Introducing - The Mighty Heart Theatre

Love my hair and face and thunder calves.

I don’t love anything about myself.

I like being small but I want to be much thinner.

Compassion, compassion.

I love that I am smart. I love my brain.

Hello, we are Mighty Heart Theatre & these are some of the quotes taken from our anonymous surveys (of which we had over 100 responses) which have gone towards creating When I Feel Like Crap I Google Kim Kardashian Fat .

To give you a bit of context… last year over dinner a girlfriend of mine said “when I feel like crap I google Kim Kardashian fat” …after which my jaw hit the floor, I paused in awkward silence, laughed it off & then got out my phone & wrote it in my notes app. I knew that it was going to be a trigger for a new piece of work. I did not know what/how/when. Fast forward 4 months & we have complied a mountain of material from interviewing self-identifying women & conducting anonymous surveys!!

Creating this work has been a huge eye opener both as performers but most importantly as women. To quote one of our anonymous surveys “women are cruel sometimes. Women can be cruel”. Within this piece of theatre we do not claim to hold the answers, instead we’d like to share the stories & open up a conversation about the pressure of unattainable perfectionism & how this has seeped in to our culture.

We are also testing ourselves as performers. Certain aspects of the piece will unfold on the night with new material being used each performance to keep the work alive & to give a voice to as many of the stories as possible. It will be different every night! This as you can imagine is a flippin scary prospect as performers! Will it work? Who knows but we’re going to have fun trying it out!

We are so proud that we are presenting this work as part of Wonder Women Festival 2015. Without the urgency & deadline of this festival it’s quite likely that this piece would still not have been created yet! Our verbatim theatre performance (*verbatim theatre is a type of documentary theatre in which plays are constructed from the precise words spoken by people interviewed about a particular event or topic) explores what it means to be a woman in a world obsessed with body image & celebrity culture & the effect this is having on our self-esteem & lives.

Please join us to celebrate the festival & raise a glass to our own Wonder Women. We proudly present this performance as part of Wonder Women 2015 with support from Unity Theatre Trust & Arts Council England.

Performances take place at Gullivers NQ on Oldham Street M4 on Monday 30^th & Tuesday 31^st March both at 8PM. 

Tickets are £4.95 and can be bought via WeGotTickets here: https://www.wegottickets.com/ 

*trigger warning: content includes stories on disordered eating. 

@theatremighty www.facebook.com/mightyhearttheatre

STILL WE RISE Exhibition (9 - 22nd March) & performance (14 March 12pm - 2pm)

STILL WE RISE

Exhibition (9 - 22nd March) & performance (14 March 12pm - 2pm)

People's History Museum, Manchester

Last week a Channel 4 undercover investigation evidenced the state sanctioned abuse of women in Yarl’s Wood immigration detention centre. These are issues that asylum seeking women have been speaking out about for years.

Over the past year SHUT DOWN YARL’S WOOD demonstrations led by Women Asylum Seekers Together (WAST) and Manchester Migrant Solidarity (MISOL) with Safety4Sisters have taken over some of the main squares in Manchester, as women fight to get their voices heard.

Come and hear directly from women who have experienced the horrors of Yarl’s Wood, and their ongoing fight for justice and sanctuary.

Reserve your place for the performance on 14 March using Eventbrite

Exhibition curated by Jenny White of Warp & Weft

Part of the Wonder Women Radical Manchester programme

Thursday Lates: In Emergency Break Glass, The Feminist Takeover

Thursday Lates: In Emergency Break Glass, The Feminist Takeover
Manchester Art Gallery, 5th March 2015. 5.30-8, events begin at 6pm.

To Launch the Wonder Women Radical Manchester program of events for International Women’s Day 2015

From suffragette smashing windows in the gallery to a breathtaking exhibition of female surrealists, Manchester has a rich heritage of stereotype-smashing women. Yet society, and the art world, is still dominated by men.

‘In Emergency Break Glass’ brings together the North’s best emerging female contemporary artists, performers & creatives to challenge the male-dominated artistic canon, respond to the gallery’s artworks and inspire attendees.

Curated by The Feminist Takeover team (made up of feminist artists, curators, writers and researchers, protagonists from No More Page 3, For Book’s Sake, Mighty Heart Theatre and Stirred Poetry), The Feminist Take Over Thursday Late launches the Wonder Women’s week of events for International Women’s Day 2015.

This Thursday Late will run from 5pm-8pm, with events beginning in the Atrium at 6pm. Audiences are invited to tour the new contemporary exhibition that we have installed within the permanent collection. Live performances are scheduled all evening throughout the gallery and within the Feminist Takeover hub in the Atrium, and audiences are welcomed to explore the issues for themselves via the interactive arts & artist discussions that will be occurring throughout the evening in the Atrium.

By giving self-identified women a voice in the context of Manchester Art Gallery we aim to encourage discussion and explore the issues around the representation of women within the gallery, the art world and the wider society. 

This is an emergency.

Join us in smashing patriarchy with art!!!

Artists & performance line-up to follow.

Anti-capitalism and fashion – marking International Women’s Day

The Working Class Movement Library will celebrate International Women’s Day on Saturday 7 March at 2pm with a talk by Tansy Hoskins about her book Stitched Up: the Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion.  Ballad singer Jennifer Reid will perform alongside the talk.

Winner of the ICA Bookshop Book of the Year 2014, Stitched Up delves into the alluring world of fashion to reveal what is behind the clothes we wear. Moving between Karl Lagerfeld and Karl Marx, the book explores consumerism, class and advertising to reveal the interests which benefit from exploitation.

Tansy dissects fashion’s vampiric relationship with the planet and with our bodies to uncover what makes it so damaging. Why does ‘size zero’ exist and what is the reality of working life for models? In a critique of the portrayal of race in fashion, the book also examines the global balance of power in the industry.

Stitched Up provides a unique critical examination of contemporary culture and the distorting priorities of capitalism.  Alongside this Jennifer Reid’s songs, drawn from the Library’s vast collection of songbooks and songsheets of protest and rebellion, will form an apt commentary.

This event is part of Wonder Women: Radical Manchester.  It is free, and open to all.

STILL I RISE: INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

An evening of spoken word, music and comedy on an all-women platform

Celebrate International Women's Day with a fantastic evening of all-female talent, from spoken word and poetry, to theatre and music, hosted by Freedom from Torture and the Lesbian Immigration Support Group.

Inspired by the late Maya Angelou, Still I Rise highlights the talents and struggles of women from across the world. It will include a theatre performance by the women of the Lesbian Immigration Support Group and poetry readings by clients of Freedom from Torture. A £4 donation is suggested.

Special Guests TBA!

This event has been supported with a grant from Manchester City Council.

Thanks to robhelsby.com for the artwork.

Further information available on the website here

Wonder Women Radical Manchester

In five years, British women will have much to celebrate. In five years, it’ll be 100 years since women first won the (partial) right to vote. That right was the culmination of a long, hard struggle, and although we’ve come a long way, ladies, there is still much work to be done. With events, debate, music, art and more, Wonder Women is a five-year project that asks how far we’ve come – and how far we have yet to go.

Join us. Make your voice heard.

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