NOW Live Events are coming to Deptford Lounge, London launching our first community programme with a specially tailored programme for the local area as part of the London-wide ‘Anxiety Arts Festival’ over June 2014. We will be championing an innovative blend of arts and wellbeing activities for all ages to stimulate the senses, lighten the mind and savour the moment with some of UK’s most inspiring artists and thinkers, locally and beyond.
On offer will be NOW’s unique and playful approach to literature, performance, craft, poetry, visual arts, spoken word, music, mindfulness meditation, workshops for children and more. The programme includes Britain’s leading lifestyle philosopher Roman Krznaric, spoken word artist Simon Mole and Chill Pill Collective, mindfulness expert Tessa Watt and Craftivist Collective.
“(NOW Live Events) rid us of the myriad modern-day distractions that stop us from embracing the fullness of the present moment…using unconventional artistic methods ” – The Independent
For full information on programme, please see our participants page including biographies, interviews and photographs of participants.
All events will be FREE, apart from ticketed evening events on Monday, Thursday and Friday. All of the free events are not ticketed, but please arrive early to secure a place. The three interactive talks are ticketed and advance booking is advised.
Schedule of Events
Monday 23 June – NOW:ART & SENSES
4:00pm – 4:45pm FREE WORKSHOP: Group Portrait in the NOW – Phoebe Boswell – Learn how to create portraits with award-winning visual artist and animator Phoebe Boswell (beginners welcome).
5:00pm – 5:45pm FREE WORKSHOP: Blind Sculpture: Sculpting the Community – Matt Nightingale – Sculptor Matt Nightingale’s unique workshop focused on learning sensory sculpture (beginners welcome).
6:00pm – 6:45pm FREE WORKSHOP: Unleashing Your Senses: Your Ideal Community – Clare Jonas – Psychology and synaesthesia expert Clare Jonas, challenging us to explore the way we experience our world through our sense of sight, touch, taste, smell, sound and re-imagining our neighbourhoods.
7:00pm – 8:00pm TALK: The Vital Keys for Happiness are Right Here Right Now – Mark Williamson – An interactive talk with Mark Williamson, Director of Action for Happiness, about what is most important for our happiness and practical tools we can use to become happier in our everyday lives. – Buy Tickets to This Event – £3
Tuesday 24 June – NOW:CRAFT
3:00pm – 3:55pm FREE WORKSHOP: Creating More Awareness: Beginner’s Mindfulness Techniques – Tessa Watt – Engage in the reflective and playful side of savouring the moment with specialist Tessa Watt, beginning with an introduction to ‘mindfulness’ – a theme running throughout the week – training yourself in stress-battling tools using simple sensory and artistic techniques to retrain your mind and body to do one thing at a time and enjoy it fully.
3:00pm – 6:00pm FREE WORKSHOP: Hand Sewing and Textile Skills to Capture the Moment – The Big Stitch Up – Join The Big Stitch Up in hand sewing to focus your attention through craft, enjoying its relaxing effect and adding to the patchwork blanket used by the local community (beginners welcome).
4:00pm – 4:45pm FREE WORKSHOP: Craftivist Footprint: a Spoonful of Craft Helps the Activism Go Down – Craftivist Collective – Take part in ‘Craftivism’ with founder of Craftivist Collective Sarah Corbett, using slow repetitive craft action to help us reflect on our actions in the past, now and in the future, learning the classic skill of embroidery while also learning how to be a change-maker (beginners welcome).
As part of NOW:CRAFT, NOW Live Events will also working with The Albany to explore sensory craft with ‘Meet me at the Albany’ as part of our residency at Deptford Lounge.
Wednesday 25 June – NOW:PERFORMANCE
12:00pm – 6:00pm FREE WORKSHOP: Improvisation in the Moment Through Song – Ampersand Media – Ampersand Media invite you to improvise and react to the moment, bringing the present into song by listening and engaging with what is in front of you, inspiring songs about yourselves and others to create a community song (beginners welcome).
3:00pm – 3:45pm FREE WORKSHOP: This Voice Here: Building Confidence and Playing With the Voice and Body – Jess Mackinnon (Bromley & Lewisham Mind) – Mental health adviser Jess Mackinnon leads this workshop on increasing confidence in communicating with others by using theatre techniques with the voice and body.
4:00pm – 4:45pm FREE WORKSHOP: Theatrical Techniques and Skills to Savour the Moment - Polly Bennett – Polly Bennett, the 2013 resident movement practitioner at the Royal Shakespeare Company, explores how we can create physical human space in a time where technology can make us feel more distant from each other (beginners welcome).
5:00pm – 5.45pm FREE WORKSHOP: How Curious Can We Be?: Performance and Play - Philip Cowell – Wordsmith and clown Philip Cowell explores performance as a starting point for spontaneity and playfulness and embracing curiosity.
6:00pm – 6:45pm FREE WORKSHOP: Journaling and Writing on the Visible and Invisible – Jackee Holder – Jackee Holder leads a hands-on session on journaling, writing and being here now; looking at our internal performance to slow down, including writing prescriptions to improve wellbeing.
7:00pm – 7:30pm FREE WORKSHOP: Improvisation in the Moment Through Song - Ampersand Media – Performing songs created that day from Improvisation Through Song Workshop, by engaging with the local community and people at Deptford Lounge.
