Stories Old And New: A Project In Many Languages
Straeon Hên a Newydd: Prosiect Mewn Sawl Iaith
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Stories Old and New is an attempt to create engaging, thoughtful, and impactful stories for children of 3-6 years, with a focus on ensuring they reach as many children as possible. A project by Sarah Argent, Kevin Lewis, and ThinkArts – with support from Wales Arts International, Arts Council of Wales, British Council Wales – the project celebrates the Year of Wales in India 2024 inspired by the rich history of oral storytelling and folklore from both countries.
The team (Sarah Argent, Kevin Lewis, and ThinkArts) worked together to understand what shape the project could take – which was to be a multilingual project celebrating storytelling and theatre for early years. The project became an experimental space for the artists to engage with and understand who they make theatre for, how they make theatre, and why.
From November 2024 to January 2025, the selected group of 4 artists–Priyanka Chatterjee, Jonny Cotsen, Shweta Singh and Kavya Srinivasan–Welsh and Indian, joined the team with the initial idea of the project being planned around live, theatrical performances from each of them. These pieces would be their own personal, brand-new twists on well-known Welsh fairytales.
Due to this, the artists were asked to record the pieces they worked on developing under Sarah Argent and Kevin Lewis as videos. The artists were encouraged, however, to develop their pieces in a way that could work as an in-person performance as well. To ensure this, the artists were encouraged to run live trials of their pieces with groups of children in the target age group before recording the final video.
The project unfolded in three main phases:
From November 2024 to January 2025, the selected group of 4 artists–Priyanka Chatterjee, Jonny Cotsen, Shweta Singh and Kavya Srinivasan–Welsh and Indian, joined the team with the initial idea of the project being planned around live, theatrical performances from each of them. These pieces would be their own personal, brand-new twists on well-known Welsh fairytales.
Due to this, the artists were asked to record the pieces they worked on developing under Sarah Argent and Kevin Lewis as videos. The artists were encouraged, however, to develop their pieces in a way that could work as an in-person performance as well. To ensure this, the artists were encouraged to run live trials of their pieces with groups of children in the target age group before recording the final video.
The project unfolded in three main phases:
- November 2024 - December 2024 : Group workshops led by Sarah Argent, Kevin Lewis and other experts in order to analyse various core concepts of the project such at utilising the digital medium and practical applications of DEI principles in theatre.
- December 2024 - January 2025 : Individual sessions for the artists with Sarah Argent and Kevin Lewis to further develop their pieces.
- January 2025 : Final round of group sessions for the artists for feedback and peer review. Our Visual Lead, Pavel, began working on animating the videos.
STORYTELLERS
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Jonny Cotsen is a former Art teacher turned performance artist, director, and creative consultant advocating for better access to the arts. A passionate public speaker, he has been involved in projects like Louder Is Not Always Clearer, with its short film adaptation supported by BBC Arts. Jonny’s BBC documentary Born Deaf, Raised Hearing explores his relationship with deafness. He also directed and led Hear We Are, focusing on Deaf voices in Wales' creative sector. Jonny authored the children's book Gwion’s World and serves as an Agent for Change at Craidd, a trustee for Theatre Iol, and Co-Artistic Director with Papertrail.
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Kavya Srinivasan is an actor, playwright and educator from Bangalore, India. She believes the transformative power of art in building and nurturing communities. She loves working with young people using stories to talk about real feelings.
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Priyanka Chatterjee also known as 'Golpodidi' ('Story Lady' in Bengali), is a Rex Karmaveer Chakra Awardee Storyteller, FactorDaily Fellow, Design Thinker, Applied Theatre Faculty, Education Consultant, Teacher Trainer, and Cultural Ambassador. An engineer, MBA Gold Medalist, and alumna of the International Institute of Storytelling, Emerson College, England, she brings 20+ years of experience in storytelling across Fortune 500 companies, leading Indian media houses, and not-for-profits. Priyanka is also the artistic director of Arts4Change International and the director of Storytelling Education and Arts India Council (SEAIC).
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Shweta Singh is a performer, theatre maker, storyteller and facilitator working exclusively with young learners.
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TEAM
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Sarah Argent is an award-winning theatre-maker - director, writer, dramaturg, lecturer, mentor - based in Wales. She specialises in theatre for the very young (from babies up to 7 year olds) and has created work for acclaimed theatre companies across the UK, Ireland and beyond including Unicorn & Polka Theatres, the National Theatre, and City of London Sinfonia in London; Theatr Iolo, Welsh National Opera and Theatr Clwyd in Wales; Barnstorm Theatre in Ireland; Companyia Frec a Frec in Catalonia, and the Haya Cultural Centre in Amman, Jordan. This work has toured widely across many continents.
She regularly collaborates with Kevin Lewis, particularly on theatre for babies. Together they have worked with ThinkArts on a number of projects since 2016: touring theatre for babies in Kolkata, running in person and online workshops on early years’ theatre, developing theatre pieces for babies with 3 Indian artists, developing a stage adaptation of Deepa Balsaver’s ‘The Lonely King and Queen’ in which Kevin performed alongside two Bengali-speaking actors. Sarah is delighted to, once again, be working with ThinkArts and Indian artists on this exciting storytelling project. |
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Kevin Lewis is a theatre director and performer with over 40 years experience of working in Theatre for Young Audiences. From 1991 -2018 he was Artistic Director of Theatr Iolo, a children’s theatre company based in Cardiff, Wales where he directed over 50 productions. He has performed in several shows for babies directed by Sarah Argent. He is delighted to be working with Think Arts again and is inspired by all the artists working on the Stories Old and New Project.
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Pavel Paul is a Kolkata-based arts practitioner focusing on digital art, animation, films, publications, and theatre. He is strongly interested in working with and for children - their ways of thinking always inspire his art. Pavel also enjoys sharing his knowledge through workshops, sessions, and classes, finding inspiration in these interactions.
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Antara Dasgupta can be found with her nose in a book when she is not playing the guitar! A classical guitarist, she grew up surrounded by the arts - now, she wants to create the same magic for the children she meets. Antara is delighted to have helped with research, development, and outreach and captioning support for the project.
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Prachi Singh believes in the power of stories, which to her delight she finds reflected in her work and in young people. She thinks libraries are the most magical places, and believes everything can be read. She wants to read the world. Prachi is delighted to have helped with research, development, outreach, and captioning support for the project.
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Ishan Sarkar graduated with his Bachelor's in English Literature and Creative Writing from Cardiff University. He was a part of the Thinkarts’ “Stories Old and New” as the Project Coordinator, and is currently based out of Kolkata as an aspiring writer.
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