Mflme Juha

This collaborative project began when the Ford Foundation approached Gerry Mulgrew (director of Communicado Co. theatre group), in search of experienced arts practitioners to form links and opportunities with the Tanzanian theatre group, Parapanda Arts Lab. Mulgrew chose McIntyre to help him develop workshop techniques that involved ‘performed’ drawing and storytelling. The aim was to use these techniques to enable creative conversations between actors, that cut across cultural and linguistic boundaries. McIntyre was invited to undertake a residency with Communicado Co. in order to explore both conventional theatrical approaches to improvisatory workshop and those related to the placement and community-based activities he organises for fine art undergraduates at Northumbria. The residency generated the workshop process that equipped McIntyre to be Visual Art Director of the multi-media performance Mflme Juha. McIntyre also used the drawing practices on which the workshop technique was constructed to explore the visualisation of short stories for children. Seven Stories (the National Centre for Children’s Books) commissioned McIntyre to contribute to a documentary TV programme (McIntyre worked with author David Almond [winner of the Whitbread award], actor Kevin Wheatley [Inspector Morse and Auf Weidesein Pet] and the director/producer Lesley Duncanson), to help describe the development of a narrative idea through the contrasting acts of writing, drawing and reading. The result was ‘The Savage’ (screened on ITV, 3rd September 2006). As a follow-up, McIntyre was invited to be artist-in-residence for ‘the Big Draw’, a weekend event in which visual narratives were developed in partnership with writers and actors.