Catastrophe Tales

A new broadcast made by students in Year 13 from King Edward VII School, inspired by ideas connected to Dead Cat Bounce: a performance and exhibition by Gary Zhexi Zhang and Waste Paper Opera (Klara Kofen and James Oldham). The project was a satellite element of Dead Cat Bounce and was a collaboration between Arts Catalyst, Yorkshire-based theatre and arts company Chol and experimental theatre collective Waste Paper Opera. 

How do you create a world from sound, text and voices? How do you talk about catastrophe? How do you communicate it?

Through this project students explored feelings connected to the environment and catastrophe and imagined new worlds, characters and realities that they brought to life through text, sound and voice. 

Sessions included games, experimental script writing exercises, singing, performing, drawing, foley sound-making and recording, as well as learning about abstract scores, composition and dramaturgical structures. 

Catastrophe Tales was produced through a series of workshops held at Soft Ground and King Edward VII School led by Klara Kofen, James Oldham and Carly Clarke. 

Performed and created by students at King Edward School: Anika Stephens, Aoife Murphy, Daniel Macreath, Dennis Husac, Esme Lumb, Holly Charlesworth, Katie Loftus, Maisie Brook, Matilda Stiegler, May Rose-Key, Olive Miller, Tomas Roa Arenas, Violet Hetherington, William Bridge

Mixed by James Oldham and mastered by Kitty Turner 
Special thanks to Mr. Stephen Carley (Art Teacher) at King Edward VII School

This project is part of Arts Catalyst’s ongoing engagement with young people in Sheffield and South Yorkshire, where we give space to young people to share ideas, create and play around themes of environment and social action. 

About the Collaborators

Chol Theatre and Arts are a socially conscious theatre company and registered charity based in Yorkshire since its founding in 1989. Chol work with children and young people from early years to early career across Yorkshire and the North, prioritising work in Kirklees, Barnsley and Sheffield. Their approach is entirely collaborative, working in everyday community and educational settings to co-create stories that are rooted in communities and local heritage. 

Waste Paper Opera (Klara Kofen and James Oldham) is a collective working between sound, music, performance and film. WPO was founded in Birmingham in 2012 and is run by dramaturg, writer and researcher Klara Kofen and composer, and performer James Oldham. Their work explores ecological, musical, historical, financial and cosmic temporalities through experiments in form, dramaturgy and multimodal worldbuilding.