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Join us for an evening of theatre, music, dance and film exploring the themes of war, soul, and creativity, and the hard edges where they meet, programmed by Outrider Anthems director, Jennifer Leach. It is a three-act play, based on these themes. The first act (Where Then Shall We Start?) is loosely based on Wilfred Owen and the paradox of his life: that he discovered his authentic poetic voice, his Muse, in the horrors of war, and the particular horrors of WWI. Moving his whole life in a state of semi-despair at being unable to discover those conditions - intellectual, social, spiritual and, above all, financial - that would allow him creative freedom, it was through his war experiences that he realised his ministry and discovered creative freedom. The second act (Bone Mother) is loosely based on the life and diaries of the German artist and sculptor Kaethe Kollwitz. She is the German and the Mother. She lost her beloved younger son, Peter, in the first months of the First World War (and her grandson, Peter, in the Second World War). From her personal grief grew her vocational dedication to depicting the universal grief of War and loss. The third act (The False Feather) draws the complex themes together in storytale fashion. Where there is suffering and loss, there is also beauty and rich human experience, where there are concepts of noble war - patriotism, defence of virtue and righteousness - there is also inhumanity. From the depths of loss flows a wellspring of creation. Nothing is simple.

Creatives/Company

Author: Jennifer Leach