Art Impact with Raquel Bellastella
Art Impact with Raquel Bellastella
Provoking Thought and Sparking Change: A Conversation with Lucy Dear #43
After quite a pause… we’re back! This last year was a gestation pause - not of a human being but of my theatre company, Imaginari Theatre.
And.. Can I tell you what? I’m so excited to be here with you in the Art Impact Podcast again!
Discover the transformative power of theatre through the eyes of distinguished applied theatre practitioner Lucy Dear. Listen in as Lucy, a theatre maker and community producer, takes us on a captivating journey from her early experiences in youth theatre to her academic pursuits at Queen Mary University of London. Hear the personal tales that sparked her interest in gender and gender normativity and how theatre can challenge these societal constructs. With Lucy’s unique insights, prepare to broaden your understanding of the theatre world beyond its entertainment façade.
The conversation takes an exciting turn as we delve into the creation of inclusive spaces via arts. Lucy elucidates on her work with diverse groups, underscoring the potential of arts in fostering social change. As the narrative unfolds, Lucy bravely confronts gender dynamics and domestic violence, advocating for the power of art in driving social shifts. This episode is an enlightening journey that peels back the layers of theatre, revealing its profound psychological and anthropological underpinnings. So, buckle up for an enlightening ride with Lucy Dear that challenges perceptions, questions norms, and celebrates the transformative potential of the arts.
EPISODE’S SHOW NOTES
So, lucy, dear welcome to the Art Impact podcast. I'm so excited to talk with you. Today has been aridus and I'm truly, truly looking forward to our chat today.
Speaker 2:How are you? Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks for having me. This is nice, nice to reconnect with you after a long time. Yeah, lovely, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, no, very welcome. So, yeah, so I met you when I volunteered with Chick and Shad, like about 10 years ago really, and and and was such a wonderful, yeah, experience to be able to volunteer with Chick and Shad and you were one of the facilitators I think if I also volunteered in another group, you facilitate Chick and Shad as well and then, and then I finished my physical theater studies and then motherhood started for me, and and then I think it has been really some eight years of really, really motherhood, like fully immersion.
Speaker 1:And I'm yeah, coming out and and having now a more professional life again. So it's really, really, really great to reconnect and it's amazing and I was, I was telling you just now I'm so amazed to be able to see your journey during this time and all these beautiful projects and and and pieces and theaters and and plays that you are doing and have been doing, and so, yeah, I would love to dive into that. Yeah, so, let's, I would love to start with I think it was one of my favorite questions of this podcast Tell us your story, lucy. Tell us how it started for you, your career as applied theater prediction practitioner, theater maker. You know a community producer and you're such a prolific creative. And, but tell us how. Tell us about little Lucy as well, how your start in creativity, yeah, how, how that began.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I've always been interested in like art and creative arts generally, and when I was growing up I was like a member of youth theaters myself, so I guess I've always been quite comfortable in like community workshop environments. And then when I came to like my like a levels and deciding what to do when I was a university, I was originally going to go into like set design because I thought it would be an interesting marriage between like art and drama. But then after some consideration, I was like naturally more skilled in theater than in visual art, so I went for the one that would be slightly more within my hands.
Speaker 2:I guess I just have always been a bit more driven in theater whereas like when I've done visual arts, it's kind of much more what's the word dependent on, like mood or whether you're up for creating stuff whereas I felt like I could kind of sustain myself in theater a little bit more and did a degree at Queen Mary University of London in my lens and it was called an applied theater degree and I didn't really know what that was until I was doing it, except when I was in a workshop once and I think we were having a visit from a guest, sylvan Baker, who I think was at London Bubble at that time.
Speaker 2:He came into work with us. We had loads of different guests. We had Stonecrabs, who I later then did the directors program with. But I think during one of those kind of community or applied theater workshops we had to run activities for each other. And then I was like and I was leading a workshop and now I just got loads of good feedback from the people in my group and I was like okay. And I think someone was like oh, that seemed really natural to you. So I was like okay. So I kind of kept that at the back of my brain.
