What's On?

Main Hall:
Folk/rock bands from:
-Bristol
-Slough
-Nottingham
-Mainsfield
Hot food and drinks

Fyfe Hall:
-exhibitions
-poetry
-meeting with war veterans
-activities for children
-raffles, contests and quizzes

Graffiti Room:
-information stands
-commercial stands
-drinks and snacks

Sometimes serious, but more often funny, Pirate Taxi tells the directors’ own tale of finding their way via Circus to rural Somerset – weaving in themes of journeys, companionship, and the annual migration of birds.

Audiences are invited to join the ride, as the Taxi embarks on yet another adventure!

Show Timings

3pm Show

6pm Show

This is part of Trinity Presents - our in-house programme of music and performance, bringing world-class artists and emerging talent to inner-city audiences.

Per/forming Pharmacy

Researcher/word hoarder Alex Wardrop and careful artist and Arts psychotherapist Georgina Huntley are per/forming pharmacy. Through mixing inscription potions we will ease, balance, disrupt, agitate, heal, hurt, cure and/or poison.

In our interactive arts installation we consider the emergency of the current historical moment through the collecting, categorising, collaging and sharing of words. Inscription positions will emerge to cure or poison the emergencies of this moment that you will share with us.

We will mix up a remedy – or a poison – for your nastiest ailments, existential angsts, calcified blockages of power, silly woes, serious worries, calm thoughts, political grief, beastly hurts, bad feelings or too obvious forgettings.

Our pharmacy is per/formed through our interactions with you. In sending us a word or short sentence of the emergency you want to be cured or poisoned, you become part of the formation of new meanings and maybe the de/re-formation of old ones.

Any healing emerging from our performance/art/pharmacy will be participatory and, sometimes, ambivalent.

For help with your emergency, please send us a word or sentence to: makinglearning@gmail.com

Alternatively come down to Trinity on 9th June between 14:00-17:00 and join in on the day.

We will mix up your remedy, or position, and put it in a bottle for collection at the Trinity Centre between 14:00 -17:00 on 9th June 2016.

Part of  Emergenc(i)es  Exhibition, 6th - 17th June: Control and Calculation : Inheriting Liberation : Improvised Publics

A game of ever-changing rules. Outside the Club combines juggling, sculpture, and movement choreography to create a series of complex worlds which require extreme cooperation and competition to succeed.

The personal politics between the three characters, their objects, and their audience create moments of comedy and pain, and become representative of larger societal relationships. Performed to an uplifting soundtrack featuring Great British musicians, Outside the Club is a celebration of rhythm, playfulness, and visual satisfaction.

Broken Box are a collective of three graduates from the UK’s two circus schools: Circomedia and the National Centre for Circus Arts. They combine their distinctive juggling and performance styles to create emotive circus theatre. Outside the Club is their first show together.

Running time: 50 mins - Suitable for All Ages

Check out the rest of the Circus City 2019 programme here.

Our Mighty Groove

An immersive - interactive nightclub in a theatre experience

Our Mighty Groove is an immersive-interactive show set within a New York underground nightclub where the space is filled with dance, music and ‘diva’ antics. You are the audience and performer as you observe and experience the individual attributes of five female club goers whose personalities and amusing behaviour leave you standing on the edge of your feet!

Using a blend of club styles such as House, Waacking and Vogue, fused with African and Contemporary Dance, Our Mighty Groove is the theatre clubbing experience that empowers you to let go and LIVE YOUR LIFE on the dance floor!

Reviews

**** - The Independent

Our Mighty Groove is a high-energy immersive production combining infective rhythms, dance styles and attitude - DANCE TOG BLOG

You might also be interested in our Open Class by Uchenna Dance, more info here

About Uchenna Dance

The Company

Uchenna Dance is based in London, UK. It was formed in January 2009 under the vision and leadership of Vicki Igbokwe, shortly after she experienced a life-changing trip to New York during the summer of 2008. It was a Wednesday evening and Vicki had just finished taking a house dance class at Peridance Studios and had been told about a club called Sin Sin, that had a house night called Soulgasam. It hit her that this dance she was falling in love with, house dance, was much more than just a style of dance, it was a culture, a way of life. The DJ was spinning some tunes and the dancers were killing it…

The Uchenna dance style fuses Waacking, Vogue and House with traditional African and Contemporary, creating a signatory aesthetic that simply is, Uchenna.

