Help Us Make The Rising Damp & other Tails!

We need YOU to make ‘The Rising Damp & other Tails’- an immersive performance exploring the housing crisis.

Despite the generous investment from Leeds City Council’s Leeds Cultural Investment Programme and Volcano Theatre, we are working with a third of the original budget as our multiple(6!) re-applications to Arts Council England were unsuccessful.

This work challenges ideas of property ownership within the cost of living and housing crisis, engaging communities in Leeds in creative explorations of these themes.

We will conduct interviews and facilitate songwriting workshops with people without access to affordable, decent homes. These encounters will be recorded and the voices will ‘occupy’ the property interrupting the estate agent’s attempts to lead the viewing. The performance challenges the notion of property ownership, imagining a future where need rather than money has more capital.

Your support will enable the fabrication and design of upcycled costumes and props by fashion designer Aileen Klein.

Set on a stormy night in the depths of a raging housing crisis, this immersive, site-specific performance retells Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid as an exploitative love story between a merman and an estate agent. The audience are potential buyers and guided around the property by the estate agent.

This phase includes:

-rehearsals and x 2 preview performances at Open Source Arts (30th May, 3pm & 8pm- book here)

-x4 outreach songwriting workshops exploring experiences of housing by refugees and asylum seekers with Meeting Point and Solace Nordoff & Robbins facilitated by music therapist Luke Wilson and singer / songwriter Georgie Buchanen.

-x1 outreach movement workshop with the Womxn’s Group at Meeting Point facilitated by Inari Hulkkonen

-x1 Deep Listening workshop facilitated by sound designer Francisco Petrucci (free-to-attend, sign up here )

-x1 movement workshop faciliatated by artistic director Marianne Tuckman (free-to-attend,sign up here )

As we are making new performance that challenges the notions of property ownership within the housing and cost of living crisis, we understand that you might not be able to support us financially. You can still support us in many other ways: join a workshop, attend a performance and/or share this fundraiser!

Thank you so much for your support.

Marianne and the team from ‘The Rising Damp & other Tails’

REWARDS

£10 - access to video of performance filmed & edited by Maluva Pictures

£20- x1 Poster Print designed by Ezo Karadelik

£30- x 2 Tickets to Performance

£40- Poster Print, x 1 Merchandise (Tea Towel or Cushion Cover) from Marianne Tuckman’s solo work ‘The Dirt’. These are hand drawn quotations from the show on second hand fabrics.

£50- x1 Poster, x1 The Dirt Merchandise, Access to ‘The Dirt’ and ‘The Rising Damp & other Tails’ online videos.

£60- x1 Poster, x1 Hand Made T-Shirt Poem by Marianne Tuckman (hand drawn on second hand fabrics)

£80 + x1 Poster, x1 T- Shirt Poem, x1 The Dirt Merch and Personal Mention on ‘The Rising Damp & other Tails’ credits.

*will all be posted by 15th June 2025.