Speaker 2:I graduated in applied theater. Then I wanted to travel, but not just for the sake of it. So I ended up going to work in Hong Kong and teaching drama there and going to the Philippines for a bit and then, yeah, really I've just worked in theater since, started doing some kind of touring performances and then slowly build up my skills in facilitating and then, like most people, went from facilitating to like project managing and producing and then to creating my own work. So I guess I learnt the ropes and then like kind of created my own pieces when I felt like I knew what I was doing. Yeah, I think that's how it goes.
Speaker 2:Normally, you end up making the mistakes on other people's projects and then going through and when you're really good and you apply it on your own projects. But, yeah, sorry guys, no, it wasn't that bad, but I'll just say it was learning. It was learning. Yeah, it was learning that I guess, on other people's projects. I still work on other people's projects as well, but do my own stuff, which is a nice thing, because it's a nice balance.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, amazing. And for on your own stuff. You know like I was so amazed to see, yeah, really, how prolific is your applied theatre practice. You know like there is. You have worked with youth theatres, with people living with dementia, with, you know, kids with special needs, with women who may be. You know, living a domestic abuse is such a very wide range of audiences and people you have been interacting and serving in and you know I think that's so fascinating. So when you say doing my own stuff, what is that? Tell us more about that. What is that for you?
Speaker 2:So I've always been interested in like gender and at uni I was really interested in gender studies and looking at kind of gender roles.
Speaker 2:I've always really respected in my work of tender and like applied theatre projects which use the art to challenge gender normativity. And I think that's come from kind of my frustrations growing up of being of like seeing kind of boys and girls being treated differently and wanting to challenge that a little bit and then also feeling like there's certain boxes that I should have to fit into and not always feeling completely comfortable with that. So I think that's where it came from and so I. My performance at Queen Mary, my one of my end of like uni performances, was me applying the recipe of preparing a Christmas turkey to my own body, inspired by like.
Speaker 2:As you'd imagine, like performance art we were taught by like Lois Weaver and Peggy Shore, and we looked at the work I'm going to forget all of their names now, obviously, but lots of work from lots of performance artists who use their bodies like as a site of kind of political discussion or intervention.
Speaker 2:So I guess from that kind of turkey performance and like, I guess the metaphor of that piece was like preparing myself and women's bodies for, like public consumption and the ideas on that in terms of the rituals that women do to themselves and you know everyone, the rituals that everyone does to themselves on a daily basis, and then kind of pushing that a little bit more to the extreme and being like, okay, so you know, is the way we prepare ourselves for public consumption as women and what does that mean when we are consumed, and ask some questions around that.
Speaker 2:So I've always been interested in that. And then when I went to my post-grad at Central, we had a project what's it? A workshop where we had to design our own projects, and I just very quickly and naturally came to like a project that looked at like gender roles, and then I kind of forgot about that, lived my life a bit, you know, did various different jobs, had various different relationships, found myself in a very abusive relationship, and then I and then found myself in a women's support group when I heard lots of stories in the room that were very similar to my own and it kind of dawned on me that, although we all had really similar stories, we all felt completely isolated because this wasn't being talked about in the public sphere.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I understand why those spaces are necessarily private. However, what that can do is like keep other people's secrets, you know, when actually it needs to be shared and it needs to be talked about, because not talking about it can further isolate people who are already very isolated in abusive relationships and make them feel, when they're, that they're on their own, where, in fact, there's a massive community of people who have gone through exactly the same thing. So then lockdown happened and I had a lot of spare time to apply. You know, everyone was just bored and like making bread, weren't they? And buying plants and like and I don't have a garden.
Speaker 2:So it's probably that was quite a good thing in this sense that I just thought you know what I'm going to apply for some funding. I had some really valuable help from a career coach who helped me hone in on some ideas, and I really wanted to create this piece around my experience and based on other women's experiences of domestic abuse and coercive control. And then all in your head was born, had a brilliant producer, a brilliant writer, safa Benson, fem came on board, and then we ended up creating a. This is a very long answer, sorry.
