RashDash are back with a world premiere at HOME Manchester

RashDash return to live action with a world premiere live performance of their Part concept album, part documentary Don’t Go Back To Sleep: The Lockdown Album

The album’s 11 songs takes the words of people in the middle of a pandemic and turns them into song in this new production which opens on Wednesday 21^st October and runs to Saturday 24^th October,

18 participants from across 12 countries have added their voices to the album, including a mother in Milan, a professor in Britain, a student in China and a doctor in Sweden. RashDash sampled these interviews and wove the text into songs that hope to shine a light on the personal and political, the anxieties, realisations, and moments of joy when we find ourselves confined to our own homes.

The trio say this show is  pop, punk, folk, anthemic trip around the world and into the everyday human experience of 2020, asking ‘Where have we found joy in this time?’, ‘How have our relationships with our families and loved ones changed?’, ‘What do we dream of doing when we have freedom again?’, ‘How do we make the most of this opportunity and stop ourselves going back to sleep?’

RashDash are a company of performers, musicians and makers, made up of Abbi Greenland, Becky Wilkie and Helen Goalen

Don’t Go Back to Sleep is one of three World Premieres to be presented by HOME in their new season. David Hoyle’s A Grand Auction of My Life (Friday, 27^th November) will turn HOME’s theatre into an auction room for the sale of memorabilia and memories. The Earth Asleep (Friday, 4^th December & Saturday, 5^th December), is an original live score and feature-length film, directed by Manchester-based visual artist Clara Casian (House on the Borderland) and composer Robin Richards (Dutch Uncles). This haunting new travelogue addresses the Oshika Peninsula earthquake and tsunami, and asks if our exposure to extreme live-trauma in the form of rolling news and citizen reportage has resulted in an inability to process grief at a manageable, human scale.  

HOME’s 500-seat Theatre 1 has been reduced to a capacity of just 120 to allow space for social distancing, but despite this tickets will be priced at just £10 to ensure as many people as possible have the opportunity to return to the theatre. 

700 seats are currently being held off sale to allow for social distancing, and so the arts centre has also launched a new campaign, Empty Seats, to highlight the £130-per-week cost of each unfilled seat and the effect that the ongoing coronavirus pandemic is having on arts venues.

For more information about HOME’s upcoming programme, and the Empty Seats campaign, visit www.homemcr.org