The Theatre that brings people together

Mafwa Theatre is a community-based theatre group from Leeds. Through funding from National Lottery Project Grants, they’ve created To & Fro, a mixed media installation and performance piece created by a group of women from refugee, asylum seeker and wider Leeds communities. We spoke to Tamsin Cook and Keziah Berelson from Mafwa to find out more.

About the Project

We’ve been running a women’s drama group since February 2018. It was born out of a desire to create more opportunities for refugees and asylum seekers to engage creatively and meet other communities living in Leeds.

To & Fro focusses on the ways we move through Leeds and the barriers different communities face when travelling through the city.

We use a gentle approach with newly arrived communities, which means making sure participants are driving the workshops and are given the time, space and skills to explore their ideas. We remove barriers by providing bus tickets, food and child care.

Creating high quality, innovative work is important for participants and artists alike. Sessions have focussed on exposing participants to a wide range of theatre, performance and visual art followed by discussions to broaden participants’ critical vocabulary. Engaging film makers and artists has given participants an opportunity to work within a professional performance setting and express the way they want to be presented on stage.

There has also been the opportunity for participants to present their work on a par with professional artists.  The project has toured to Leeds City Museum and Migration Matters Festival, Sheffield and was also presented as part of Journeys Festival International in Leicester in August.

The partners

We are both an art and an advocacy organisation. We want to create a culture of welcome and strengthen the ecosystem of support for newly arrived populations in the city.

This project has been a collaboration and we would be unable to create the work we do without the support of the thriving migrant networks around us.

We’ve worked with the community to offer participants new and diverse experiences as well as reaching wider participants and audiences.

Leeds Refugee Forum, a support organisation that works with over 30 migrant support organisations in the city, helped to get the drama group started by providing us with space to work, technical support and free rehearsal space.

Partnerships with Chapel FM and Asmarina Voices resulted in a short audio documentary and song. We have been able to visit Clapham with the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust, and to see (and for some participants) take part in the performance ‘All Inclusive’ at Transform Festival. Participants have explored photography with support from Mentally Healthy Leeds and felt listened to with the City Listening Project.

We have built on our members’ pre-existing links to refugee support organisations in Leeds and have developed strong relationships with many to engage with their service users. We are a coalition partner for Asylum Matter’s Lift the Ban campaign, campaigning for the right of all asylum seekers to work.

We have broadened the group to include all women, regardless of migration status and soworked closely with mainstream services such as Women’s Lives Leeds and Touchstone.

The benefits

This is our first successful application to National Lottery Project Grants. It has helped us improve the quality of our work by letting us work with other professionals and has given participants the platform and tools to present themselves and their ideas.

The group meets every Friday and has become an anchor in the participants lives. A small island of stability where the group can explore and shape their work. It has helped us to forge a strong group that are excited to work on future projects and hone their performance skills.

We are the only theatre provision for refugees and asylum seekers in Leeds. This project has been created at a time of great creative engagement, with newly arrived communities in Leeds, migration-focussed exhibitions at the library and museum and the creation of the Arts Together network.

Throughout the project we have come to realise how rare it is to have a shared space where people from different communities can create together. It has been brilliant seeing friendships blossom and develop. Friends from the group often accompany each other to external workshops.

To & Fro has succeeded in breaking the mould with community theatre and has resulted in a performance piece which interrogates the way we see those who live on the margins of our communities and how they want to be seen.

The project has worked with over 50 women from refugee, asylum seeker and wider Leeds communities. The participants gained performance skills and confidence in their artistry, which makes this project just the start of a series of works created by and for women from refugee, asylum seeker and wider Leeds communities. They found that being part of the project for an hour and a half every week offers them the chance to escape their day-to-day concerns.

The group has provided a safe space for people to discuss issues as they arise and be signposted on to relevant organisations where necessary.

Participants have been given an opportunity to develop their artistry, by critically analysing work, learning how to express themselves in a professional arts environment and seeing a variety of art in Yorkshire.

Most importantly, audiences have seen work created by a group of women that upturns the victimhood narrative surrounding work with refugees and asylum seekers. Giving participants the tools they need to empower themselves and create intriguing work which forces audiences to lean in and question their assumptions about marginalised groups in society. 

Mafwa Theatre are currently seeking to appoint trustees at this exciting time of growth for the company - please contact mafwatheatre@gmail.com for further details.  

Case studies: Project Grants