‘Let’s listen to the humans, not the headlines’

BODIES OF WATER : A world premiere produced by The Actors Touring Company and Greenwich+Docklands International Festival, 27 – 31 August 2024 (7 Performances)  

no one leaves home unless  

home is the mouth of a shark  

you only run for the border  

when you see the whole city running as well  

the boy you went to school with  

who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory  

is holding a gun bigger than his body  

you only leave home  

when home won’t let you stay  

Excerpt from HOME © Warsan Shire 

Bodies of Water is a powerful new site-specific show staged on the  banks of the Thames in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, exploring the moving stories of  people travelling across land and water to seek refuge. (As of 2020, over 130,000 refugees were living in the UK, many of whom arrived via dangerous sea routes.)

Often portrayed as the voiceless subjects  of divisive political debate, the production shines a much-needed light on their invisibility in UK society.  

Bodies of Water takes place from the 27 to 31 August. The show responds to Warsan  Shire’s striking poem HOME.    

Conceived by ATC’s Artistic Director Matthew Xia, it is a collaboration with dramaturg and community facilitator Francesca Beard and Oud player Rihab Azar. Described by Arts Council England as an artist with ‘exceptional promise’, Azar will  be playing originally composed live music. 

Laila Alj will perform the role of narrator alongside a group of 30 local people who have had  first-hand experience of the asylum system. Their testimonies of  leaving, journeying and arriving have been turned into poetic vignettes, creating an evocative  and authentic dimension to this piece of community theatre.

Olivier Award-winning director Matthew Xia, artistic director of Actors Touring Company  (ATC) says: “Warsan Shire’s visceral poem HOME has become a clarion for people seeking  refuge. Bodies of Water invites those who have - for too long - been spoken about, spoken over,  silenced and used as culture war fodder to respond in their own words. This new show places  ownership of this experience back with those who have lived it, an artistic act of resistance, a  public record which challenges and combats the dominant narrative. Let’s listen to the humans  not the headlines.” 

Francesca Beard adds: “Bodies of Water challenges the skewed narrative of  migration by placing real people with lived experience as the story-teller rather than the off stage threat. Each performance will be different and unique, just like each human life experience.  We hope audiences leave feeling energised and uplifted.” 

• £5 standard tickets; free for Greenwich borough residents. Bookings: festival.org/gdif/whats-on/bodies-of-water/ 

-ENDS-

Actors Touring Company (ATC) connects global artistic voices to local communities. It is a “portable portal to the world”. It says: “Our work explores ideas of intersectionality, identity and belonging - opening up conversations across borders both  geographic and cultural.”

www.atctheatre.com/about 

Community Participants from Women for Refugee Women, All Change Arts, Woolwich Common  Community Centre and Creating Ground.

Laila Alj, actor and producer, was born and raised in Casablanca, Morocco. She studied theatre at Northwestern  University and has an MA in screen acting from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London.  She is a founding member of MENA Arts UK and is the producer at Theatro Technis, an independent theatre in  Camden.