Thursday 26 June – NOW:FAMILIES
3:00pm – 3:45pm FREE WORKSHOP: Managing Stress & Anxiety NOW: A Practical Workshop – The Peer Support Volunteers from Bromley & Lewisham Mind – Exploring what causes stress levels to increase, what we can do to alleviate our stress and will finish off with some breathing and relaxation techniques to be more in the NOW.
4:00pm – 4:45pm FREE WORKSHOP: Family Mindfulness Techniques Minds of All Ages – Mindfulness in Schools Project – Find out where your mind is NOW and how to be friendly to all things our minds and bodies are experiencing, using techniques that have been taught to thousands of children and parents across the world.
5:00pm – 5:45pm FREE WORKSHOP: Embracing Curiosity: A Workshop Alice in Wonderland Would Approve Of! - Philip Cowell – Wordsmith and clown Philip Cowell leads a workshop in embracing curiosity as a starting point for spontaneity and playfulness – a workshop that Alice in Wonderland would approve of!
7:00pm – 8:00pm TALK: Master Your Moods NOW: An Interactive Talk – Andy Gibson – Mindapples’ Head Gardener leads an interactive talk for all ages on the basic psychology of mood and emotion and discusses what we can do to manage our moods to keep ourselves in good emotional health. – Buy Tickets to This Event – £3
As part of NOW:FAMILIES, NOW Live Events will also be working all day with children at Tidemill Academy to explore savouring the moment as part of our residency week at Deptford Lounge.
Friday 27 June – NOW:MUSIC
3:00pm – 3:55pm FREE WORKSHOP: Creating More Awareness – Beginner’s Mindfulness Techniques (ages 16+) – Tessa Watt – Learn beginner’s mindfulness techniques. Tessa Watt continues using sensory techniques to fully focus on one thing and banish stress.
4:00pm – 4:45pm FREE WORKSHOP: Creating and Playing Music in the NOW – Aga Serugo-Lugo – Using both conventional instruments (small percussion, Djembes, keyboards, clarinets) and less conventional instruments (chairs, plastic bottles, books) to compose a soundscape looking at the themes of being in the NOW and well being.
5:00pm – 5:45pm FREE WORKSHOP: Capturing the Moment Through Music – Qureshi – Be part of The Esoteric Collective, creating a composition with the audience that responds to recordings and interactions with participants over the whole week.
7:00pm – 8:00pm TALK: ‘The Six Habits of Highly Empathic People’ – Roman Krznaric – An interactive talk exploring different ways we can expand our empathic potential, revealing that empathy was once considered one of the ‘inner senses’, and discussing everything from the empathy experiments of George Orwell to developments in neuroscience and industrial design. – Buy Tickets to This Event – £3
Saturday 28 June – NOW:WORDS
10:30am – 11:15am FREE WORKSHOP: Poetry as a Way of Capturing the Moment – Rachel Kelly – Exploring how poetry can bring us out of our busy minds and be used to inspire us to focus and savour the moment, exploring classic verse from the ancient to modern age, writing and taking away your own poetry.
10:30am – 1:00pm FREE PERFORMANCE: Pop up Poetry Stall – Chill Pill Collective – Chill Pill create an ‘instant’ and free bespoke poems for passers-by about any topic they want as well as ‘lucky dip’ readings from a bag poems on NOW themes.
11:30am – 1:30pm FREE WORKSHOP: Writing on the Mirror: Mindful Creative Writing (ages 16+) – Subhadassi (Spread the Word) – Offering a brief exploration of what mindfulness is, a chance to try some mindfulness techniques and practice through a series of creative writing activities.
12:30pm – 1:30pm FLASHMOB: Mindfulness Meditation Flash Mob – Wake Up London – A mindfulness flash mob promoting a message of support for young people through mindfulness meditation and whole community.
2:00pm – 2:55pm FREE WORKSHOP: Creating More Awareness: Beginner’s Mindfulness Techniques (ages 16+) – Tessa Watt – Engage in the reflective and playful side of savouring the moment with specialist Tessa Watt, beginning with an introduction to ‘mindfulness’ – a theme running through the week – training yourself in stress-battling tools using simple sensory and artistic techniques to retrain your mind and body to do one thing at a time and enjoy it fully.
2:30pm – 2:50pm FREE PERFORMANCE: See-ing and Re-seeing the World Through Poetry: A Performance – Simon Mole (Chill Pill Collective) – Poet and spoken word artist Simon Mole invites you to roll up and listen to specially selected performances around the NOW theme, focusing on performance and poetry as a way to love the world.
3:00pm – 3:45pm FREE WORKSHOP: Compose an Instant Ode to the Present Moment - Simon Mole – Compose an instant ode to Deptford, a haiku to hold up to your neighbours or a rap about life in SE8 with Chill Pill’s Simon Mole to help you.
4:00pm – 4:45pm FREE WORKSHOP: ‘One Person, Walking – Others Joining’: A NOW Live Events performance workshop - Peader Kirk – Peader Kirk’s playful workshop for NOW Live Events at Deptford Lounge will be filled with interaction and engagement with others. Treating being (and performance) as a process, a developing landscape we make together. This interactive workshop asks, how does what I do add to what you do? Taking one simple action as a starting point, we will explore collaboration from a place of being in the here and now. No experience of performance is necessary, no acting is required –simply ‘One Person, Walking – Others Joining’.
Alongside our daily programme at Deptford Lounge, NOW Live Events will be bringing our interactive visual arts materials and workshop area to Deptford Lounge throughout the week for all ages.