Uchenna (pronounced OO-CHENNA) offers a unique and contemporary addition to the UK dance scene.

Since its inception, Uchenna Dance has grown from an informal explorative company to a tour de force within the dance sector.

The company’s overarching aim is to Empower, Entertain and Educate through dance in a diverse programme that includes the production of dance theatre production experiences, coaching, dance based empowerment workshops and teaching in further and higher education.

S.U.S.A.A.N the socially distanced robot toured the local area and collected responses from residents

Deadline for Proposals: 9am Friday 25th June

Earlier this year we asked the people of Bristol to respond to the sentence ‘What I Want to Be, What I Want to See’.

Over two weeks we programmed free-online workshops with Vanessa Kisuule, Rider Shafique, Gerry's Attic - plus more - to inspire people to creatively share what they wanted to see for themselves and others in the world around them, post-pandemic.

S.U.S.A.A.N, a socially distanced robot, toured the local area collecting responses from members of the local community. In Trinity's community garden Artist Amy May-Ellis welcomed people to take part in a socially distanced workshop to share their hopes and dreams.

On our social media platforms we shared videos from groups who use Trinity regularly, including Misfits Theatre Company and Dance for Parkinsons.

Responses came in from across Bristol - from wanting to be a marine biologist to hoping to spend more time with family, wanting to see more bikes and less cars and much more. People responded in many forms including poems and drawings.

We are now looking for an artist or collective of artists to creatively interpret the responses, capturing this moment and continuing the conversation with the many communities who connect with Trinity.  This is a paid commission with a fixed fee of £9000.

The call is open to a Bristol based (within a 20 mile radius of Trinity Centre) artist or collective that is reflective of Trinity’s diverse communities.  We’re open to people working in any art-form but you must have experience of co-creating with communities.

Please note:

All work carried out as part of the commission must adhere to current Covid-19 regulations and guidelines.

Timeline:

• Deadline for Proposals: 9am Friday 25th June
• Artists Selection Panel Meeting with Programming Forum: w/c 28th June.
• Successful applicant receive notification by: Wednesday 30th June.
• Residency Period: 1st July – 31st December 2021

How to apply

• Download the full artist commission brief here
• Download the application guidelines here
• When you have read the guidelines you can submit your application online here

You’ll need to attach or link to examples of your work and a budget detailing how you will spend the available commission (each question can be submitted as a video or audio recording if preferred)

We held an informal Q&A session about the commission and you can view the recording of that session here.

If you have access needs in order to join the Q&A session. Please let us know in advance by emailing info@trinitybristol.org.uk or telephoning 0117 935 1200

What I Want To Be, What I Want To See is supported through funding from the Cultural Recovery Fund

6.30 - 7.30 One Note Leads to Another

Maggie Nicols and Deborah Withers will facilitate a performance based on the exercise 'One Note Leads to Another'. The performance will invite participation for the audience through sharing long notes and repetitive phrases broken into discrete elements.

7.30 - 9.00 Goldf”

For this event a range performers will gather in clusters across the floor of Trinity's, Fyfe Hall  producing a sprawling live soundtrack to accompany the expanded film work Goldf". This work draws deeply upon Owen's interest in layman’s relationship to politics, participation and performance.  His work aims to expand ideas of cinemas and how narrative is forged through the competition between soundtrack, voice and performance. Starting at 7.30 musicians will converse, build and resist amongst the bits .

Part of  Emergenc(i)es  Exhibition, 6th - 17th June: Control and Calculation : Inheriting Liberation : Improvised Publics

‘One Foot in the Dark’ is an exploration of our known and unknown experiences of identity, culture and change through text and movement.

It comprises a double bill of solo ‘The Skeleton is White’, exploring how the colour of our skin can affect our relationship to each other and to the environment and ‘Six Degrees from Home’, an inter-disciplinary duet by Divija Melally and Saili Katebe, exploring borders and connection through movement and poetry.

Both are honest explorations of two artists from the global majority understanding what it means to navigate through life, questions and unknowns.

