Song Cycle, first performed first performed 2008.
A powerful, funny and touching piece of song theatre, Dalston Songs is a unique blend of music and choreography about memories of home and what ‘home’ means. Performance creator and self-taught composer Helen Chadwick was inspired by the stories and memories of people in her local community in Dalston, East London, where many different cultures co-exist. Stories emerged through interviews with her neighbours and Dalston residents. For some ‘home’ meant life in a new country, escape from a war zone or arrival from a destroyed homeland, for others the tales were more domestic. These stories became the basis for lyrics used alongside powerful texts by Serbian, Argentinean, Palestinian, and Turkish poets.
Chadwick’s music is influenced by meeting singers on her journeys to remote villages in Georgia and Bolivia and for Dalston Songs she has collaborated with Olivier award-winning choreographer Steven Hoggett. Dalston Songs was originally presented in ROH’s Firsts Season in 2006, then developed with support from OperaGenesis (an ROH2 initiative developed in association with the Genesis Foundation). It was first staged in the Linbury Studio Theatre last Season, and this first revival is a great opportunity to discover again the power of imagery and emotions evoked by ‘home’.
Linbury Studio Theatre | Tickets £15, £12, £10, £6 standing (£7 students)
'A moving tribute…[Helen] Chadwick weaves their [immigrant residents] words into her libretto, but also uses their actual voices, their richly accented English providing the foundation for her a "capella theatre song cycle.' Evening Standard
'Chadwick’s writing certainly has a sweet gentility. The four women who begin the show relish their earth-mother persona as they console and collude together. It’s here that Chadwick’s very singable lines make their mark best…it’s also admirable how naturally she melds the distinctive harmonies of the ethnicities she explores with her own idiom.' Times 2
'…Helen Chadwick was mesmerizing. The cool, low timbre of her voice was timeless. Her movements and gestures had the gravity, definition and grace of a woman from Java.' www.classicalsource.com