Song, Community and Performance

Tom Adams and Dan Scott

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boat-house-theatre was a year-long project that culminated in a performance centered around a Yorkshire coble fishing boat that Tom and Dan placed in the centre of Stockon-on-Tees.  They used it as a site in which to perform a song cycle about a vanished community of houseboats that once existed in the Tees estuary.  Tom and Dan co-designed the boat sculpture and wrote the songs, performing them as a duo, and with the Arc Theatre ukelele orchestra.

Tom co-wrote a series of songs with residents of Camden for the performance Human Jam.  The show was written in response to the planned H2 rail link and its effect on local communities.  Exeunt Magazine wrote, 'among the many wonderful qualities of Human Jam is its capacity to inspire care, having been made with such care itself: for humans, for craft, for detail, for the complexity of social interconnection…' and the Guardian noted, “Such focus. Such heart. Such character."

During Autumn 2019, Dan ran the project Song Is the Power for the Margate Festival.  It explored the status of song and songwriting with contemporary art practice and culminated in a live performance of songs written collectively during the workshops.   One participant noted, 'writing a song seemed like an insurmountable task but this quick draw and collaborative method showed me how break through that barrier. I feel like it’s something I could start to do myself now..'

Tom wrote music and songs for 1927's Raree Tales, a project for Margate Festival.  The project involved collaborations with seven Margate Primary Schools to create animations and music based around familiar and not-so familiar fairy tales.