At this NOW event we will be looking at some themes that are vital for happiness - like gratitude, hope, acceptance and wonder. We'll be asking people to reflect on what these themes mean for them, right here and right now - and we'll be encouraging people to connect with others and share their ideas and reactions.

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Reacting to the moment and bringing the present into song, Ampersand will use news stories on the 25th June and the people they meet in The Lounge on that day to inspire a series of songs that will be performed that very evening. The artists will connect with those around them to find stories and characters that can inspire songs and music.

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This essential physical workshop will focus on the notion of meaning and movement and how the body can say so much about the human character in a matter of seconds. Using techniques she uses in theatrical rehearsal rooms, Movement Director Polly Bennett will explore habitual movement and investigate how opening up your senses to ideas of space, weight and time will open the door to more creative opportunities.

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How We See Each Other - Hybrid Portraits of Strangers in a Crowd

In this workshop, we will all take part in contributing to each other's portraits. While drawing, conversation will be encouraged. Like speed-dating, after a set amount of time the drawers will switch partners, but not before writing down a sentence which defines something about the person they've been drawing. This could be a quote, an observation, a description.

The next drawer will then continue the portrait, adding to it visually (so, for instance, if the first person has drawn an eye, the second person could draw the nose and so on) and at the end at their sentence. In this way, the portraits will grow and morph and develop with each interaction. At the end of the workshop, we will be left with a series of hybrid portraits, and a rounded written description of who each person is - a family tree of strangers in a city.

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The main focus will be the ‘instant’ creation of free bespoke poems written for passers-by who ‘commission’ a piece about anything they want and then wander the area for a few minutes while the writing takes place. They then return and pick up copy of the poem, as well as being treated to a performance of it by the poet who wrote it! There are also sporadic pop up performances of these and other poems within the immediate area, whether in an intimate one to one setting or for gathering crowds.

We will also offer ‘lucky dip’ readings from a bag of poems (chosen for their connection with NOW themes), and collect short ideas/memories from passers-by on this same theme to create a collaborative crowd-sourced poem throughout the event. To end everything, we will perform a mini pop-up show after the stall, showcasing some of our favourite poems written that day alongside our normal spoken word/music shenanigans...

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"What a curious feeling!" said Alice; "I must be shutting up like a telescope." 

How curious can we be? Anxiety, embarrassment, boredom, ambivalence, excitement: everything's in the mix and it's all up for grabs in this playful workshop that Alice in Wonderland would approve of. Our base will be the present moment, so we'll go from there. It's a kind of kindness training in the face of local and global anxiety. How generous can we be to ourselves and others in the act of curiosity?

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‘Craftivist footprint: a spoonful of craft helps the activism go down’

We often reflect on the time to come or time gone by without really enjoying where we are now. We are connected to others and we have an impact as a local and global citizen (for most of us quite a daunting thought). It is easy to let life pass us by so why not craft yourself a physical footprint to help you focus yourself on the NOW and remember how to be your best self in your local community using your unique passions, talents & actions?

In this workshop led by Founder of Craftivist Collective Sarah Corbett, you will learn the classic skill of embroidery whilst also learning how to be a change-maker to make the world a better place for people and planet. You will create a fabric footprint for you to keep and you will receive support on what message to stitch on your footprint and suggestions of where to put it.

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Master Your Moods

Our moods and emotions affect our wellbeing, behaviour and even how we see the world. Yet most of the time, we aren't particularly aware of what we are feeling, or how we can manage our moods to stay healthy and effective in our life and work. Andy Gibson, Head Gardener at Mindapples, will be talking us through the basic psychology of mood and emotion, offering a model for tuning into your moods more effectively, and discussing what we can all do to manage our moods to keep ourselves in good emotional health. Mindapples training sessions are currently only being run inside businesses like JP Morgan and L'Oreal, so this is a great opportunity to hear this content in a different context and learn more about your mind and how to use it.

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“Writing changes lives and lives are changed by writing.”

This will be a taster Paper Therapy session, which will be a hands-on session writing in the now and in the moment. Using notebooks, images, scraps of paper, index cards, luggage tags and large sheets of paper, where and what you write on or in will be up to you.

The focus of the workshop will be a series of writing prompts designed to bring to life feelings, emotions, dreams and desires and if you hit that right spot on the page, untold stories or stories you didn’t know existed.

You’ll be invited to awaken mind, body and soul through a series of writing sprints, expressive writing and mindfulness breathing exercises, bringing together the flow that exists in the space between the writing and the breath.

Discover writing prescriptions that will improve your well-being, lower stress and offers a range of physical and emotional benefits.

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‘What would our ideal Deptford look, taste, smell, feel and sound like?’

Participants in this session will begin by exploring what is coming in through the individual senses of sight, sound, touch and smell, and thinking about how they differ. Next, we'll talk about how information can be matched across the senses - for example, would a high-pitched sound be yellow or purple if it had a colour, or does a sharp object make you think of the smell of bread or the smell of lemons? Using these associations between the senses, we will explore what Deptford would be like if it smelled how it looked, or felt like what it sounds like, and finally try to redesign Deptford so that it is pleasing to all the senses.

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How can poetry bring us out of our busy minds and more into the present? Rachel Kelly is a author and poetry enthusiast whose playful workshop with NOW Live Events will approach and champion poetry as a way of savouring the moment. You will hear Rachel’s own approach to the process of using poetry based on her memoir Black Rainbow. You will be encouraged to explore classic verse from the ancient to modern age. Participants will write and take away their own poetry.

