Greetings all,
It’s been a while! Samhain, then Christmas, then Imbolc came and went, and still a newsletter did not get written. But now, as the daffodils nod at me from the verges, the time for thoughts to constellate into words has finally arrived! Phew. It takes me a while, sometimes.
Here are some headlines of what is coming up, and what has been gestating during these long months…
LONDON: Join me this Friday, March 22nd at The National Gallery in London!
I’ll be taking a stroll through the gallery with Siobhán Jolley, the Howard and Roberta Ahmanson Research Fellow in Art & Religion and fellow Mary Magdalene geek to look at three portraits of Magdalene and speak about and perform some extracts of The Witness. It’s free, but booking is appreciated.
MANCHESTER: A one-day symposium at the University of Manchester on MAY 16th 2024
We’ll be screening the filmed version of The Witness and joining in conversation about the creative reception of the Gospel of Mary with other artists and scholars. Registration details below.
DEVON: New Storytelling Course Starting In September 2024!
After much planning, I am delighted to be offering a new year-long storytelling course in collaboration with Chris Salisbury of Wildwise down in Devon. It will draw on many approaches developed through the Body, Breath and Story course I ran from 2019 – 2023, and will extend further to meet with land, ceremony and the wild. We also have some incredible guest storytelling practitioners to work with the group over the year.
Please see the link for further details and bookings. Do be in touch with any questions or enquiries
THE WITNESS UPDATE
Producer Courtenay Johnson and I were disappointed to learn that our last Arts Council funding application for The Witness tour (and other activities) wasn’t successful. However, our desire to get this story out there is so strong that we quickly reorganised our planned activity, broke it down into smaller chunks, and have resubmitted a much smaller application.
If we’re successful, we will have enough to do a little more development on the show and go ahead with the planned London shows in June. Prayers welcome for a successful outcome! I’ll keep you posted!
NEW WORK with The Reader
Last but not least, some of you may know that I have recently started working with a charity called The Reader who specialise in taking great literature into prisons and other criminal justice settings. I am now spending two days every week working with prisoners and the world’s great stories and poems. It’s a little different to the other storytelling and performance work I am used to, but incredibly rewarding. And I’ll have an article about it in the national prison newspaper, Inside Times, in June 2024. So… if you know anyone on the inside, let them know!
I think that’s it for now. I look forward to seeing some of you at the above events, and I’ll be in touch again with more news and events as they’re confirmed for summer and beyond.
Go well people, and happy spring-ing.
Jo x