Barbara Touati-Evans

I am a theatre-maker and director working across Hampshire and the UK. My background is in new writing and site-responsive performance; I ran High Hearted Theatre with writer Marcelo Dos Santos, making productions for Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse, Greenwich + Docklands International Festival, Southwark Playhouse, Brighton Fringe, Omnibus London and more. I currently work mostly in participatory practice and co-creation, creating work in collaboration with professional creatives and communities. I am also an artist-researcher with a particular interest in place, space and identity, and how theatre for social change.

I am an artist living on the edge of The New Forest. I use folklore, folksong, old customs, games and rituals to explore contemporary issues particularly social and economic disparity. Country living can be a strange mix of bounty and hopelessness but when people have access to their own strong and sinuous roots, their own history and stories they have anchorage and hope. I seek the stories that connect us and as an artist I’m thinking of different ways of pinning them up on the metaphorical village hall notice board for all to see. Alongside my own practice I run drawing workshops as The Village Hall Draw and community workshops around the New Forest working with Culture in Common and Hampshire Cultural Heritage amongst others.

I deliver learning, engagement, interpretation and digital comms. My website has examples of what I can deliver. I work in a couple of ways – Off-the-shelf – I have existing packages I can tweak to meet your needs if you’re looking for work around reminiscence, training or family workshops. Bespoke – if you’re looking for support with a project or new activity including exhibition text, trails, consultation etc. Coming from a land-based background, I have a particular interest in rural communities and issues around land-based occupations, community and heritage. I have a portfolio career made up of freelance work, a part-time job, and 3 part-time, freelance clients. #portfoliocareer #manyhats #freelance