Current Fence projects
My Heart is in the East
The project My Heart is in the East (MHITE) project centres on a play by Jessica Litwak that deals with Muslim-Jewish relations across centuries. MHITE shines a light on a cultural heritage neglected by most Western narratives: La Convivencia, when Moslems and Jews were able to co-exist fruitfully for centuries. Not through rose-tinted spectacles, but by the working out of differences in religion, gender, social status through the transformative power of language and the imagination. MHITE seeks to explore a shared identity around what binds us rather than divides us – both 1000 years ago and today. MHITE is a collaboration between The Fence, The HEAT Collective and Az Theatre, involving Fence members Jessica Litwak (New York), Fred Fortas (Paris), Jonathan Chadwick and Jonathan Meth (London) and has been developed at La Mama in New York and at Bazar Café in La Charité sur Loire, France, with a staged reading with live music at the Clapham Omnibus in London. A without décor presentation will be presented at the Mind The Gap Studios in Bradford at 3pm on June 20th 2023
CRE-ACTORS
The Fence network was delighted to collaborate with Border Crossings (Sligo / London), Théâtre du Soleil (Paris), Teatro dell’Argine (Bologna) on CRE-ACTORS: Training intercultural theatre-makers for a diverse Europe, with support from EU Erasmus+.
Running from September 2020 for 2 years, the project facilitated the exchange of best Vocational Educational Training practice between key organisations working in collectively created theatre that engages with social and cultural diversity, internationalism and minority communities.
More details can be found here: https://issuu.com/border-crossings/docs/cre-actors_e-book
International Dramaturgy Lab
Brainchild of Fence member and dramaturg Hanna Slattne, The International Dramaturgy Lab (IDL) was an exciting experimental initiative developed in collaboration between an international array of dramaturgical organizations and networks, including The Dramaturgs’ Network UK; Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) USA, Canada, and Mexico; The Fence; STOD Finland; and the Danish Dramaturg Network. The aim was to connect dramaturgs, directors, playwrights, theatre makers, and thinkers around the topic: What does it mean to work dramaturgically across borders? 80 people drawn from the above organisations divided along areas of intersecting interest into around 15 Groups of about five people each, worked together, culminating with presentations made at the LMDA conference in Mexico City 2021.
Plays for Young People
Plays for Young People 3 was the third Fence collaboration with AFTEC in Hong Kong for Autumn 2021 which brought together emerging translators in Hong Kong to engage first-hand with international playwrights from UK, Moldova, Malaysia, drawn from The Fence. As a bilingual Life Learning Theatre with a special focus on youth development, AFTEC has created this event to draw together those with a shared passion for theatre and the understanding of the need for quality plays written specifically to be performed by young people. AFTEC strongly believes in widening the vision of young people to beyond this city’s borders and to comprehend and recognise other cultures, their similarities and diversities. By working closely with practitioners and playwrights from these countries, we hope to be able to take further steps in a sustainable journey in which the plays, in English and in translation, will be offered to schools, youth centres and tertiary institutions for staging and meaningful discussions.
Boom! Creative Encounter with UK and Dutch playwrights
The Fence, the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the United Kingdom, and Dutch Performing Arts together collaborated on Boom! a project that explored the shared (colonial) heritage of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, while looking to the future. A diverse group of three UK and four Dutch playwrights began by meeting together in Rotterdam to encounter one other, learn about their shared colonial history, and to explore what might be interesting to each of them to write about. Maaike Bergstra, Gable Roelofsen, Jude Christian, Neske Beks, Chinonyerem Odimba, Enver Husicic and Uma Nada-Rajah. With COVID the planned staged readings of extracts in London didn’t happen – instead we ran a series of online laboratories, with translations provided by Henriette Rietveld.
About Fence Projects
Fence members come together to generate a variety of theatre projects.
They decide what they want to do and with whom. Fence projects can come from anyone and anywhere across the network. Some have been collaborative writing projects; in some cases Fence members have translated each other's work for subsequent commercial production or festival performance; some projects have been pilot or full-scale productions.
Past Fence projects and collaborations
| 2019 |
Die Berater, Theater Matte, Bern. Commercial production of Ulrike Syha's translation of Neil Fleming's play The Consultant |
| 2018 |
Festival du Mort, La Charité sur Loire |
| 2018 |
Sight/Unseen, London |
| 2018 |
Plays for Young People 2, Hong Kong |
| 2017 |
Ireland Has Struck Oil, London |
| 2017 |
Hopper Project, La Charité sur Loire |
| 2016 |
Plays for Young People 1, Hong Kong |
| 2013-ongoing |
Collaborations with Eurodram, the European theatre translation network |
| 2013 |
Malaysia |
| 2013 |
Non, Teatro Orologio, Rome. Bi-lingual play written by Sara Clifford and Denis Baronnet. |
| 2012 |
Swimming Pool, Avignon. Co-written theatre. Written by Svetlana Dimcovic, Fred Fortas, Christophe Cherki, and Nadu Nelzy, as a result of a Fence collaboration with Etc_Caraïbe at Fence 13 in Guadeloupe. Directed by Svetlana Dimcovic |
| 2012 |
Erasmus partnership: Graz, Istanbul, Amsterdam, Bucharest, Brighton |
| 2008 & 2010 |
HotInk theatre festical, New York: plays in translation. Over the years, hotINK has introduced New York audiences to the plays, translations, and direction of many Fence members, including Minja Bogavac, Dieter Boyer, Paul Brodowsky, Edward Buffalo Bromberg, Neil Fleming, Andreas Flourakis, Ahmed Ghazali, Doug Howe, Nikolai Khalezin, Ewald Palmetshofer, Tee O'Neill, Kaite O'Reilly, José Maria Vieira Mendes and Christian Winkler. |
| 2005-6 |
Janus Project: plays in translation performed at Leeds, Tampere, Amsterdam and Graz |