ST AUGUSTINE'S TOWER
Hackney Central (opp. Marks & Spencer), ​London E8 1HT

Click here for a
programme timeline at an easy glance


SOME SHORT VIDEOS FROM INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCES

Nathalie Sloth Richter's Listening Bodies and Mystical Measures
Habib Fawaz, Carole Ayoub, Aline Keyrouz: Dancing to my Song 
Richard D France: Sensing Self 
Mystery School of Sound and Luke Burnsright's Sound Bubble Bath
​Vanessa Downie's Intersensory Insurgence
Together in Perfect Harmony: Tom Lynch 
Together in Perfect Harmony: Habib, Carole and Aline 

​

Welcome to Babel in Bloom

As part of the Open Senses Festival, Art Catcher Ltd, a curator of interdisciplinary exhibitions about cultural and emotional belonging, and directed by London-based artist Katja Rosenberg, is bringing together performance and dance artists at St Augustine’s Tower at Hackney Central, Hackney's oldest building.
All artists who perform at the tower have created inspirational ways to strengthen individuals whose ability to communicate is different to the norm for various reasons, be it through blindness, deafness and other sensual ways of experiencing the world that others on average don’t share, or – more commonly so! - the numbing that occurs to us through the business of life and the day to day challenges we are faced with.
Some performances are participatory, all are deeply personal and taking it in turns to use the ground floor space, pendulum-, clockwork- and bell room and the very roof of the tower.

The weekend programme will be preceded by a special open week Mon-Fri 12-6pm during which artists Jai Preece, Farah Ishaq, George Petsikopoulos, Spike Gascoigne, Rosy Oddy and Frank Creber will deliver a drop in workshop space for the public to communally create flowers from recycled materials which we will attach to the outside of the tower. St Augustine’s will visibly bloom as the week goes on!
Helen Porter of Porters Paper will offer the opportunity to make paper that speaks to the senses of see, smell, touch and feel and East End Speed Histories will enlighten
us about Hackney Central’s past as home to three important greenhouses.

WEEK DAYS
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Monday – Friday, 12-6pm
BABEL IN BLOOM
Katja Rosenberg/Art Catcher (Concept)
Jai Preece, Farah Ishaq, Spike Gascoigne, Rosy Oddy. George Petsikopoulos and Frank Creber (Artistic Creation and Facilitation)
This open to all creative walk in space provided by a fun team of experienced local community artists gives you all the materials and creative support you need to help turn the wonderful, wise and dignified building of St Augustine’s Tower into a tower in bloom for all to see it grow every day.
Join us in creating the flowers St Augustine’s will be growing – we welcome all ages and all backgrounds and we have the right ideas to fit everyone’s levels of ability and confidence.

Thursday 18 May, 2-6pm
SEE, FEEL, SMELL AND TOUCH:
MAKE YOUR OWN PAPER!
Helen Porter of Porters Paper (Artistic Creation and Facilitation)
Sourcing from Helen’s great array of paper ingredients or even some you might have brought, you will be guided through a simple and extremely fun process of making you very own paper, very special to see, feel, smell and touch.

​​All workshops and performances are free but we warmly welcome donations.

SATURDAY
​

Saturday, 2-5pm
BABEL IN BLOOM
Katja Rosenberg/Art Catcher (Concept)
Farah Ishaq and George Petsikopoulos (Artistic Creation and Facilitation)
The creative flower making activity to turn St Augustine’s into a tower in bloom from the week continues through the weekend.


Saturday, 2pm (20 min)
I CAN'T FIND MYSELF
Beatrice Allegranti (Choreography), Jill Halstead (Composition), Rami Bartholdi (Cinematography)
This screendance presents multiple intensities, sensations, sounds, rhythms, movements, relations, politics and the chaos of dementia. One woman's powerful and evocative journey highlights the emotional, kinaesthetic and sonic world of memory, love and loss.
This film was supported by: Grieg Academy of Music, University of Bergen; Department of Psychology, University of Roehampton; Alzheimer’s Society UK. www.beatriceallegranti.com