Speaker 1:No, it's amazing. I don't know. I'm loving to know all of it, yeah go for it.
Speaker 2:We ended up creating, like inadvertently, a site-specific online piece based in a flat, which was actually worked out quite well in terms of timing because, as we all know, like during lockdown, domestic abuse rates like skyrocketed because lots of people were tracked inside with their perpetrators. So it was some kind of really helpful synergy in creating a piece of work based in someone's flat, because actually I you know, me and my actor had to like bubble up during that time you couldn't see anyone else. It's quite an intense experience, bless her. So we basically just used a flat and then looked at who the audience could be as boyars for that situation. I'll send you the link if you haven't seen it already. Yeah, but it's a weave with this narrative where Naomi the actor-in-all in your head played Leanne and we follow her relationship from when she meets her boyfriend to when we realise that he's a perpetrator. We is interweaved real women's verbatim accounts of what happened. So we're constantly with that piece, like bringing the audience in to empathise with Naomi playing Leanne and kind of what and understand her case a little bit more, and then kind of pushing them back and reminding the audience that this isn't just a character. So that's the project and then since then because it was online it was recorded.
Speaker 2:We've done lots of work around bringing it into community spaces, bringing it into schools, bringing it into colleges, bringing it to solace, women's aid, using it with survivors, young people, as a preventative measure and as a discussion point, an access point really for discussion around coercive control and domestic abuse, educating young people about red flags, warning signs, showing them the very early part of the play and asking them whether they think anything is wrong with that.
Speaker 2:Often they'll say no and then we fast forward. But it's just about, I guess, yeah, opening up some of those kind of norms, the things that might get glamourised in like TV, in media, in songs Song was a massive part of all in your head like looking at basically pop songs that when you listen to the lyrics, so like, actually those relationships are really toxic but we all sing along and they, you know, get ready to them and just picking those apart a little bit, I think I guess it's like using the arts as a mirror to like have a look at our normals and challenge that a little bit. So that's my own project.
Speaker 1:Yeah, amazing, amazing, amazing, so beautiful. Yeah, so interesting. Oh, thank you so much for sharing. Yeah, for sharing all of it. Yeah, so beautiful and I haven't seen it yet, but I really want to, and we can share the link on the episode page as well, if you want, so people can access it as well. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I will. I'll put my details on kind of the link that you can share I have to be a little bit careful about just chucking it, not chucking it out it sounds really rude but like with who it's shared with in terms of like predicting the women's voices in the story. But I'll share it on like a case by case basis. Yeah, so I had to be quite sensitive around that in terms of like identifiable voices and like obviously making sure that the sensitive nature of what they were sharing with us was handled kind of sensitively. So yeah, absolutely I'll normally share it on like an individual basis and ask people what they're doing.
Speaker 1:And then maybe it's time.
Speaker 2:It's brought because we did a version of it in the theatre before. We did a live version which kind of looked at the relationship between Leanne's online self, so it used clips of the video and then real life self, so it was like the character was looking back at her past memories. So we explored that a little bit like live.
Speaker 2:live versus recorded self was quite interesting in the way that, like we all kind of flick through our phone gallery, you know people who might not anymore be in our lives and kind of think about where we were at that point. But yeah, I'll let you know if we do a stage version again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, definitely, yeah, perfect yeah whatever whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's shareable, isn't it? And it's perfect and and you know, a question that I'm really really curious to know your thoughts about it's applied theatre is such a powerful practice, you know, such a powerful medium, and I was so, really again, amazed to see how your applied theatre practice like extends, you know, to so many communities and needs and audiences. I think it just shows, you know, how powerful, how prolific, how you know, those two tools are really, really have so much potential in them. You know that they are able to serve, like, yeah, so many different kinds of needs and stages in life, you know, and all of that. So I would love to hear do you see any common thread, you know, in applied theatre? Do you see any any common? You know, when you bring people together and you do a workshop be them like young people or or elderly people, or, you know, and all the others we have talked Do you see any any common? Is a common practice? What is? Is that anything common? Or is it just very, very unique? You know, working, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Great question. I think the kind of most common commonality between all of those groups and probably the most obvious things, that they're all just different types of people. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes we can separate people by kind of category but like, actually, when I work with one group, all of those skills are transferable to another group and then another group and another group and actually, when you strip it down, aside from our labels, we're all just humans, kind of figuring out life and trying to, you know, get through the best way we can.
