Our new project Out to Play kicks off today and we thought this would be a nice opportunity to introduce the Drama Artist, Ben Mali Macfadyen. We are all excited to collaborate with Ben over the coming months and very much looking forward to getting ‘out to play’.
Hi, I’m Ben Mali, Eco Drama’s new Drama Artist for the Out To Play project. It was so exciting to find this opportunity to collaborate with Eco Drama and I feel very lucky to work all over Glasgow through three seasons with 250 inspiring children!
A little bit about me: I am deeply passionate about using the arts as a tool to inspire, engage and empower people of all ages towards a different story of our relationship with our local environments and communities. Over the last five years I have worked in schools and communities across the U.K. to implement arts-based nature connection and food growing initiatives. I’m also a performer and theatre maker, working with Feral Theatre (www.feraltheatre.co.uk) as well as with other environmental theatre groups and on solo projects, as well as running workshops in all sort of creative mediums. These projects often explore challenging issues such as extinction and pollution, but do so in ways that celebrate the diversity and beauty of our planet. I love exploring diverse mediums such as puppetry, storytelling, mime, treasure hunts, masks, forum theatre, ritual, physical theatre and music, and I hope I will bring in some of these to Out to Play too!
This is an amazing opportunity and can’t wait to have many wonderful playground adventures with the children involved whilst also developing qualities of wonder, creativity, physicality and knowledge about the natural world and our place in it. I’m also excited to collaborate with teachers and create resources for future outdoor drama opportunities beyond the 4 schools involved. My biggest hope is that each child leaves Out to Play sessions empowered and inspired, with a deeper connection to the natural world and their place within it.
You can check out Ben’s blog HERE