Saturday 2.45pm (20 min)
I'VE LOST YOU ONLY TO DISCOVER THAT I HAVE GONE MISSING
Beatrice Allegranti in collaboration with the company dancers (Choreography)
​Jill Halstead (Original Soundscore)
Luke Birch, Sabrina Gargano, Takeshi Matsumoto, Aneta Zwierzyńska (Dance)
This short dance theatre work tackles social and medical taboos about love, loss and fractured intimacy. The work is developed from a collaboration with people living with young onset dementia, their loved ones and Beatrice Allegranti Dance Theatre.
The project is funded by the Arts Council England. Partners: Dementia Pathfinders UK; St Georges NHS; London Borough of Richmond Upon Thames Arts Service; University of Roehampton – Centre for Arts Therapies Research, Hornsey Arts Centre. www.beatriceallegranti.com


Saturday 3.30pm and 7pm (40 min)
INTER-SENSORY INSURGENCE 
Ajos Dance, Vanessa Downie (Choreography)
Ever felt trapped in the surreal surroundings of a dark, distant world where every single sound and sensation is magnified more than a million times?  What do you do when nothing in life is what it seems, sense is relative... and yet there's no one who seems to experience life.  In fact, to whomever you may disclose this, they'll likely say it isn't so! This duet is presented by Ajos Dance, a group that exists to make work for those who would not ordinarily access high quality dance.
Vanessa Downie is currently in residence at Space at Clarence Mews. Her work is autobiographical in nature, a mix of dance and physical theatre, drawing on training steeped in Laban philosophy. Vanessa is deeply interested in factors that affect the human experience and is drawn to text and literature as a way in to choreography. www.facebook.com/ajosdance


Saturday 4.30pm (25 min)
COUNCIL POP
Enterprise Solutions, Agnes Canário (Performance)
What does it mean to… – grow up surrounded by water / grow up landlocked / growing up where water access is limited, unsafe, denied? How does your body feel after a swim? How does it feel it is thrashed by the sea? When you float careless and loved in the warm Mediterranean? Is your tap water good enough?
Drawing from personal experiences, the science of water and its various cultural roles it plays in geopolitics and everyday life, 'Council Pop' is a portrait of the varying relationships we have to water. Started as a collaboration across disciplines, the piece takes its shape this weekend as a solo performance based on the material and spiritual aspects of water, as well how it positions us in the present-day city.
Agnes Canário is a dance artist based in London. Her work is collaborative and merges movement across disciplines, searching for tenderness and vulnerability in everyday matters, such as human relationships to money, clothing, borders, and water. [email protected]


Saturday 5.30pm (45 min)
DANCING TO MY SONG
Habib Fawaz, (Signed Performance)
​Carole Ayoub and Aline Keyrouz (Choreography and Dance)
Aimee Parnell (Accompanying Spoken Narration)
Lebanese performance artist Habib Fawaz will be sign reading his inspiring and touching accounts of coping as a deaf person in a hearing world, which will be simultaneously read out to the audience by a hearing person. To transport the meaning of Habib’s stories further, the chapters will be echoed by short dances to the silent movements of the tower clock pendulum by deaf dancers Carole Ayoub and Aline Keyrouz.
Albeit from non-professional dance backgrounds, Habib, Carole and Aline have made an name for themselves in Lebanese papers and television with their impressive and touching dance performance Entre-Chaînes, collaboratively developed and choreographed under the lead of deaf contemporary dance artist Pierre Geagea. www.facebook.com/MUSIC-for-the-DEAF-1301784509846293


Saturday 8pm (40 min)
HISTORY IN BLOOM
Deb Scott-Lovric and David Burgh of East End Speed Histories (Performance)
Be transported back to the days when the grounds of Hackney Town Hall were home to three majestic and important greenhouses. East End Speed Histories will take your hand and guide you to that dimension where you can enter a time warp and be surrounded by blooming history.
​

Saturday 11pm (40 min)
LISTENING BODIES & MYSTICAL CREATURES
Natalie Sloth Richter (Concept and Choreography)
Listening Bodies & Mystical Measures is a durational improvisation rooted in the idea of the preverbal, physical negotiation between moving bodies and a moving world.
The audience is guided into an immersive and dreamy universe with movement as the primary language to sense and understand each other and the space we inhabit. The audience is gently invited to take part and experience the sensory investigation from within, from around and in close proximity to the dancers, encouraging a change of perspectives and to sense and perceive with fully listening bodies.
Natalie Sloth Richter is a Danish dance artist and choreographer based in London. After graduating from Trinity Laban in 2015, she went on to co-found Open Roof Collective, through which she creates and produces her own choreographic work. www.openroof.co.uk

​​​All workshops and performances are free but we warmly welcome donations.

