we will be releasing it this month!

I joined Dancing Words to film two poetry dance pieces for two wonderful poets: Warsan Shire and Mimi Khalvati and costumes by Sabrina Henry and make up by Michela Di Felice. I can’t wait to see the results!

With time to sit down and reflect, I was able to put in to words all of the emotions I felt in South Africa in this bloghttp://ellamesma.co.uk/blog/papyllon about my journey creating a duet with Poet Toni Stuart. In this newsletter you will also see the first draft of the trailer of our piece, called Papyllon below:

“We don’t speak forcefully enough when it comes to politics, the environment, and social issues. If we continue polluting the air and water, we could lose civilisation as we know it. If we continue to suppress the vote among large groups of people, we could lose our democracy.

We cannot pretend this isn’t happening. There’s a difference between transcendence and denial. Negative denial is when you’re just not looking at it. Positive denial is when you realise it’s happening, but you deny its ability to go any further, now that you’re here. You deny its ultimate power over you.

We have to use our spiritual perspectives to reduce ourselves to zero—so that we can be present for the really big issues facing humanity. To be really available to the suffering of humanity, it has to mean more than just the suffering of the individual. We have to wake up to the collective suffering”.

This is why I love art as a tool to protest and make our views heard. This month I saw an awesome piece of street art in Bristol, and continue to resolve to make art which does not ignore the problems of the world and spreads love!

And that’s all we have space for! (Photo above of Francis Odongo taken by Nicola Hunter at our Newcastle CPD day).

Don’t forget to follow our facebook page and instagram accounts for insights and giveaways: We think this article about the true roots of Halloween is a fascinating read!

Thank you for reading our news and have a wonderful month!