About Anna
Anna Carr is a socially engaged, multi-platform Theatre Maker. She writes, directs and sometimes performs, making work that celebrates the extraordinary hiding behind the ordinary.
About 'Kindred'
Kindred started when Anna decided to make a theatre show about her grandparents. They’d died when she was 4, and she had fragments of memories about them. She’d been told eccentric stories about how they’d met, heard snippets of them on cassette tapes. She wanted to see if she could bring them back to life in some weird and wonderful way, and if theatre could do that. And, she wanted to understand why she’d had so many nightmares about them after they died. So she started to dig... While digging, Anna was living back at home with her parents, feeling a little lost.
Once you start digging, it’s hard to stop. And then what do you do with what you find? What’s yours, and what isn’t, in a house that used to be your grandparents? And then the pandemic struck, and her twin brother moved home. The theatre show felt stuck. We know that families have patterns that repeat themselves over and over again. What does it take to escape, to break a pattern? What started as a theatre show is now an audio piece. It’s been described as a dog chasing its tail. It’s about patterns, cycles & portals.
Theatre work
By using archival material (tapes, photos, letters) and hosting family interviews, Anna unravelled family secrets and discovered her personal history and identity. Using this material, Anna developed a 30 minute theatre show called 'Kindred'.
Anna performed ‘Kindred’ as part of NST’s 'Make It SO' festival in February 2020. Anna also performed at Wiltshire Creative’s Scratch Night (February 2020) & shared her discoveries as part of the Critical Exchange network (a space arts) in Southampton.
Theatre audience quotes
"It was very real. There are so many ways we can tell our 'stories' and I loved the balance between the vulnerable anecdotal, almost mundane, to the humour, performative elements to the very difficult, devastating & damaging themes. I am very interested in the duality of human life, how all these things at once are equally contradictory AND true."
"It made me think about my own life & particularly my Grandma. It made me think about where she was at in her life when my first cells were born in her stomach. I've recently learn that she had skeletons in her closet, which as far as I know she took to her grave. It made me wonder if I'll ever learn what they are"
Engagement work
In March 2020, Anna led a series of workshops with Norwood Primary School, inviting year 5 & 6 pupils to go in search of their own family stories from previous generations and make art inspired by what they found.
Norwood Primary audio
Listen to the below audio recording to hear a snippet of the pupils personal and familial discoveries.
Audio work
Through further research and development (after performing Kindred) Anna began to focus closer on the music and aural story within 'Kindred'.
We held several music research and development sessions, building vocal / aural landscapes / stories, spent 2 days in the music studio, and created a short 8-minute work-in-progress audio piece (below).
Anna shared this work with an invited audience on Zoom (April 2021) and at another Critical Exchange network event.
Audio audience quotes
"It feels like it's about family, identity, repeating patterns and spools of behaviour. I was taken to Southampton, to Anna's house, to a nightmare, to Lockdown, to my own childhood home, hearing my mum listen to the Archers, to the Wizard of Oz"
"I get the sense that the narrator is lost, struggling or perhaps searching to place themselves. The repetition of the word pattern, the repetition of audio... there is a sense of circling around something, coming back round the generations. The dive into life in Lockdown is really interesting - the narrator is of our time, of this present moment, looking back, looking in, but living now."
"I was captivated and wanted to hear more! Beautifully strong, clear, and warm storytelling voice"
“being purely audio gave generous room to picture and imagine - the audio offered rich visuals and sense of atmosphere too”
Creative team
Creator / Performer: Anna Carr
Mentor / Dramaturg: Rachel Bagshaw
Collaborators: Matt Salvage & Kate Mellors
Creative Producer: Molly Scarborough
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Supported by
Public funding from the National Lottery through Arts Council England
Hampshire Archives Trust
The Point
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