Author: Regina

Last Thursday we met at Regents Place at the D&D event ‘Let’s Find Ways To Elevate Lbtq+ Voices, So They Carry The Same Weight In Theatre As The Gay Cis-Male Voice’. It was an invitation from Amie Taylor, Editor-in-Chief at The LGBTQ Arts Review.

I called my session, Cesia, Grace, Sarah, Marie, Anabel and Ellie came to make a doll, we made 6 in total. It is incredible how much I love to run these workshops, seriously, I feel can do it forever.

Amongst our conversation we shared a delicate moment talking about family members that we love so much, how difficult it is to step back and let them go away, how much we miss them and the moments we shared in the past and how much we hope they will come back one day. It was wonderful to open up our hearts and share how painful this process can be no matter how much we understand about it. We also shared feeling male and female at the same time, how much it gives the person a special broader understanding about gender but how much the person still feels ashamed about it.

Some comments:

Everyone’s heart is different.

I’ve taken a soul and filled it with dreams on a lovely evening with very wise and astute company. 

I feel like I’m part of something very beautiful, rare and very human, and I am honoured. 

Thank you for seeing beauty where other people see trash. Thank you for seeing potential where other people see nothing. Thank you for taking my hopes, nightmares, feverdreams, flights of imagination, naps and nights awake and giving them a new life, spinning our dreams into the kind of art that will live on in the hearts and minds of everyone who comes into contact with it. And thank you most of all for letting me be included! It makes me so happy.

I feel peaceful – thank you for this evening.

Lovely meeting you Regina. Occasionally you meet someone who gives you the opportunity to look at life in a different way. Those moments are very rare, but this moment for me was one of them.

Thank you so much Sarah and Anabel for holding the space for us – first time Anabel lead the big circle introduction and it was brilliant, thank you!

We went yesterday to the D&D event ‘What can we all do about underrepresentation of working class actors in the arts?’ at Triton Square, London.

There were a only one group where all the conversations happened practically the whole evening.

We talked a lot about how working class actors feel discriminated against in castings – is it ‘casting’ a good word? How their education limit their exposure to the arts, how they struggle financially to support themselves in drama training and so on. Many ideas came out to help resolving all the issues.

Ben observed the power of the collective represented by the one only group.

I made 4 dolls which are now filled by the collective enthusiasm and courage to change what needs changing.

Thanks Ben and Anabel for holding the space for all of us.

Yesterday we went to the D&D event ‘How do we engage artists & Autism Spectrum Disorder in the room?’  in a gorgeous space of New Diorama Theatre, London.

When Lee introduced the event he talked about the giraffe. For some reason nobody talks about it for ages, there isn’t even a picture of it! Lee likes the giraffe, so do I. I am happy he reminds us about this beautiful animal and behaviour.

Jenny and Hannah came to my session, we made 4 dolls. We shared an unexpected emotional moment about Shakespeare, luckily we were prepared to be surprised!

This is the very first D&D event my daughter Gabi attended. She is doing an internship at the National Autism Society. She said the event was very insightful for her. So happy to have her at the event I love so much.

We ended up everybody in one only conversation group. Lee said that in 13 years it was the first time it happened.

I felt everybody were genuinely grateful with lots of hope in our closing circle.

Thank you Hannah and Jenny for our special moment together and thank you D&D for making essential conversations happen again.

We met last Friday in another great D&D event ‘Old Actors – How Can We Play Our Part?’ at the National Theatre Studios in London.

I called a session ‘Dreams and Hearts – is there age for them?’

Pernille, Paddy, Nikikay, Aladin, Simon and someone I don’t know the name came to the session. Most of us put dreams and hearts into the dolls and we meditated with them. We made 8 dolls in total. Thank you!

Some comments

‘Dreams and hearts have to do with life experience, not age in numbers. They can change or be fulfilled as time goes by (or stay the same)’

‘Heart is the root of everything. It’s what life is about – love’

We can play our part doing what our body, which is full of dreams and has a heart, asks us to do. I am going to keep making my dolls and I’ll dance again.

Lots of courage to all of us.