Lullabies workshop at Easton Community Centre. Photo @ Alexa Ledecky

Roxana is a multi-award winning Iranian/British multi-disciplinary artist working with music, storytelling, film and live performance in a participatory context for over 20 years. Core to Roxana’s work is a desire to connect with the human stories that unite us, using a multi art approach to tackle issues of racism, discrimination and belonging.

In 2018 Roxana joined the Trinity team developing her project, Lullabies, during her IGNiTE residency. Lullabies, was inspired by Roxana signing traditional Iranian lullabies to her children at night. Here she began to imagine how many others might be singing songs in different languages to their children and the stories behind them.

During her pilot project Roxana worked with local communities and schools to collect lullabies from families. She recorded interviews and songs from communities across Bristol, including Somali, Kurdish, Irish, Israeli, Iranian, Hungarian, German and Afro-Cuban songs.

In 2020 the project was selected to be part of Here and Now, a national project celebrating of 25 years of National Lottery Funding and showcasing everyday culture.

With the support of Trinity Roxana is continuing to develop Lullabies and in 2021 and will deliver online Zoom workshops. There is an open call for the public to submit their Lullabies and there are a series of adaptive podcasts with BBC R+D.

Last year we very excitedly launched our in- house Theatre and Dance and programme - IGNiTE. Our aim - to curate  an exciting programme of work that would resonate with everyone who uses and lives around Trinity.

Thanks to funding from Arts Council, an amazing team,  our programming forum (who have helped steer the programme throughout the year) and every artist, audience member and participant our first step into the world of programming world class theatre and dance , supporting artists to crete new work and ensuring our community benefits from artistic excellence .... has been great.

So while we sit back and make plans for our next programme we thought we'd share some of the best moments and successes.

1.Vicki Igbokwe talking to us about the power of dance

2.  Cardboard Citizens challenging us all in the Forum Theatre section of Cathy.

3. Selling nearly half of all our ticket at concessions rate

4. Meaning that our audiences are reflective of Bristol's inclusive and diverse communities

5. Rider Shafique blowing us away with his solo performance of I-Dentity

6. 1500+ people watching, taking part, dancing, asking questions and celebrating with us

7.  Afreena Islam's honest performance to a room full of our regular centre users

8. Supporting six artists and companies with community & participation at the core of their practice to develop work and deliver workshops at Trinity

9. All the people who stayed for the Q+A's and took part in sometimes difficult but always provoking conversations

Read more about IGNiTE here

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Paradise City

Over ten days IGNiTE summer residents Back in 5 Minutes Squad and Art in Motion will be creating an evolving installation up in our Fyfle Hall.

This is super exciting as Spike Island Residents  - Back in 5 Minutes Squad and emerging not-for-profit participatory arts organisation Art in Motion (AIM) will be collaborating for the first time for this project.

Evolving over the ten days of the residency these two diverse groups will collaborate to portray their vision of an ideal, egalitarian future in which humans of all types and abilities coexist peacefully and purposefully together - the fabric of this future city will reflect the diverse and idiosyncratic interests of all the artists involved.

From Monday 19 the artists invite you to visit during this exciting process and Paradise City will be open to everyone for a celebration event from 5-7pm in the Graffiti Room at Trinity on Thursday 29 June.

Paradise City is supported by Arts Council England via Grants for the Arts and by Trinity Community Arts.

As an iconic Arts Centre with forty years of music programming experience under their belt it should come as no surprise to you that the Trinity team are continuing to push boundaries with their IGNiTE programme of performance in 2017.

Ranging from the playful to the sometimes hard-to-swallow realities of life, the newly announced spring selection of programming is destine to challenge and excite audiences. Fergus Evans, Trinity’s theatre and dance producer says that all the shows presented are ‘a celebration of the spaces we make for ourselves when none of the boxes fit quite right.’