Speaker 2:I guess, like I tend to work, or what I tend to work, and also get, tend to employed, to work with people who whose voices might need to be heard a bit more amplified or whose voices aren't being heard. I guess, like I'm speaking to the Brazilian in you, like in terms of the idea of the oppressed, and like social, you know, promoting social change and promoting equality and actually working and using the arts to break down, kind of to work in a kind of inclusive way that breaks down barriers. So all of the projects pretty much that I deliver are funded and free for participants. For me they're not about like quote unquote, like talent per se. It's about using the arts as an expressive tool.
Speaker 2:You might have people in those sessions who are really talented, but it's not about a competitive way of working where one person's skill is better than the other. It's about creating a space where everyone's like kind of Everyone has something to offer and everyone's contribution is valued. So it's, I guess creating a space that feels equal and empowering is the main thing. Yeah, yeah, that doesn't necessarily mean you know. I mean sometimes I've worked with like businesses and worked with people with lots of money and used arts to encourage confidence in, like public speaking. So I think, yeah, it's a weird one, but I guess it's about my kind of social mission is about creating spaces where everyone feels valuable and safe and can express themselves. Really. I guess that's the common thread.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm taking notes. So beautiful, I'm taking notes. Good that we're recording, but I'm really taking notes, beautiful, beautiful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so often our spaces, whether we intend them to be or not, can be like competitive because we were, because we're part of a, you know, in London, we're part of a capitalist society where, like things should be efficient and people should work quickly and, like you know, there's merit or emphasis placed on how quickly you got something done, but actually like trying to strip some of that back and creating a space where people can be in the moment, away from their phones, connecting as communities, which I think like we've lost a bit. But, like you know, certainly in London, but you know, like places in the world do it, all around the world do it much better than we do. It's actually us, you know, coming back to that, trying to bring back some of that need and you know that needed human desire to connect and be in the same room as people at the same time.
Speaker 1:And, yeah, yeah, yeah, beautiful, yeah yeah. And yeah, theater is my medium as well, and also, yeah, it's so good to hear you know, it's kind of all of those things you just said. You kind of just gave words, you know, to many things I felt but didn't really need to have the exact words for it, and so it's so, so beautiful, and I think you know hearing what to say, what I, what I, what I, what stays with me is that, like, theater is just such a huge well, all the arts at the end, but it's just so humane, isn't it? It's just such a like made, made for us, but made by us, but made so much made for who we really are, you know, as you know, as being seen, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny, like I've never been that interested in like kind of jazz hands or like the entertainment side of theater. I'm much more interested in like I was also thinking about kind of going into anthropology. Do you know what I mean If I didn't? So I'm more interested in like the psychology and the anthropology of theater as opposed to like the spectacle. I think the spectacle's fun like, but I think it's not what kind of keeps me up at night or gets me, you know, thinking. I think, yeah, it's kind of the psychology and and the human element, like you say. Yeah, it's nice to be asked the question actually, because sometimes you don't realize or don't consider why you're doing something until you're like oh, I do know, yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1:Oh, nice, nice, Perfect, and yeah, and moving, moving on, I think, on the same direction. I think it's yeah, in my experience, to know better, you know why I do, why I do what I do. It wasn't natural as well, but it's being so, so important and, and usually we, because our, why, our purpose is such a yeah, it's, it lives in a, in a part of our brain where, where there is no language there and all the part of our brain who produces language is in the, in the other side, and in our why we live, you know, in our more intuitive, intuitive and emotional side.
