In January 2022, Deaf Explorer organised a week of Research and Development at Attenborough Arts Centre. Maral decided to use this time to develop her own story through movement and jewellery with a professional dancer and choreographer. Maral’s artwork is about the loss of freedom amongst women in oppressive regimes. At Attenborough Arts Centre Maral continued to merge art forms. The aim was to create a performance for refugees by adding movement and dance as performative features to tell a symbolic story about migration from a woman’s perspective.
Deaf Explorer co-ordinated access for Maral so that the artist could successfully collaborate with hearing Choreographer Neus Gill Cortes, Movement Artist Shelley Eva Haden, and Digital designer Ben Glover. There was also a focus on Well-being due to the artists dealing with trauma. There was an opportunity here to explore the quality of movement with jewellery and hair.
Click here to watch our interview with Choreographer Neus Gill Cortes.
Maral worked with the creative team to tell three stories that infer the experience of refugees. When thinking about the visual narrative and its audience of refugees, Maral wanted to expose difficult experiences, trauma, lack of trust, uncertainty, avoidance of the truth. The artist explains that the work is in a continuum and does not see an end to Tales of Tresses and will use touring as an opportunity for performative actions with her jewellery.
Click here to view behind-the-scenes footage during the Attenborough residency.
We would love to have a conversation with venues, organisations, and producers about this project to begin planning the next development stage! If you are interested, please do get in touch.