Mixing the exciting with the unexpected, the season’s five shows set out to provoke conversations. In I-Dentity Rider Shafique explores being mixed race and what it is like when you are neither but also both. Liz Aggiss’ giddy and sometimes sinister Slap and Tickle cheekily explores female sexuality and growing older. What you see is not always what you get in Alesandra Seutin's  C'eci n'est past Noire (This is not Black) - a journey through identity politics, Beyonce and, a few parlour games. Putting the Band Back Together is a playful story about why we give up on our dreams and how we find them again. Gather the round dinner table in Daughters of the Curry Revolution and find out what it means to be the daughter of a migrant.

At Trinity you're never just a member of the audience, and this carefully selected programming certainly reflects this. From picking up an instrument and joining Unfolding Theatre’s house band to learning new ways to move with Alesandra Seutin (Vocab Dance Company). You can sign up to be a member of one of our test audiences and see work in development from our resident artists. Let us know what you think of the show you’ve seen or volunteer as a steward. The message is clear: Don't just come see a show. Take part. Speak up. Start something.

Alongside our regular programme of live music and community events, we present world-class, innovative artists whose work is about issues that matter to people now, starting conversations and sparking debate. IGNiTE is supported by funding from Arts Council England.

Further Info:

Tickets go on Sale 10am Friday 3rd Feb http://www.3ca.org.uk/ignite ​ ​

Slap and Tickle, Liz Aggis 18th March 7.30pm £10 / £8

Ceci n'est pas Noire (This is not Black), Alesandra Seutin I Vocab Dance Company 25th March, 7.30pm £10 / £8

Putting The Band Back Together, Unfolding Theatre 21st April, 7.30pm £10 / £8

I-Dentity, Rider Shafique 28th April, 7.30pm £10 / £8

Daughters of the Curry Revolution, Afreena Islam 5th/6th/7th May : 3pm / 5pm / 7pm £12 / £10

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.

She Called Me Mother is a story of distance. Distance caused by travelling from one continent to another. The distance that secrets create. Distance made by time. Distance between generations. Distance as enforced protection when love is lost to broken trust.

Evangeline is waiting, waiting for a woman, waiting for her black swan. Meanwhile she observes passers by. From her spot at London Bridge station she is only really visible to those who choose to see her. She is asking for money, an interaction and kindness in exchange for a magazine. Evangeline recounts moments in her long life that have led her to this place. Her past is set in Trinidad where she held many roles; she was a wife and, most importantly to the tale, she was a mother. She speaks out to us, explaining her history while the figure of a younger woman casually moves around in background like the ghost of a life lost. The figure is the thought at the front of Evangeline's mind, loitering in her present life, unable or unwilling to be shaken off.

When we finally meet this figure we are not surprised to learn that she is Evangeline's daughter Shirley. Through the Shirley we hear a different side to the tale. The gulf of experience between the two women is evident in their accents, use of language and points of view. Deeper secrets are revealed; alcoholism, abuse, protection and neglect. Could more have been done to prevent a lifetime's worth of damage? Once these buried pains are brought to the surface can a broken relationship be fixed?

When the two women come together their focus on us as an audience ceases. Suddenly they occupy the same space, the same place in time and we, the audience, are redundant. We are no longer listening to a story, we are now witnessing a coming together of a bygone relationship. There is something inharmonious about this jump of focus which is followed by an overly drawn out scene of attempted reconciliation that finds the actors vying for emotional one upmanship. However, She Called Me Mother, overall, feels like something of a breakthrough. As a debut play it more than succeeds in giving voice to traumatic experiences in a palatable fashion. Respect and realism are prioritised where the writing and performances could have easily swayed to sentimentality and the question of blame and accepting accountability is, authentically, never fully resolved. There is no fairy tale ending, no wave of a magic wand. But there is life and, for Shirley at least, the chance to live it.