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‘One Person, Walking - Others Joining’: A NOW Live Events performance workshop with 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’.

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The Six Habits of Highly Empathic People

Drawing on his new book, ‘Empathy: A Handbook for Revolution’, cultural thinker and School of Life faculty member Roman Krznaric reveals how empathy - the art of stepping into the shoes of another person and seeing the world from their perspective - can not only enrich your own life but also help create social change. Empathy, he argues, has the power to transform relationships, from the personal to the political. Discussing everything from the empathy experiments of George Orwell to developments in neuroscience and industrial design, from the struggle against slavery in the eighteenth century to the Middle East crisis today, Roman explores six different ways we can expand our empathic potential. 

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Meet me At the Albany creates a social artistic space where we replace 'having an agenda' with an orchestration in the moment that is responsive and receptive to what emerges from participants, volunteers and artists in collaboration with each other. The work arises from a relational basis and allows for the unplanned. 

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Mindfulness training involves learning to direct our attention to our experience as it unfolds, moment by moment, with open-minded curiosity and acceptance. .b is a course written especially for young people by the Mindfulness in Schools Project, and it’s been taught to thousands of children across the world. Come along and join in with our short, playful .b exercises, and find out where your mind is right now! Suitable for all minds aged 4 and up.

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Simon Mole’s Workshop:

Simon will be leading a workshop about writing as right now, again and again and again: a relaxed workshop about writing as a way to love the world. Join Simon and compose an instant ode to Deptford, a haiku to hold up your neighbours or a rap about finding peace in SE8…

Simon Mole’s Performance:

Right now, again and again and again: A mixture of poetry and chat exploring the idea of the poem as perpetually present, and the impact that writing about the world has on our experience of it. Come and hear Simon’s specially commissioned NOW poem as part of NOW Live Events at Deptford Lounge.

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Matt Nightingale will lead a mindful sensory sculpture workshop, creating portraits of the local community that will culminate in a mass representation of the local community and event attendees. Come along, meet your local community and feel your way!

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Qureshi will be based at Deptford Lounge for the whole week from 23 – 28 June. The band will be finding out what your reactions are, what you are feeling and how much you are feeling in the NOW and enticing you into the sounds of the ‘Esoteric Collective’. On the day of their workshop (Friday 27 June, 5pm), Qureshi will take pre-recorded interviews and sounds from throughout the week at Deptford Lounge and play them as vocal loops or samples, transforming them into a song that will be composed on 'music day' by participants of the festival. The song will be available for free download after the event.

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We will use both conventional instruments (small percussion, Djembes, keyboards, clarinets) and less conventional instruments (chairs, plastic bottles, books), some paper and pens to compose a soundscape and song looking at the themes of being in the NOW and wellbeing.

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Writing on the Mirror

The Novelist Pico Iyer has written that The very act of...getting (words) out of the beehive of the head and onto the objective reality of paper...is a form of clarification.

In this hands-on workshop we will:
- look at what mindfulness is
- try out some mindfulness techniques
- apply and cultivate mindfulness through doing some creative writing.

No experience of mindfulness or writing necessary!

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For the 2014 NOW/Anxiety Festival, the 7m x 6.5m picnic blanket will be displayed in the Deptford Lounge. We will invite the Deptford community to further the creation of the blanket.

This will be done through:

Textile Donations – we will set up a donation box for local people to donate their recycled textiles

Pattern cutting – we will have a pattern cutting station where the textiles will be prepared

Hand sewing – people will be invited to hand sew the patches together (this will be done while sitting on the picnic blanket).

Creating a ‘Machining Station’ – one sewing machine will be used to back the hand sewn work. The Deptford contributions will be added in situ to the existing blanket over the course of the workshop, revealing Deptford’s involvement in the artwork right away.

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Wake Up London will host a meditation flash mob outside Deptford Lounge on Saturday 28th June from 12.30pm to 1.30pm. It is part of an initiative to raise public awareness of the importance of meditative practice in our lives and cultivate peace and unity between human beings.

By sitting together in silence, we can enjoy stopping, slowing down, resting and re-connecting our minds and bodies together.

This meditation flash mob invites people of all ages, backgrounds, cultures and religions and any experience levels. We will start and end the meditation with the sound of the bell.  

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Mindfulness workshop: coming to your senses

Mindfulness is a training in being more present and aware in each moment, using ancient meditation techniques in an entirely secular context. It's increasingly recognised by the international scientific community as an effective approach for reducing stress and anxiety, and increasing wellbeing. Tessa will give an introduction to mindfulness and lead a few simple practices which you can use in your daily life.

Anxiety happens when we get caught in mental chatter, which often goes round and round in circles. We spend our time worrying about the future or replaying scenes from the past, and miss the here and now. In this workshop we'll discover how in each moment we can let go of these unhelpful mental habits by bringing awareness to our body and senses. We'll use mindfulness of tasting, hearing, seeing and breathing as a way of coming to our senses and rediscovering enjoyment of the present moment.

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NOW are delighted to be creating and developing our connections working with Bromley & Lewisham Mind on two of our workshops during our residency at Deptford Lounge: ‘This Voice Here: Building Confidence and Playing With the Voice and Body’ and ‘Managing Stress & Anxiety NOW: A Practical Workshop’.

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