Jackdaw Theatre was formed in London in 2011 by Bethan Dear, Amy Clamp, Holly Seager and Ben Karakashian. Jackdaw would not be where it is today, if it were not for the input, energy, talent, passion and commitment, of it's four founding members. Bethan Dear is currently the Artistic Director of Jackdaw Theatre and is at present the only permanent human. Having moved back here to Mid-West Wales, just before the COVID pandemic hit, Bethan is in the process of dreaming up and imagining, how the Jackdaw team might be able to grow and evolve, going forwards.
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In the meantime, Jackdaw is an ever changing and constantly evolving collective of theatre makers, perfromers, activists, artists, and technicians, who are emplyed on a project by project basis. We work with children, members of the local community, with marginalised or vulnerable young people and adults, as well as with professional artists and creatives. Over the years, we have been lucky enough to receive funding from both the Arts Council Of Englad and the Arts Council Of Wales as well as support from a wide range of international artists, organisations and aslo venues.
We seek to employ new artists for each project that we run, create, produce, or co-produce. We are interested in forming new relationships with artists and venues, as well as nurturing all of our existing, long standing, creative partnerships and collaborations. We believe in creating change.
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Jackdaw is the birth child of a mission, passion and desire;
...To use the sharing of stories and human connection, as a way to help us all, to heal, share, come together, be creative, and generate waves of change and understanding. Jackdaw believes that stories can help us all, to make better sense of, survive and hopefully thrive in this complex culture, and world, that we all find ourselves, doing our best, to live in....
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The power of stories is vast and infinite. Stories have the very real and very tangible power, to either create, or to destroy.
The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, the stories we are told about ourselves, the stories the world tells us about one another, the stories that our culture and society tell us.
These stories run deep and have a truly magical power, they can be the difference between connection or disconnection, between feeling and living well in the world, or living within injustice, oppression and war. These stories have the power to create and maintain poverty and violence, or the power to change, dissolve and remove all of our repressive structures.
We have the power, individually and collectively, to choose, and decide, what stories we want to tell, re-tell, re-write, and pass on to the next generation of humans and storytellers.
What is the legacy of the stories we will leave our children?
And what is the impact that we want to have with them all?
My name is Bethan Dear. I am an artist and a storyteller and I believe that we can change this world, one story, at a time...