The beginning
A year ago I decided I wanted to create a new piece of verbatim theatre that would profile the stories of asylum seekers and refugees living in Glasgow.
When I was seven years old my dad set up a charity, aLERT, that brought several hundred refugees from the conflict in the Balkans to the UK. Leeds City Council gave the charity permission to renovate an old boarding school and use it as temporary accommodation for fifty refugees arriving in the city.
Childhood memories
For the first four months of their new lives in Britain, my Dad, Mum, brother and me lived in the boarding school with them. These were four of the happiest months of my childhood. I saw it as living in a giant house with dozens of siblings to play with and many parents to look after me. There were swings in my back garden and I learnt to ride a bike.
Courage and compassion in the face of adversity
Looking back with a greater understanding of what these people experienced when fleeing their homeland was more than my seven-year old self could muster. I am still astounded by the generosity and love that was offered to me by people who had left almost everything they had in their home countries and had endured situations that I cannot even imagine. The courage and compassion of this temporary family of mine, some of whom I’m still lucky enough to know, is repeated day-after-day by people arriving in the UK and I wanted to hear their stories.
Real stories worth hearing
So a year ago, when I decided to focus my theatre making on documenting the lives of real people, I began my search for asylum seekers and refugees living in Glasgow who wanted their stories to be heard. Vox Asylum is the end result of that search and will tell the stories of three members of Maryhill Integration Network at the Tron Theatre on 24 June.
Discovering Maryhill Integration Network
My search to find asylum seekers and refugees living in Glasgow who wanted to tell their stories very quickly led me to Maryhill Integration Network (MIN), an organisation that holds a variety of art groups, English classes and advice sessions to support asylum seekers and refugees and to encourage collaboration between them, other migrants and native Scottish and British people. I joined their dance group, interviewed several members and performed a work-in-progress of Vox Asylum last June.
A year later, I love the dance group so much I am still a member, regularly rehearsing and performing with them – my Glasgow family. It is a supportive, engaging, energetic group of people including many asylum seekers and refugees who have turned their stories of fear and oppression into stories of hope.
Finishing touches – new beginnings
This year, the stories of a few members of MIN will be told at the Tron in Vox Asylum as part of Refugee Week Scotland. Last week, the final draft of Vox Asylum was completed. The play includes interviews, conversations and writing by past and present members of MIN’s groups. The performance will also use movement and dance to tell the stories of two refugees, from Kosovo and Iran, and one asylum seeker, from Somalia. Through simply telling the real-life stories of three individuals who have sought asylum in Scotland, the show is a celebration of the extraordinary courage and determination shown by people we walk past in the street day-after-day.
The script is complete, casting is underway – next stop rehearsals!
