Women in society can be perceived in specific ways and assumptions made about them based on how they dress. That Dress! is a project that will explore, deconstruct and teach skills that enable women to empower themselves through arts as a educative and transformative tool.
Through immersive pop up performances, applied theatre, fashion/dressmaking workshops and a play; Off The Wall Players will work with women from Aldgate, Bow, Poplar to examine how codes of dress can effect women’s lives.
By delivering pop up performances, fashion and drama workshops in fun, relaxed spaces women will feel free to share their experiences of clothes, fashion and how that has shaped them.
These women’s experiences will be recorded, collated and archived. Off The Wall Players will use the interviews, research and dresses made in workshops to create an interactive play. This play will be used to open a dialogue where the actors and audience can explore codes of dress and how it effects their lives.
What we'll deliver:
- Pop up performances in Aldgate, Bow and Poplar
- Weekly Applied Drama workshops exploring the history of women and how they dress.
- Dress making workshops where women can learn practical skills in designing and making.
- Oral history recordings of participants responses women, codes of dress and how they are personally affected.
- A performance staged by the community inspired by history of fashion & oral history interviews in Aldgate, Bow Poplar
- A newly written play, to be toured in Tower Hamlets, previewing in Aldgate.
- A mixture of inclusive, online and in person workshops that are covid secure
- An interactive performance on International Women's Day that explores the codes of dress and how they affect women.
- Research and development before, during and post the project
- Evaluation and report of the project
Why it's a great idea:
The project is a great idea as we start straight away by engaging the community and asking what they think by using pop up performances as an engagement technique. Off The Wall Players will create covid safe and inclusive, supported spaces; both online and in person where women; in key areas will explore how women are represented through styles of dress and fashion. They will be able to discuss this and archive their responses through oral history techniques.
We will use dress making and the history or fashion classes for women to engage with an arts making project . We will devise and perform a play based on the community oral history and fashion workshops run in the project. to be performed as a project finale
We will use oral history interviews to create a part devised part written play. Making Art by the community and professional actors for the community.
The play will illuminate and explore the cultural, historical and political aspects of women, fashion and codes of dress.
Steps to get it done:
- Researching key areas, compiling questions, plan performances, collaboration with womens groups
- Pop up performances in Aldgate, Bow, Peckham and Poplar.
- History workshops, dressmaking workshops and oral history interviews.
- Drama workshops and writing the play using the oral history research and interviews
- Rehearsals of play with a mix of participants and professional actors.
- Iinternational womens day Performance in Aldgate of fashion workshops participants
- Performances of the play in Aldgate Peckham, Poplar and Bow.
- Upcycling classes teaching how to upcycle old/unwanted clothes instead of buying new ones
- Recycling accessories to make new ones instead of disposing of them
- Evaluation, feedback and report.
Off The Wall Players will collaborate with women’s groups and charities in four key areas, working with vulnerable/risk women who might not have access to the applied arts. By engaging with diverse women in a variety of ways; we will reach a cross section of the communities that the project is delivered in, ensuring inclusivity.
Working in partnership will enable us to consolidate and ground our research by, cross referencing and sharing the information and work that these groups are already doing.This will allow us to complement work that is already being done by creating a divergent, creative and relevant project that brings groups of women together who don’t usually collaborate.
Because we will be collaborating with local women’s groups who are already working in the community; we can tap into existing networks, share our skills/research, leaving a longer lasting legacy of transformation and community cohesion. We will create safe, Covid secure spaces using latest gov guidelines.