Credits: First commissioned by Pegasus Theatre and Dancin’ Oxford Festival 2023.

About Trinity Presents:

This is part of Trinity Presents - our in-house programme of music and performance, bringing world-class artists and emerging talent to inner-city audiences.

One day intensive with extended class and the opportunity for a hands-on play within our new virtual reality project 'Immersion'

Please email to book a place.

On The Edge Of Me

On The Edge of Me is a solo dark comedy about the life of recent graduate, Remi, who confronts life as she knows it. The performances fuses storytelling, poetry, live music and audience participation to explore the themes of graduate blues, love, anxiety, unemployment and mental health.

“It’s a very familiar situation for a millennial crowd, and Mercy is so keen to talk about modern life and mental health with such honesty and warmth that you can’t help but leave this possibly pessimistic tale feeling optimistic.”
Oscar Balfour, ★★★★

“Brilliant, poignant and touching.’” International Youth Arts Festival Review

Exploring survival in the most fiercely competitive job market of all time, this piece is based on real-life testimony. Experience a play where the voice of one actress echoes the struggles of an entire generation of people facing unemployment, anxiety and depression.

The Artists
Written and performed by Yolanda Mercy, live music by Alex Leith, Directed by Jade Lewis, Produced by Gemma Lloyd and Dramaturgy by Jules Haworth. Supported by Arts Council England and O2 Think Big.

Why is this part of Doing Things Differently?
This one woman play, developed by Soho Theatre with groups of young women, explores unemployment, mental health and self worth. The play offers a platform to explore a range of resonant questions for today, with the express intention of changing people’s lives.

Age 14+

Doors open 6.30pm

Show length 1hr

Nine Lives is a one-man show about asylum seeker Ishmael, played by Lladel Bryant, from Zimbabwe and his struggle to gain asylum in Armley. Bryant does a superb job of bringing the character to life, he is animated and convincingly plays Ishmael, and the characters he comes across, with lightness and ease.

The play explores what happens when Ishmael, who is seeking asylum because he is gay, starts the asylum process in Britain. The production focuses on the loss, creation and slippage of identity when faced with such a situation. How much of himself does Ishmael leave in Zimbabwe, how much does he hang onto and how much does he make himself anew?

This production, with beautiful African music introducing new aspects of the story, is a very honest and human account of this confusing, heart breaking and totally transformational time in Ishmael’s life. The script is excellent, the performance strong and honest and the design is elegant. There are no theatrical fireworks here, but there do not need to be, a simple story of Ishmael’s arrival and the difficulty in the decisions he has to make are powerful enough.

The script is written by Zodwan Nyoni, for Leeds playhouse where she was writer in residence in 2014. One of the effective aspects of Ishmael’s story is that it is entirely individual, prompting audience members to realise that asylum seekers are not a homogenous group in the same situation with the same concerns and problems, but each one is a person with their own very particular set of circumstances. Ishmael has to decide if he tells other African asylum seekers about why he is seeking asylum with the knowledge that he might be persecuted by his own countrymen or keep it quiet so he can seek the comfort of those with a shared background.

The narrative never rests, Ishmael is not allowed to settle, his story has no resolution. This echoes the transient, ever changing and never-resolved state that he is in. While he awaits the government’s decision as to whether Britain can harbour him, he has no firm ground to stand on. This production is very pertinent and has a lightness of touch that allows it to transcend the media coverage of this plight and depict one person’s difficult journey to a new start.

Written by Zodwa Nyoni

Performed by Lladel Bryant

Directed by Alex Chisholm

Presented by Leeds Studio in association with West Yorkshire Playhouse

Fleeing from his home in Zimbabwe where a fresh wave of homophobia threatens his life, Ishmael has sought sanctuary in the UK. Dispersed to Leeds, he waits to hear his fate, he waits for a new life to begin amongst strangers. Strangers who don’t trust him and don’t want him there. But not everyone is bad… can he find a place to call home again?

Some of us wanted to stop being afraid.

Some of us wanted to find ourselves.

Some of us wanted to belong.

Zodwa Nyoni (West Yorkshire Playhouse/Channel 4 Writer in Residence 2014) threads together humour and humanity to tell the real personal story behind asylum headlines.

