CARGO a co-production
between Edinburgh Mela
and Iron Oxide Limited
CARGO is a multi-disciplinary performance that creatively explores/investigates that most timeless of creature(s) - the migrant. It is a show about immigration and emigration, adventurers and those who are exiled, conquerors and slaves, people with dreams who seek them out in other lands and people with nightmares who run to escape. It is a show about the primal urge of man and woman to leave their country of origin for a myriad of reasons, whether it be for a better life, for a future for their children, to escape a past, to create a future, to find a new way of living, of being, to find… themselves. It is also a show about the act of making a place your home…
CARGO looks at Scotland right now; how it has been shaped, changed, educated, evolved, by the movement of peoples coming into our country throughout the centuries to make this place their home, and the spaces left by the thousands of Scots setting off to find a new life in the other worlds beyond the sea.
CARGO seeks to break open myths of those people who have arrived on our shores. Migration has always happened, no-one person has been in the same place forever; we are all to some extent migrants, or the sons and daughters of migrants. Now, more than ever, we need to remember this and celebrate our common humanity, culture and creativity.
Following development funding from the Scottish Government’s Expo Fund we are mid-way through a dramaturgical process to shape the show. The performance will bring together migrant characters from across the ages in a series of interwoven sections, both comedic and reflective that draw on music, song, dance and a range of physical performance approaches to tell the central story.
“A young Nigerian woman walks tall, proudly carrying her shopping bag on her head through the crowd. Her mix of pride and hope is disarming. She breaks into song, one that has been sung on the plantations for many years. And as her voice carries across the audience, high above her a Goddess appears at the peak of two sumptuous silks. As this otherworldly creature tumbles down from her celestial position high in the silks, the land seems to spring to life beneath…. an eruption of music, dance, whoops and hollers…. we have arrived at a cross-cultural ceilidh, an embodiment of Scotland today.”
For further information:
Chloë Dear, Producer, IRON-OXIDE LTD clo@iron-oxide.org +44 797 438 8976
