Monday 6th March
Mental Fight Club and St Johns Church invite you to join us for a special day of free arts activities at St Johns Church in Waterloo.
We are lucky enough to be joined by Strangeface Theatre Company who will be leading us through a day of performance, puppetry workshop and a special Q&A. As well as some Dragon Café favourites throughout the day!
The event day is free and all are welcome to join us. The Full address is below.
Full Timetable:
12pm: Doors open
12pm: Come in grab and drink, bite to eat and a chat!
1pm – 2pm: Danceworks
A mixed bag of modern and historical dance is welcoming Dragons this coming Monday at St Johns Church. We look forward to celebrating friendship and connection once more in great company!
2pm – 3:30pm: Strangeface begin rolling performances of “Beached”.
This short piece of immersive puppetry tells the tale of Arnold, who wants nothing more than a peaceful day on the beach… However, the outside world makes things difficult for him and the desired rest soon turns into a monstrous adventure under water.
Award-winning and internationally renowned Strangeface Theatre Company is committed to providing their audience an intimate and unique theatrical experience: using headphones, the performances’ humour is enhanced by the actors’ delightful style, the imaginative world of the puppets and scenography, and the familiar sound effects of cartoon classics.
Each performance lasts 15 minutes and seats 10 audience members per showing.
2:15pm – 3:15pm: The Singing Group
The Dragon Café Singing group will be meeting for a live session on Monday, where we will be raising our voices together in song as we come together. Come along and join in, everyone is welcome.
3.30pm - Strangeface Puppetry Workshop
You are invited to join the puppeteers of Strangeface for this unmissable Puppetry workshop. This hands-on workshop will be explore developing puppet techniques, how we give them life and improvisation. We will work with large scale Bunraku style puppets as well as those used in the show “Beached”. This workshop is ideal if you have never used a puppet before or if you want to further develop your puppetry technique.
5.30 pm – Strangeface Q&A
Strangeface's Artistic Director will join with Mental Fight Club’s Neil Coles to discuss the neuroscience of puppetry, and how puppetry can be used as a safe means of expression when exploring topics such as trauma and grief.
Russell Dean is artistic director of Strangeface Theatre Company. He is a writer and maker with a particular interest in cognition and what masks and puppets reveal about the way we perceive the world. He has made masks and puppets for Trestle, Geese, Vamos, ITV, Channel 4, and is responsible for the large Mrs Thatcher puppet in Stephen Daldry’s Billy Elliot. After touring nationally and internationally with Strangeface, his recent work has focused on using puppets in workshops with vulnerable adults, families with children in hospices and fathers in prison.
The link to tickets for some parts of the day is below!
Full Address: St John's Waterloo, 73 Waterloo Road, London SE1 8TY
St Johns Church is a 4 minute walk from Waterloo Station.
BY TUBE
The nearest underground stations are Waterloo, accessible via Bakerloo line, Jubilee Line, Northen Line, Waterloo and City Line. This station is a 5 minute walk from St Johns Church.
BY TRAIN
St John’s Church is 5 minutes' walk from Waterloo train station.
BY BUS
The following bus routes stop near St John’s Church: 26, 76, 172, 341, 521, 139, 176, 234. There are also many other close bus stops.
We hope you can all join us for this very exciting day!
