Home is here, but it's also there

It is a couple of weeks since Stories of Hope and Home once again took to the stage at Birmingham REP theatre with their latest performance. We have done this enough times now that when, several weeks out, we have lots of ideas but no real form to the script, and when only a couple of weeks out, we still don't really know who the cast will be, I am more able to genuinely believe it'll all be alright, or more than alright, on the day. And as ever, of course, it was. 

For the past couple of years our starting point has been the theme given to us by the REP: after last year's "Love and Rebellion" I didn't think we could possibly be gifted such an appropriate theme again but as it turned out this year's theme "Home and Horizons" was also an excellent fit! Apart from that, we start, in about January, with an entirely blank canvas, with no preconceived ideas of structure or content. And then the conversations begin, the ideas emerge, and slowly but surely, something starts to take shape. It is a genuinely collaborative experience and a process I actively enjoy. The fact that each performance has been so very different in scope and style is testament to the many different people who have been involved in devising, writing and performing each piece: to who they are, individually and collectively, and to what they want to communicate.

One major difference this year from previous years was that we had all of the cast speaking live on stage, something we have never previously attempted. They were, or some at least were, palpably apprehensive, understandably so: but it worked, better even perhaps than they or I might have hoped.  The content was also quite different: while last year's piece focused exclusively on life in the UK asylum system, this year's also drew on the other places our participants call home, as we explored the shared experience of so many of the group of feeling partially at home in two (or more) places, but fully at home in neither. I told someone in advance that I thought it was also less overtly political than last year's piece, but after watching it, they questioned whether that was really true.   

For all the differences each year there are also significant similarities: each year I watch people support and encourage one another, achieving together something many of them didn't think they could do, each year I watch people grow in confidence and find their voice and new ways to express themselves, each year I watch an audience be educated and moved by the stories they hear, each year I watch people get a glimpse of just how amazing this group of people are, each year I am immensely proud of what this wonderful groups of people produce and perform. Above all, each year I watch people who are enjoying the process and having a whole lot of fun!   

"Home is Where we Belong" ended with the performers weaving together ribbons while reciting this poem, itself woven together from words and phrases from the group. It tries to capture much of what home means to them, what it feels like to always be stuck somewhere in the middle, as well as how, when our stories weave together, we can create something beautiful. 

Home is a meal and all those who share it,
Home is the flavours, home is the sounds,
Home is the joy, the dancing, the laughter
Home is the people by whom we've been found
Home is the love of all we call family
And the table we gather around

And home is there, but it's also here

A heart tossed and tugged and torn

And home is here but it's also there

A heart in two places at once

And home is this space in the middle

Where strangers can soon become friends

And home is this space in the middle

Where we each find a place to belong

Home is the cold I'll never get used to
And my skin warmed by African sun
Home is a language that sings in my ears
And one that still tangles my tongue
Home is a place of childhood nostalgia
The things that I've seen, the things that I've done

And home is there, but it's also here

A heart tossed and tugged and torn

And home is here but it's also there

A heart in two places at once

And home is this space in the middle

Where strangers can soon become friends

And home is this space in the middle

Where we each find a place to belong

Home is a place where all is familiar
But a place I was forced to flee
Home is a place that is still slightly strange
But a place where I feel safe and free
Home is traditions I've known forever
Home is where I can truly be me

And home is there, but it's also here

A heart tossed and tugged and torn

And home is here but it's also there

A heart in two places at once

And home is this space in the middle

Where strangers can soon become friends

And home is this space in the middle

Where we each find a place to belong