‘the wit of the writing and lightness of the playing style gives the play its depth’ The Herald.

"Nine Lives sheds some light on the reality of being an asylum seeker in modern Britain. Turns out it isn’t huge flat screen TVs and cooking the Queen’s swans. Who knew? "

Nick Ahad, The Yorkshire Post

“ a cracking piece of theatre that offers a glimpse into an issue that’s present in the country and around the world today.”

Adam Bruce, A Younger Theatre

Doors: 7pm
Show starts: 7.30pm

Running time: 55 mins no interval

Age Range (12+)

View the trailer here

Excellent review here too by City of Sanctuary

The play is accompanied by a pre-show creative workshop on 17^th October at 5pm:

Imagine you arrived as a stranger in a strange town. You don't know anyone and you think the people might not be friendly. What do you do?

Using drama and writing techniques, the workshop will explore issues of seeking asylum, and welcoming people who may be new and different. Lead by members of the Nine Lives company it will enable students to create their own responses to the topic and examine the play in more depth.

If your organization would be interested in participating then please contact Harriet Morgan-Shami for more information: harrietjoy78@yahoo.co.uk

This year has seen even more bold, curious and talented young people come to NextGen-Sounds at Trinity Centre to learn more about music production, DJing, and playing musical instruments. Whether writing lyrics, jamming in bands, rapping on the mic or beat matching on the decks- it's all been going on.

Image: Nathalie Codsi in Arnold's Big Adventure by Tessa Bide Productions, photo by Kai Taylor

Spilt Ink Theatre Company have been awarded Trinity’s Young Audiences Commission to develop a new piece of work for 3-10 year olds. The £6,000 commission has been made possible through the support of the Cultural Recovery Fund.

Spilt Ink are a physical theatre company who create playful, joyful and fun work with and for communities and children. During their development commission they will be exploring the themes of home and identity.

“We will create a fantasy ‘home’ rooted in real stories of our multicultural community. It will explore both the physical sensation of home and the cultural meaning of home.  We will question what home means to ourselves, as diverse artists, and to the multicultural local community of East Bristol.”

They will work with Trinity and local community partners to deliver creative and playful workshops with local children and families; sharing and exploring the stories of the many communities living in Lawrence Hill and Easton.

Spilt Ink were selected for the commission following an open call out that received 20 project proposals. Their project, Home, stood out to our parent-led selection panel - made up of staff, volunteers and community reps - for the way it placed co-creation at its core and young people at the centre of deciding where the project journey would take them.

Between its members - Lebanese/Italian actor and theatre maker Nathalie Codsi, Bristol-based international theatre director, community arts facilitator and performer Hester Welch, and British actor, puppeteer/ theatre maker Sarah Cribdon, Spilt Ink have a wealth of experience of working with diverse communities across the world and we look forward to seeing where Home will take them.

If you are interested in finding out more about how to get involved with the Young Audiences Commission as it emerges, please get in touch or sign up to our mailing list.

6.30pm* - 9.00pm ‘Nest’ Anushiye Yarnell

The choreography of NEST has been accumulating over a period of 4 years since the early stages of my pregnancy with my daughter. It is a performance that shows life and art as the same. It is a piece about the function of love in ordinary life. The choreography took form as a settlement- a transformative relationship between my body, mind and memory. It examined in detail the repetition of forms that generated unique variables and deviations of meaning within the dance. This encompassed adaptations on the journey? through pregnancy to motherhood.

The work began to interrogate strands of survival and began to be a piece which related to everything around me. I began to translate the mythological female ability to multitask as an instinctive predisposition to reside within an inter-connective continuum. I began to unravel encounters with evolution and alternative creationist belief systems questioning news as a window to the world. How can I re-map my beliefs through relativistic perspectives- using real and imagined scenarios with my mother and family, negotiations with nature and civilization, the origins of sex, propositions of gender, interfaces with cars and strangers.

NEST examines the utilitarian aspects of fantasy, the fabric of humanity’s constructed reality, both of which are inter-dependent with our ability as human beings to fabricate and imaginary realms.

Part of  Emergenc(i)es  Exhibition, 6th - 17th June: Control and Calculation : Inheriting Liberation : Improvised Publics

*amended time from 7pm