Tue 21 Feb - Sun 2 Feb 2025
The first film in the gallery as part of our season, But Does It Speak?, was Tmesis Theatre's Fallen Star, written and narrated by Jennifer Lee Tsai, who was artist in residence at the Bluecoat as part of the Wittenham Bursary. Fallen Star is a tender film about connecting and holding ancestral bodies.
Originally commissioned and directed by Tmesis Theatre, as part of a collaborative project entitled ‘Lone Women’ with First Take, the film combines Lee Tsai’s poetry with dance performed by Pei Yee Tong and music by Meike Holzmann. This combination of choreography and poetry creates moments in which the spoken word seems to compel the performer to move, and in turn, the performance seems to amplify and draw out Lee Tsai’s words.
Tmesis Theatre's Fallen Star written and read by Jennifer Lee Tsai. Performed by Pei Yee Tong. Directed by Elinor Randle. Composer Meike Holzmann. Filmed & edited by First Take.
About the Artist
Jennifer Lee Tsai is a poet, editor and critic. She was born in Bebington and grew up in Liverpool. A fellow of The Complete Works and a Ledbury Poetry Critic, she is the author of two poetry pamphlets Kismet (ignition press, 2019) and La Mystérique (Guillemot Press, 2022). Her work also features in the Bloodaxe anthologies Ten: Poets of the New Generation (2017) and Mapping The Future: The Complete Works Poets (2023). She is the recipient of a 2020 Northern Writers Award for Poetry and a co-winner of the Women Poets Prize. Lee Tsai is currently in residence at the Bluecoat, as part of the Wittenham Bursary.
Tmesis Theatre are an award-winning company who create, share and develop extraordinary physical theatre through touring, participation and an international festival, Physical Fest. The Artistic Director & Co-Founder is Elinor Randle.
First Take is an award-winning, not for profit filmmaking and digital arts organisation specialising in working with oppressed communities and on artistic collaborations, producing radical, authentic, untold stories. It aims to create