I’ve just been back in the rehearsal room for The Reckoning, exploring the different ways we might share the original Ukrainian verbatim text as part of our performance.
Anastasiia and I read so many extraordinary testimonies over the course of our research. Whilst our play focuses on one interview between a survivor and journalist that we read whilst immersed in The Reckoning Project, we were moved and inspired by many others.
“I’m just back from a magical few days in the forests of Estonia as part of a little audio adventure and summer residency.”
As a 21-year-old college student majoring in Media, Television, and Production with a minor in Art Management at Indiana University, my internship at Dash Arts in London was a dream come true…
In the fourth episode on the journey towards our production, The Reckoning, Dash’s Artistic Director, Josephine Burton is in conversation with Author and Playwright Gillian Slovo discussing the power of theatre and the responsibilities involved in bringing real people’s stories to the stage. As Dash Arts prepares to produce a theatre production rooted in the testimonies of survivors of the war in Ukraine, Josephine searches for insights into how to create powerful drama whilst doing justice to the people who have lent their stories. Gillian shares her experiences of listening to the survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 and looking after their words as she crafted the verbatim drama, Grenfell: In the Words of Survivors for the National Theatre.
In the third episode on the journey towards our production, The Reckoning, Dash’s Artistic Director, Josephine Burton is in conversation with Rory Finnin, Professor of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Cambridge. Interspersed by some short performances from the developing script, the two discuss the creative process behind the making of the production, rooted in testimonies taken from survivors from the Russian war in Ukraine.
More than half the world's population is voting in elections this year. Dash Arts dives into one of those elections, speaking to artists in Georgia about how they are responding to the political turmoil in their country. Josephine Burton speaks to three Georgian artist activists who are uniting artists from across the sector, shouting for democracy and pushing for change.
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It didn’t happen overnight, but looking back, I can see how Dash Arts’ work has become more and more entwined with academia. What started as the occasional conversation with a scholar has grown into deep, collaborative partnerships that have opened up new dimensions in my own practice as a theatremaker, shaping how I approach storytelling, character, and world-building. These partnerships have helped us push the boundaries of our work, making it more informed, resonant, and collaborative.