Come On In: Life Journeys

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Come On In : Life Journeys was devised as a riposte to the present rhetoric of fear of the ‘other’ that spawned the Windrush Scandal.  StrongBack Productions’ core programme of activities will now be contained in Come On In. Our first edition, Life Journeys, a collaboration with Speaking Volumes Live Literature Productions and funded by Arts Council England, is an invitation to each of us to stop for a moment, look at what surrounds us, look the people that we daily pass by and ask ourselves…what is that person’s life like?

The process is transformative for artists and participants: it roots participants, boosting their sense of place and confidence, and it enriches artists through connecting them to everyday life.

Seven acclaimed poets and musicians- Francesca Beard, John Hegley, Midori Jaeger, Anthony Joseph, Selina Nwulu, Sarah Sayeed and Adam Walters – interviewed employees and participants from three Lambeth organisations: Herne Hill train station, Loughborough Farm and the Baytree Centre. Their interviews have been transformed into song-poems elevating the everyday to the wondrous through their evocative words and music and quirky sketches.

Photos of Francesca Beard, John Hegley, Selina Nwulu and Midori Jaeger taken by Nic Chapman at a workshop of the first drafts of the song-poems, held at Herne Hill Station in December 2019.

A second workshop presentation of the full cycle of song-poems in this first edition of Come On In: Life Journeys was held on February 6th at St. Judes Hall in Brixton. The performance of the full cycle revealed unique portraits conveyed with imagination, dignity, affection and wit in sound, music and words the many different individuals interviewed throughout the research and development phase. Photos, by Nick Chapman show the small invited audience including participants in the project, StrongBack Productions artistic director Dominique Le Gendre and the poets and musicians: Anthony Joseph, Midori Jaeger, Selina Nwulu, Francesca Beard and John Hegley.

Read here the impressions of poets John Hegley and Francesca Beard who interviewed Herne Hill Station staff member Sharon Jeffrey and Owen Felix.

Francesca Beard
When Dominique, Sharmilla and Sarah invited us to be part of ‘Come On In’, I knew, from the brief that this would be a special project.

At heart, ‘Come On In’ is a simple offer – meet some of the people that are part of our community and write songs about them, songs to sing back to that community.

‘Come on In’ connects us with people who are so woven into the fabric of our daily life that they can sometimes become invisible to the people around them. It showcases the truth that so-called ‘ordinary’ people are often extraordinary. It celebrates the sense that our differences are defined by our similarity and our uniqueness is remarkable because we all share in it.

Through ‘Come On In’, John and I met Sharon and Owen, long standing staff at Herne Hill Station. We chatted about their jobs, their families, their childhoods and their culture. We asked them for their philosophy, their signature recipes and their favourite songs, heard about the things that keep them up at night and the things that make their days brighter. Although we only spent a handful of hours in that warm and tidy waiting room, I have heard their voices all the way through the process. I hope that these songs honour that process. I hope that when you hear these songs, you will feel connected to and moved by the extraordinary ‘ordinary’’ people who inspired them.

John Hegley
We met Sharon and Owen, in the station waiting room.
It was a chatting that was cheerful, we were able to accum-
-ulate a lot of information from the cheery railway two,
and as the information gathered, we wrote down and we drew
some portraits and Sharmilla made it easier, because
she had been along before-hand and the atmosphere, it was
easy, and Francesca asked about the sort of day
each would have upon the station, though we did not mention pay.
Still, we got below the surface and we learned some things that made
each of them tick, so later, what we learned could be displayed
in a happy singing fashion, with the others in our crew
who had discovered what some other Lambeth people get to do
and dream of doing.

This has been a delight in the making: the listenings and learnings, the notings down, the sort outs, the puttings into order, the takings of direction, the hearing other artists, the sittings side by side to make a whole out of the pieces and the chance to lay the whole before a crowd who have a hunger and the feeling there is nourishment in what has been created.

Thank you for this chance to Come on In

Watch this space to see our visual song-poems on YouTube soon!

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