Speaker 1:Finding the words is really, it's really a challenge sometimes and yeah, and I think sometimes you know what are the be the most fulfilling experiences for us? They tell, they tell you know ourselves and others, what's our why. So I would love to hear Lucy, tell us a moment, an experience, a moment that's in your career that was very, very deeply fulfilling for you, like you know, like if you thought, oh, my goodness, because we struggle so much as creative, doesn't it then? And you think, oh, if I could leave this, you know, every day, oh, my goodness, I will be just in heaven and share, share with us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think like some of the outreach and community work I've done with All in your head has been really really powerful. Both me as like a survivor is that type from that relationship, but also as like a theater maker says, like a quite thin line between my two roles with you know, someone with lived experience and someone as a director of that project, and I'm lucky that I've been able to get funding to have like well being support so that one doesn't kind of interrupt the other. But what we've been doing is creating like a really nice package that goes into schools that works with mixed gender groups on unhealthy and healthy relationships but also works with young men, which is really really interesting. So I work with a brilliant Woltham forest based spoken word artist called Patrick Evans. He's male and he's done a lot of brilliant. He's a brilliant poet but he's done lots of work around expressive poetry about his identity and how it was for him growing up male and what that meant for him in terms of like again, boxes that he felt he needed to fit within or stereotypes that he felt like he needed to conform to in order to fit what it is to be quote, unquote male. So what we do is we've designed a lovely workshop where we go into work with young men in secondary schools and we do a mass, basically a workshop which is sold to the schools.
Speaker 2:As on masculinity, where we work with a group of really small group, that focus group of about 10 young men who have been identified by the school as kind of, you know, having potentially problematic views towards girls or women in the school or just flag for kind of needing a bit more support. So we go in and then we do lots of kind of getting to know you trust games with them. Patrick performs his poem about being a man to them and then they basically take sections each and we have a discussion about some of the sentences in Patrick's poem and then they create their own spoken word pieces back, called a man, dot, dot dot. So it gives them an opportunity, you know, as young men, to reflect on their experience of growing up as young men and how they feel about that and kind of interrupting some of the automatics that we kind of just think that we have to do when we're going through life Do you know what I mean? And challenging and gently questioning some of the choices around, like, oh okay, you know, why is it that we might feel, you know, or you might feel as men, that you have to be strong, and what does strong mean? And can strong be shown in a different way? That you know, and talking about that that's a really powerful session, like watching some of their kind of eyes open or during that session is really really, really interesting.
Speaker 2:That's the kind of work I could do all the time, because it's personal, but it's also my work. Do you know what I mean? I feel like those nice moments are often a really nice marriage of the things that you care about with the things that you're good at, you know. So it's a combination of the two and if you can get those two together, that's gorgeous, because it doesn't feel like work. But, yeah, some really nice moments in that I think just going in with questions as opposed to answers is a really nice way of leading that type of work. And also it's just questions I'm interested in generally, which is like why is it expected that women are like this? Why is it expected, you know, and et cetera.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, wow, amazing, amazing, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. And I think it's such a you know full circle. For me it's such a way of ending, you know the or not ending, but just continuing all in your head project. You know full circle because you know you look into the well, the experience of the women, and then also to the experience that men have. You know and how those things you know. And to go there, you know, to go there and be able to work with them, with young men as well. I think it's such a powerful beautiful thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it also gets us away from the narrative that is protecting young women and saying all the equivalent of saying, like, wear a longer skirt. Do you know what I mean? That kind of thing as opposed to looking at the choices that you know young men and men can have in situations and we say it obviously. It's that gendered, because domestic violence is gendered. Do you know what I mean? Obviously, it can happen to anyone of any gender, sexuality, class, background, disability, but it is disproportionately violence against women. So that's why we focus it in that nature. But it's good for anyone to know. You know about power, dynamics in relationships, abuse and dynamic. You know dynamics in relationships and how that can manifest regardless of gender or sexuality.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, Amazing, Beautiful Lucy. Thank you so much for joining us today. It's being a blast. I'm so, so like yeah fascinated by what you're doing and to be able to get to know it more you know closely and intimately. It's such a beautiful opportunity. Thank you so much for sharing your time and your beautiful stories and work with us.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much Thanks. Thank you for having me.