Stand is the product of conversations. The conversations continued long after leaving the Trinity centre, but in silence; an inner-monologue set to my footsteps, set to snippets of strangers passing conversations. Stand made me consider myself, my actions.

It made me proud of that time I stood up to the racist man in the restaurant in Edinburgh and made me see my Mother’s pleasure in witnessing this in a new, brighter light. Stand made me hope that in the future I will be braver in making positive choices and not stop myself due to fear of an unsuccessful ending. Stand made me miss my younger self- the one who could be so riled up about the wrongs of the world.

Stand made my friend sad when she realised later that these were actors, not the activists, performing the verbatim transcript. Stand impressed me that the quality of performance made her think this.

Stand meant I was sure to find a bin to put my cigarette butt in and to feel guilty for all of the discarded ones that came before it and every dropped one that is sure to come. Stand reminded me that I am only human. Stand made me plump-up with pride for people. It made me deflate with despair in humanity.

Stand made me think of my friend who spends weeks, months living in protest sites; of the arrests, beatings, losses and wins. It made me question why I have been so hesitant to join him.

Stand made me wish I’d ordered the vegetarian quiche instead of this open-top ham sandwich but feel a little more at ease that at least the meat is locally sourced. Stand reassured me that standing-up can come in many forms. Stand is simple. It is sensitively, sometimes joyously performed. Stand made me want to know more, to do more. Stand made me want to be better.

Dear Dance Marathon,

Thank you. I know we only spent a few hours together but I wanted to let you know how wonderful you are. Despite my aching calves and mysterious bruise, I miss you. You were a joy to be with. The friends I made through you might not last a lifetime but, for that one, lovely night, they meant so much. You made a team of two from strangers; we laughed, we tried and held on to each other.

At first I thought you were too good to be true and in a way I was right. Your trickery at first was subtle but once I realised the kindness in your lies I knew I had to forgive you. For some you made them feel inadequate; for others you gave them the courage to shine. And even though we floundered and fell, after knowing you for such a short time we all became champions. Even when our number was up we spurred each other on. Even when you stripped me of my purpose; an indignity which led me to the regrettable act of betraying my sister, still then, I fought on.

I saw so much through you. I witnessed amateurs evolve into experts. I saw kindness morph into competitiveness. I sensed strangers becoming friends and family turn into temporary enemies. You made me race to the finish line, flail in an attempt to regain my status, squish my sweaty body against an unknown other. And even though you may have turned me into a loser, well, I forgive you. You showed me humility; the sigh of relief in letting go of hopes of a trophy and cheering for our new, winning, friends.

So thank you Dance Marathon. Thank you for the fun, thank you for the music. Thank you for the artistry, thank you for the effort; I'm sure you must be tired so please go a take long and well deserved rest.

But know that - If we meet again - I'm on to you. And as I have already proved, I'm not above doing whatever it takes to leave our next night together as your dancing queen.

Love and very, very sweaty hugs,
Your not-so-bitter Loser.

We have appreciated over the years the terrific improvements made to the infrastructure and to the increased services to the community. The grand opening of the first floor dance/theatre space was a vibrant event and drew a wide cross section of the community, including the Mayor.

We have great pleasure in supporting the work of Trinity.

Drs Stephen Robins & Emma Kerr, SWhoop

In December 2008 Trinity collaborated with The Wonder Club to produce a spectacular site specific promenade theatre performance At Tether's End. The show was inspired by the true story of a local young man William Pullin who tragically stabbed a police man, PC Richard Hill, to death. The show was part of the Bristol Sound Project and featured artwork, set and performances from a large number of young people working alongside professional artists from Bristol.

The show was a resounding success with tickets sold out every one of the six nights the show ran for. It also received a 4/5 star review from Steve Wright in Venue magazine as well as an excellent write up in The British Theatre Guide. Read the reviews here.

After a brief break Trinity are pleased to offer a new theatre training course run by the director of At Tether's End. For more information please visit our home page.

Click here to read more about our current projects.