About Them Next Door
A block of flats in a city. Today. Two neighbours cross in silence in the stairwell.
They both know who the other is, but they do not know who they are: the boy finds it hard to feel at home; the man doesn’t recognise where he grew up anymore. It's cold.
Inside his flat, the man knows the boy should be in school. Outside in the corridor, the boy sits slumped on the floor, locked out.
The clock on the wall ticks. Time passes. The man gets up from his chair and opens his door...
The atomisation of human relationships is familiar to all of us in communities everywhere. Increasingly we are separated by our difference, class, race, gender, sexual orientation, age etc., rather than brought together by our similarities. Its disorientating. This makes us increasingly susceptible to divisive narratives and discourse - anger, resentment and distrust, often underpins the excessive chatter or profound silence that accompanies it.
Them Next Door, based on a new play by Chris Cooper, is a project committed to bringing people together. A two-hour interactive experience will be part performance and part participation facilitated by Blindspot members with the audience, for teenagers and adults, exploring alienation, identity, isolation and the need to talk and listen.
Them Next Door is a participatory theatre experience exploring contemporary social themes.
Audiences are advised that the production includes:
• Participatory elements
The experience is interactive, with facilitated discussion and group activities involving audience members. Participation is encouraged but not compulsory, Facilitators will guide participants throughout. No specialist clothing or prior theatre experience is required.
• Exploration of identity and displacement
Content engages with identity, migration, diaspora experience and the emotional impact of cultural and social change.
• Themes of alienation and isolation
The piece explores emotional and social isolation, feelings of not belonging and community disconnection.
• References to young people in vulnerable situations
Includes depictions of a young person excluded from school and locked out of a home environment.
• Use of breakable props
Plates are broken as part of the performance, managed safely within the set design.
• Discussions of social division
The work addresses class, race, age, gender, and cultural difference, and how these factors can contribute to separation, mistrust, and silence within communities.
About
The Diaspora Project
Them Next Door is part of a broader initiative, The Diaspora Project designed to build community sharing their lived experience as newcomers to the UK, supporting the development of Chinese diaspora theatre in Manchester and the Chinese community in other cities in the North of England.
Blindspot
Blindspot is a new theatre and drama initiative, founded by CaoXi, Chris Cooper and Ceri Townsend, committed to creating theatre and drama that addresses the things that society does not, or chooses not, to see.
JianXue
JianXue (See & Learn) is a project-based Beijing NGO that has been developing training, theatre, drama and research programmes throughout China since 2017.
Accident Time Productions
Accident Time Productions, formed in 2008, has worked mostly internationally on drama projects and theatre productions that develop long term collaborations.
Blindspot Team
Cao Xi
Cao Xi is an internationally experienced theatre-maker, writer, director, facilitator & producer. His theatre work has been presented in Beijing, Hangzhou, Shenzhen and Macao. He is the Creative Director of Drama Rainbow, and Executive Director of Jian Xue, He established the Facing the Gap Youth Theatre, a radical youth ensemble that has created six original productions combining contemporary dramaturgy, social imagination & participatory practice. More recently, he has been awarded a Clore Fellowship in the UK, recognising his leadership potential and artistic contribution, and is here in the UK to build new models of participatory theatre based at the Contact Theatre, Manchester.
Chris Cooper
Chris Cooper is an international theatre and drama educator with 38 years’ experience as actor, director, writer, facilitator and trainer. He was the Artistic Director of Big Brum TiE Company, Birmingham, 1999-2015. In 2008 he formed his own company, Accident Time Productions to develop his work internationally. Since 2009 he has been collaborating with Drama Rainbow Education Company, Beijing. He became the International Director of Jian Xue in 2017. He is author of 69 plays for children and young people and community audiences. A frequent visitor to Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou & Hong Kong, Chris conducts workshops on theatre and drama for actors, teachers and young people
Ceri Townsend
Ceri Townsend is an international theatre educator with 30 years’ experience: a designer, director, writer, facilitator, producer and teacher. Ceri underpins all her work with participatory theatre and drama methodology. In 2014 she founded The GAP Arts Project, a youth-led arts organisation and Birmingham’s only dedicated arts space for young people. The GAP works for and with some of Birmingham’s most marginalised and vulnerable young people, especially asylum seekers, refugees & young people from diaspora communities.
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Dates & times
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