News Story
A digital panel discussion will accompany Hannah Lavery’s artwork Thirteen Fragments, a co-production between National Theatre of Scotland and The Royal Society of Edinburgh, premiering online on 9 August 2021.
Thirteen Fragments is a new short digital artwork featuring spoken word and movement, created by award-winning writer and performer Hannah Lavery collaborating with composer Beldina Odenyo, choreographer, performer Natali McCleary and filmmaker Beth Chalmers. The piece has been commissioned as part of the RSE Post Covid-19 Futures Commission and explores female resilience during the pandemic.
The digital panel discussion event involves Hannah Lavery in conversation with Fellows of the RSE, Talat Yaqoob FRSE (consultant and researcher on women’s equality and race equality) and Zinnie Harris FRSE (playwright, screenwriter and director). Their discussion, which takes the film as a starting point, focuses on some of the themes that the work highlights including the impact of Covid on women and wider society and the role that art and creativity play in the pandemic.
Thirteen Fragments is an artistic response to the RSE’s Covid Commission which addresses how Scotland can emerge from the Covid pandemic as a more equitable society and is rooted in lead artist Hannah Lavery’s experience of the last year as a woman of colour. Research on the piece is informed by RSE Fellows. The artwork and the discussion are presented together online during the RSE’s summer events programme Curious from 9- 27 August.
Thirteen Fragments is a spoken word dance piece where bursts of poetry sit within an original soundscape alongside shards of song and of movement. The coming together of Beldina Odenyo’s music, Natali McCleary’s movement and Hannah’s words sees the poetry take shape and given physical life, reflecting individual responses of the artists. Intimately filmed by Beth Chalmers, the piece explores the meaning of female resilience in Scotland today and aspirations for the future. Thirteen Fragments of anger, of love, of death, of exhaustion and of hope.
Thirteen Fragments and the digital discussion premiere online on 9 August 2021 at 7.30pm. The event is free and ticketed. Following the premiere, Thirteen Fragments and the discussion will be freely available to view on the RSE’s Curious and National Theatre of Scotland’s websites.
