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fanSHEN

www.fanshen.org.uk
artistic@fanshen.org.uk
London

fanSHEN uses theatre to help people imagine what they haven't thought of yet.
Our work promotes ideas of environmental, social and financial sustain-agility and these ideas are embedded in the making-process.
fanSHEN are co-founders of Small Fish in a Big Green Sea, a group of small-scale theatre companies and artists which meets monthly to discuss issues and explore innovations around theatre and sustainability. At some point in 2013, Small Fish became the Performance and Ecology Network, convened with Lisa Woynarski and the support of the Young Vic.

Productions and Projects

Cheese

2013

Joe and Freya have it all: the job, the car, the house made of Emmental in an up-and-coming part of town. Sure, they have the odd disagreement over the best way to make fondue - but they're living the dream, more or less.
Then one morning, the cheese runs out. There's no explanation and someone seems to have changed the rules overnight. So Joe sets off on a journey through a labyrinth of cheese hole tunnels to investigate; he finds unexpected laboratories, factories, casinos - and some worrying clues that he had more to do with the cheese disappearance than he originally thought.
Cheese, by Nikki Schreiber, is a humourous adventure through the twists and turns of an absurdist system which is too big to fail; a political comedy about the end of the world as we knew it, and what happens next.
Cheese will be powered by electricty generated in gyms and community centres local to the performance venue. For information on this aspect of the project, please visit pedallingpower.wordpress.com.
The post-show talks were:
Finance/Ethics/Alternatives/Austerity - A Free Range discussion about some possibly mutually exclusive ideas with:
James Miller - Customer Operations Co-Worker at Triodos
Michael Robinson - Presenter of the BBC series 'Fixing Broken Banking' and regular BBC finance/economics reporter
Brett Scott - Author of the Heretic's Guide to Global Finance and expert on alternative currency
Chaired by Sam Coates - Deputy Political Editor and former Banking Editor of the Times.
Renewables can Frack Off? - A Debate on the Energy Future of the UK with:
Leon Brown - PhD in Nuclear Power, UCL
Feimatta Conteh - Sustainability Manager, Arcola Theatre
Bruce Davis - Managing Director, Abundance Generation
Danielle Paffard - Communications Officer, Zero Carbon Britain
Professor Chris Rhodes - Alternative energy and fuels expert
Chaired by Claire Wyatt - Creative Advisor, Forum for the Future
How Theatre Changed the World - Or Did It? - A Discussion around Art and Behaviour Change with:
Dan Barnard - artistic director, fanSHEN
Stella Duffy - theatre maker and novelist
Lucy Neal - Co-founder director of LIFT, co-founder of Transition Town Tooting
Aleks Sierz - Critic and Author of In Yer Face Theatre and Reinventing the Nation
Chaired by Carissa Hope Lynch - Director, Dramaturg and Senior Reader, Royal Court Theatre.
10 - 28 September 2013

GreenandPleasantLand

2012, 2013

Find the castle. Solve the riddle. Change the world?
Arlie's people need their daily dose of brand new stuff. When supplies start to run out, Arlie embarks on a journey to find a new solution.
GreenandPleasantLand fuses physical theatre, live music and folk traditions in an epic adventure for audiences aged 5 upwards. It is a quest, powered by bicycle-generators, through lands of curious customs and peoples of peculiar habits, to find a happier, greener future.
fanSHEN write:
We knew from the outset that we wanted to embed the idea of sustainability at the heart of GreenandPleasantLand, to make it our starting point for the themes of the piece, the way we made it and they way we travelled. We wanted GreenandPleasantLand to have the lowest carbon footprint possible.
To achieve this we performed outside during the daytime (so it wouldn't need electric lights); powered the show's soundtrack with a bicycle generator (built by the amazing Magnificent Revolution); and toured entirely by train (instead of using a van as we had done in the past). The result of this was that the show had only 43% of the carbon footprint of a traditional small-scale theatre tour.
photo: Chris Gylee

GreenandPleasantLand

Fixer

2011

You expect me to be - what? One crooked man in an honest world will win, but one honest man in a crooked world, he is in trouble. The only sensible thing to do is to rise above one's situation. Play the game and play better.
An attack on an oil pipeline in Northern Nigeria. Journalists and PR consultants rush to the scene. Everyone wants control of the story and they're prepared to pay. For Dave and Laurence, this could be the exclusive that makes their careers. For Chuks, their fixer, the stakes are even higher.
Fixer, an intelligent and savagely funny play about oil geopolitics and the price of human life, is written by Lydia Adetunji.
Ovalhouse, London, 21 June - 10 July 2011
photo: Robert Day

Fixer

Meetings

2007

In 1980s Trinidad the economy is booming and the future seems full of promise. Hugh and Jean, a high-flying business couple, have every reason to be happy.
But Hugh is restless. When he meets an old woman selling traditional Caribbean food he remembers the meals his mother used to make: he realizes what is missing in his life. Jean is too busy to cook. She has just landed the best job of her career: promoting a new brand of American cigarettes.
Starting with food, Hugh begins to change his whole way of life. His search for happiness leads him away from swimming pools, speed boats and chicken and chips. And everything he does drives him and Jean further apart.
Meetings, by Mustapha Matura, is a darkly comic look at a generation tempted by the fast cars and fast food of the American lifestyle but rooted in a more traditional culture.

Meetings

fanSHEN
www.fanshen.org.uk
artistic@fanshen.org.uk

75 Gayville Road
London
SW11 6JW

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