Inspired by the Japanese Goze; female musicians who would travel around medieval Japan to tell their stories to make a living, both Yellow Earth and Extant Theatre have teamed up to create a multi-disciplinary piece exploring what it means to navigate a world being a visually impaired performer. Flight Paths will witness two female performers take centre-stage as they perform a mixture of verbatim interviews and aerial sequences choreographed by Upswing’s Vicki Amedume. Ahead of their first few shows at the Harlow Playhouse Theatre and Stratford Circus, both Artistic Directors Kumiko Mendl and Maria Oshodi spoke to us about the creation of the show.

Starting life as a 5 minute play, Daniel York’s Forgotten has been many years in the making. A response to the lack of acknowledgement given to the tremendous effort aiding Britain’s and the Allies’ WWI victory, Forgotten places at the forefront the 140,000 Chinese labourers who sacrificed their lives in the hopes of escaping their current regime. The title, Forgotten speaks of many who have disgracefully been written out of the history books, a common thread often witnessed within significant Western texts. A much needed historical lesson, the production looks to highlight an alternative perspective of an event we are so often used to being presented in a particular manner. November 2018 marks the centenary of the war’s ending, making this a very timely piece. Daniel tells us more about the show’s creation and what to expect! 

Yellow Earth are a theatre company renowned for their championing of diverse voices from the East Asian community. In their 22nd year, they continue to blaze the trail, broadening the range of characters represented on stage. Having worked with original Yellow Earth founding member Kumiko Mendl to develop her piece, ‘Zen’, Joyce Lee discusses how she’s crafted the show, the importance of speaking out about mental health and whether there are enough strong female protagonists represented on stage…

Yellow Earth Theatre was formed in 1995 by five British East Asian* (BEA) actors; Kwong Loke, Kumiko Mendl, Veronica Needa, David KS Tse and Tom Wu.The company sought to develop work that would widen the choice and type of roles being offered to BEA actors at that time and to create work that brought together our physical skills and western drama school training that explored our own cultural heritage.