J'AIME OCTOBER 2019
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F E AT U R E<br />
Wellbeing through the arts<br />
WITH WORLD MENTAL HEALTH DAY ON <strong>OCTOBER</strong> 10, BIRMINGHAM’S BEDLAM FESTIVAL<br />
OFFERS A THOUGHT-PROVOKING PROGRAMME OF PERFORMANCES WHICH LOOK AT MENTAL<br />
HEALTH AND WELLBEING THROUGH THE ARTS. AMY NORBURY DISCOVERS MORE<br />
It is estimated that one<br />
in four people in the<br />
UK experience a mental<br />
health problem each year,<br />
and as many as one in<br />
six people in England<br />
suffer from a common<br />
mental health issue such<br />
as anxiety or depression<br />
every week.<br />
That adds up to a<br />
staggering amount of the<br />
population who are, or<br />
have been, affected by<br />
mental ill health. Chances<br />
are that you, or someone<br />
you know, have suffered -<br />
or are suffering right now.<br />
THE THING WILL HAVE<br />
ITS WORLD PREMIERE AT<br />
BEDLAM<br />
Yet mental ill health is still so often seen as a taboo<br />
subject. Something to be ashamed of. Something we<br />
just don’t talk about.<br />
Birmingham’s BEDLAM Arts and Mental Health<br />
Festival aims to change that perception.<br />
Taking place throughout the city from October 1 to<br />
12, BEDLAM will present more than 25 events in a<br />
range of venues to raise awareness of mental health<br />
and wellbeing through the importance of the arts.<br />
Welcoming artists from across the UK to the Second<br />
City, as well as plenty of home-grown talent,<br />
BEDLAM will showcase an exciting and engaging<br />
programme of theatre performances, dance,<br />
movement workshops, art installations, wellbeing<br />
walks, film screenings, family events, Q&A sessions<br />
and a special BEDLAM Symposium.<br />
Performances and exhibitions will take place at<br />
Birmingham Repertory Theatre, as well as at<br />
partner venue the Midlands Arts Centre (MAC),<br />
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and various<br />
community centres around the city. Performance<br />
partners include Sampad South Asian arts and<br />
heritage and, new for <strong>2019</strong>, Geese Theatre<br />
Company, who use theatre and drama-based<br />
techniques within criminal justice and social welfare<br />
settings, delivering projects that support the process<br />
of positive change.<br />
Opening the festival is London-born Koko Brown,<br />
who brings her play White to MAC for the first time<br />
blending music and spoken word. Further highlights<br />
include No Bond So Strong, a new commission by<br />
Sampad which is a life-affirming production about<br />
motherhood and holding family together, while<br />
Geese Theatre Company present Playing the Game,<br />
featuring a cast of four who take audiences on a<br />
journey through a century of maternal incarceration.<br />
BEDLAM launched eight years ago as a partnership<br />
between Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health<br />
NHS Foundation Trust and the Birmingham<br />
Repertory Theatre, following discussions between the<br />
NHS Trust and the REP’s associate director Steve<br />
Ball about the ways in which the arts can support<br />
mental health and wellbeing. The festival has run<br />
biennially since.<br />
“This is something which, over the past four years<br />
especially, has become much more prominent and<br />
the profile of which has been very much raised in<br />
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