SUNDAY
​

Sunday appearances at various times
HISTORY IN BLOOM
Deb Scott-Lovric and David Burgh of East End Speed Histories (Performance)
Sunday appearances at various times
Be transported back to the days when the grounds of Hackney Town Hall were home to three majestic and important greenhouses. East End Speed Histories will take your hand and guide you to that dimension where you can enter a time warp and be surrounded by blooming history.
​

Sunday, 11am (1 hour)
SENSING SELF
Luna Menta (Readings of Own Poetry and Prose)
Performed accounts of an uncompromised walk through the human experience.
The books 'The Book of the Failed Jumper' and 'The Rise After the Fall' by deaf author and poet Luna Menta (Richard D France) tell inspiring accounts of realigning after reaching a critical point between life and death.
[email protected]


Sunday, 2-5pm
BABEL IN BLOOM
Katja Rosenberg/Art Catcher (Concept)
Farah Ishaq and George Petsikopoulos (Artistic Creation and Facilitation)
The creative flower making activity to turn St Augustine’s into a tower in bloom from the week continues through the weekend.


Sunday, 2pm (1 hour approx)
SOUND BUBBLES BATH
Mystery School of Sound and Luke Burnsright (Ambient Music Bath)
The Mystery School of Sound and singer songwriter Luke Burnsright will be joining their creative forces to bring to you a performance of electronic ambient music, sympathetic to the oldest building in Hackney. Their music will invite you to enter an auditory landscape of dreamlike vistas... to relax your senses by visiting those rooms you never thought existed.
The Mystery School of Sound creates sound journeys that allow you to travel through your own inner landscape, relax, destress and self heal. www.facebook.com/pg/themysteryschoolofsound
Singer songwriter Luke Burnsright looks to inspire letting go of the old in order to enter new, objective observation of chaotic patterns that turn the soil upside down and prepare it for new growth. www.lukeburnsright.com


Sunday 4pm (25 min)
COUNCIL POP
Enterprise Solutions, Agnes Canário (Performance)
What does it mean to… – grow up surrounded by water / grow up landlocked / growing up where water access is limited, unsafe, denied? How does your body feel after a swim? How does it feel it is thrashed by the sea? When you float careless and loved in the warm Mediterranean? Is your tap water good enough?
Drawing from personal experiences, the science of water and its various cultural roles it plays in geopolitics and everyday life, 'Council Pop' is a portrait of the varying relationships we have to water. Started as a collaboration across disciplines, the piece takes its shape this weekend as a solo performance based on the material and spiritual aspects of water, as well how it positions us in the present-day city.
Agnes Canário is a dance artist based in London. Her work is collaborative and merges movement across disciplines, searching for tenderness and vulnerability in everyday matters, such as human relationships to money, clothing, borders, and water. [email protected]


Sunday 5pm (45 min)
DANCING TO MY SONG
Habib Fawaz, (Signed Performance), Carole Ayoub and Aline Keyrouz (Choreography and Dance)
Aimee Parnell (Accompanying Spoken Narration)
Lebanese performance artist Habib Fawaz will be sign reading his inspiring and touching accounts of coping as a deaf person in a hearing world, which will be simultaneously read out to the audience by a hearing person. To transport the meaning of Habib’s stories further, the chapters will be echoed by short dances to the silent movements of the tower clock pendulum by deaf dancers Carole Ayoub and Aline Keyrouz.
Albeit from non-professional dance backgrounds, Habib, Carole and Aline have made an name for themselves in Lebanese papers and television with their impressive and touching dance performance Entre-Chaînes, collaboratively developed and choreographed under the lead of deaf contemporary dance artist Pierre Geagea.
www.facebook.com/MUSIC-for-the-DEAF-1301784509846293

​​All workshops and performances are free but we warmly welcome donations.

Sunday 6-8.30pm
TOGETHER IN PERFECT HARMONY:
THE GRAND FINALE
Open Invitation by Art Catcher
The weekend will draw to a close with people of all ages meeting and uniting through musical improvisation on the beautiful rooftop of St Augustine’s (or one floor down in the very unlikely case that it rains). Bring an instrument (or your own voice!) or just come to be present and witness. We would love to see instruments from many cultures around the globe. Please arrive for 5pm or call 07799 411 587. Forty people max – please book early to avoid disappointment: [email protected]
Art Catcher Ltd, run by East London artist Katja Rosenberg, is a curatorial service creating group art projects about emotional and cultural identity. www.artcatcher.co.uk
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www.artcatcher.co.uk