Building an idea
Its home may be a building site, but Glasgow's Citz has still found ways to stay relevant to the community that it serves
JAZZ
Omar Sosa: An East African Journey
OTA Records
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Constantly exploring his Afro-cuban musical roots, pianist Omar Sosa embarked on a deeply personal pilgrimage through East Africa with his Afreecanos Trio, linking up with musicians in Sudan, Ethiopia, Mauritius, and elsewhere. The result is an intriguing compendium of songs, sounds and often irresistible rhythms, Sosa adding judiciously empathetic piano in the studio with percussionist and co-producer Steve Argüelles and multi-instrumentalist Christophe Minck. Collaborators include the Malagasy singer and musician Rajery, whose bamboo zither, the valiha, releases harp-like cascades of notes to glitter against Sosa’s warmer-toned playing, generating a riverine energy that informs the album. In Kenya, Sosa meets Olith Ratego who sings lustily over the plucking of his eightstringed lyre, while a lyrical piano instrumental, Eirababa, is inspired by Sudan’s Dafaalla Elhag Ali.
When the Citizens’ Theatre in Glasgow closed its doors for a massive £20 million refurbishment, in the summer of 2018, the company seemed set fair for a two-year stay at the Tramway – where it would stage major productions during its exile from Gorbals Street – and a possible return to its transformed home in time for Christmas 2020.
As with many modern theatre redevelopments, the plan for the Citizens’ is to leave its much-loved and world-famous 1878 auditorium intact, while wrapping it round with a range of gleaming new foyer areas, a much larger cafe and bar, a new studio theatre, and a new dedicated space for the Citizens’ learning department; and perhaps predictably, the time-scale for the building work slipped a little, as the company produced spectacular Tramway shows including Edwin Morgan’s Cyrano de Bergerac in 2018, and Zinnie Harris’s version of The Duchess Of Malfi in 2019. No-one, though, could have predicted the events of 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic forced not only a complete shutdown of live theatre, but also a three-month pause in construction work, followed by a return under coronavirus regulations which tend to slow the rate of progress.
“It been a very strange year,” says Citizens’ artistic director Dominic Hill, “and obviously, like everyone else in theatre, we’ve just had to plan, and then plan again. But considering all the pressures, the redevelopment is going pretty smoothly. We’re hoping the theatre will be handed back to us next spring, for a possible reopening in late summer 2022.”
Meanwhile, though, many Citizens’ staff have been working hard on maintaining company’s close bonds with its audience, and with the community around the theatre. There have been two high-profile film projects, involving a screen version of Fibres – Frances Poet’s powerful play about the legacy of working with asbestos for working-class families across the west of Scotland – and a new film, set for release in May, will be based on the company’s intense one-hour version of Macbeth, The Macbeths, first staged in 2017.
Apart from those projects, though, most of the company’s lockdown activity has been focused on its learning department, which was led by director Guy Hollands until he left the Citizens’ a year ago, and has just appointed a new head of learning in Catrin Evans. A glance at the Take Part section of the Citizens’ website reveals an impressive range of learning activities, from the theatre’s WAC Ensemble for care experienced young people – currently meeting mainly online – to Through My Window, a remarkable lockdown project focused on women suffering homelessness, isolation and poverty.
“When lockdown first hit,” says Citizens’ Community Artist Elly Goodman, whose past work has included projectsinbarlinnieprison and with refugee communities in the Gorbals, “I think we realised immediately that while we could move some of our work online, we had to be sensitive to what that could mean for some people suffering from isolation. So right from the start, our community drama worker Carly Mccaig and I have been going out and about, visiting people through their doors or windows – we just decided we weren’t going to let the pandemic stop us making contact with people who might be feeling digitally excluded, or just exhausted.
“The team developed small performances to take to people on their doorsteps, including a doorstep disco, and then our Community Collective started what they call the Doorstep Challenge, where in the middle of a Zoom session, our community drama director Neil Packham jumps in the car, goes to the doorstep of one of the participants, and challenges them to create a small performance right there – really, a doorway offers a great many dramatic possibilities, as a performance space.”
Citizens’ Learning also scored a coup recently when they were contacted by the actress and comedian Karen Dunbar, who asked if she could become involved with their work, and has been delivering hip-hop and rap workshop sessions for Community Collective members and some of the theatre’s young groups, with what Goodman feels are stunning creative results.
“Since Guy Hollands left last year,” says Dominic Hill, “I’ve been filling in by working more closely with the learning department than usual, and it has confirmed everything I’ve always known about the vital importance of this work. It does tend to be low profile, but you don’t do it so that it can be seen. You do it because theatres just won’t survive, in the long term, without being closely linked to the communities around them, and really understanding their needs and interests and concerns.”
And Goodman agrees. “You have to listen to your community. Usually, all the people who take part in our work have to come to us, but the pandemic has changed that. We’ve been listening to people in new ways, in a new setting; and even after the theatre reopens, I hope that will feed into and strengthen our work, in all kinds of exciting ways.”
“The team developed small performances to take to people on their doorsteps, including a doorstep disco”
Find out more about the Citizens’ Theatre’s learning department at www.citz.co.uk and the rebuilding at wearecitizens.citz.co.uk