THEATRE COMPANY
3Fates is a collaboration between Poonam Brah (Director), Alice Malia (Designer) and Dina Mousawi (Creative Producer/Theatremaker). Over the past 10 years we’ve worked to build an ensemble of artists and body of work that reflects our voices – diverse, female and globally inspired.
Our company was born out of a desire for change, a desire to centre the stories and bodies of women like us who grew up in Britain but are rooted in other cultures and experiences in performance. We strive for a raw, direct and poetic approach to staging multidisciplinary theatre. Using simple, resourceful design elements from the world around us, with minimal waste and environmental impact.
RETURN - National Theatre Studio,The Yard, Richmix, Tara Arts (London). Liverpool Arab Arts Festival (Liverpool, UK). Aat International Theatre festival (Amaan, Jordan).
In RETURN, British/Iraqi Dina Mousawi visits her homeland to interview Iraqi women post occupation. Through this daring act of civilian journalism she finds a way to reconnect with the generations of women in her own family.
Return was performed by an ensemble of women and a designer working live on stage. Open source, grass-roots technology reflects a DIY approach to journalism as Dina travels through the Middle-East with her video camera. Exploring attitudes towards and perspectives of being ‘Other’ and presenting surprising connections between us all. In English/Arabic. The Yard; National Theatre Studio; Liverpool Arab Arts Festival, Aat International Theatre Festival, Amman.
Return was performed by an ensemble of women and a designer working live on stage. Open source, grass-roots technology reflects a DIY approach to journalism as Dina travels through the Middle-East with her video camera. Exploring attitudes towards and perspectives of being ‘Other’ and presenting surprising connections between us all. In English/Arabic. The Yard; National Theatre Studio; Liverpool Arab Arts Festival, Aat International Theatre Festival, Amman.
Written by Dina Mousawi and 3Fates company
Directed by Poonam Brah
Designed by Alice Malia
Video Projection Design by Eva Auster
Lighting design by Jules Deering
Performed by Dina Mousawi, Houda Echouafni, Rachel Hilton, Lara Sawalha, Kirsten Short, Alice Malia.
Audience Feedback: “An altogether new take on Iraq and its recent experience. Refreshing and innovative.”
Directed by Poonam Brah
Designed by Alice Malia
Video Projection Design by Eva Auster
Lighting design by Jules Deering
Performed by Dina Mousawi, Houda Echouafni, Rachel Hilton, Lara Sawalha, Kirsten Short, Alice Malia.
Audience Feedback: “An altogether new take on Iraq and its recent experience. Refreshing and innovative.”
‘Its been a long time since I saw a play of such honest power. Maybe it was the raw autobiographical story, the inventive staging, the brilliant performances ...an intimate work which expresses the challenges of a borderland generation searching for identity in a time of great turmoil and transformation. Return deserves to reach a much wider audience. Edgeof Arabia were extremely proud to be associated with RETURN.”
Director ‘Edge of Arabia’ Stephen Stapleton.
To Close Your Eyes is to Travel - developed in residence at Amherst College Massachussets. Performed at The Yard Theatre, London.
“Art is threatening to the political realm becuase it is proof that we can think for ourselves.” Meredith Monk
This project began during Alice’s residency at Amherst College USA with an interactive installation. In the hometown of radical poet Emily Dickinson, the installation pulled together ideas from protest movements, poetry, the place of art, and social change.
3Fates then created a live-art happening in response to the installation- a design-led process. Performed at The Yard Theatre.
Audience members arrive one by one to the old brick house at twilight, ascend the dark wooden staircase and enter a sparse corner bedroom with a white bed, lit candle, and quiet trees at the windows – evoking the feeling of entering the room Emily Dickinson spent most of her solitary life in. Although this is not a typical reconstruction of a historical space: The visitor is encouraged to sit on the bed and discover a tiny gallery – a tea tray of envelopes containing hidden drawings, jumbled thoughts, tiny performance spaces. Shut away behind the wardrobe door are rows of small blank papers: on their flipsides – thoughts, stories, anecdotes depicted as quick pencil sketches. It is impossible to see them all at once, viewing is restricted by the hand-held fan viewers might find on the back of the door, to reveal hidden narratives and contrasts.
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The River Project - developed at Hightide and Richmix, London. Performed at Richmix.
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DARK RIVER is a modern British story about how all of us today connect to the ancient Thames river, a show about how identity is constantly reinvented and remade. The Thames is mythologised in folk song as an English Arcadia, a powerful shared place. We explore our personal connections to that place: Hightide Genesis Lab and Rich Mix Theatre.
“Art is threatening to the political realm becuase it is proof that we can think for ourselves.” Meredith Monk
This project began during Alice’s residency at Amherst College USA with an interactive installation. In the hometown of radical poet Emily Dickinson, the installation pulled together ideas from protest movements, poetry, the place of art, and social change.
3Fates then created a live-art happening in response to the installation- a design-led process. Performed at The Yard Theatre.
Audience members arrive one by one to the old brick house at twilight, ascend the dark wooden staircase and enter a sparse corner bedroom with a white bed, lit candle, and quiet trees at the windows – evoking the feeling of entering the room Emily Dickinson spent most of her solitary life in. Although this is not a typical reconstruction of a historical space: The visitor is encouraged to sit on the bed and discover a tiny gallery – a tea tray of envelopes containing hidden drawings, jumbled thoughts, tiny performance spaces. Shut away behind the wardrobe door are rows of small blank papers: on their flipsides – thoughts, stories, anecdotes depicted as quick pencil sketches. It is impossible to see them all at once, viewing is restricted by the hand-held fan viewers might find on the back of the door, to reveal hidden narratives and contrasts.
This project began during Alice’s residency at Amherst College USA with an interactive installation. In the hometown of radical poet Emily Dickinson, the installation pulled together ideas from protest movements, poetry, the place of art, and social change.
3Fates then created a live-art happening in response to the installation- a design-led process. Performed at The Yard Theatre.
Audience members arrive one by one to the old brick house at twilight, ascend the dark wooden staircase and enter a sparse corner bedroom with a white bed, lit candle, and quiet trees at the windows – evoking the feeling of entering the room Emily Dickinson spent most of her solitary life in. Although this is not a typical reconstruction of a historical space: The visitor is encouraged to sit on the bed and discover a tiny gallery – a tea tray of envelopes containing hidden drawings, jumbled thoughts, tiny performance spaces. Shut away behind the wardrobe door are rows of small blank papers: on their flipsides – thoughts, stories, anecdotes depicted as quick pencil sketches. It is impossible to see them all at once, viewing is restricted by the hand-held fan viewers might find on the back of the door, to reveal hidden narratives and contrasts.
DARK RIVER is a modern British story about how all of us today connect to the ancient Thames river, a show about how identity is constantly reinvented and remade. The Thames is mythologised in folk song as an English Arcadia, a powerful shared place. We explore our personal connections to that place: Hightide Genesis Lab and Rich Mix Theatre.