Night Scenes took place online between 30 April and 15 May 2020 and examined how night spaces have been imagined, produced, experienced and narrated in European cities by communities who have mobilized around particular migrant identities or histories. These events are linked to a three-year transdisciplinary European research project – NITE – exploring nocturnal public spaces in eight European cities (Aarhus, Amsterdam, Berlin, Cork, Galway, Lisbon, London, Rotterdam). The project, and events, set out to explore night-time urban settings in their complexity as sites of crisis and regeneration, memory and heritage, visibility and invisibility, community solidarity and growth, and to contribute evidence from the arts and humanities to policy and wider debates on cities at night.
On 30 April 2020, our opening event, SOHO SCENES, featured talks by Chardine Taylor-Stone and Dan de la Motte exploring historic spaces in which Soho’s migrants and LGBTQ+ histories have coalesced.
Dan de la Motte is a Queer performer, presenter, producer, curator and activist. As PERFORMER recent credits include A Delicate Balance (Southbank Centre) The Hound of the Baskervilles (Abney Park); Fine and Dandy (King’s Head Theatre, Arcola Theatre) Live to Tell: (A Proposal For) The Madonna Jukebox Musical (Pulse Festival – New Wolsey Theatre and Yard Theatre). As DIRECTOR Qtopia (Arcola Theatre); As PRODUCER Stark Dallas Naked (Pleasance Theatre and regional tour) Carnation for a Song (Young Vic and London tour) Bird la Bird’s Queer People’s History Show (national tour); As CURATOR Artist Climate Lab (Hawkwood College) Bloolips and Radical Drag (Platform Southwark) GLF50 (Platform Southwark); Dan is a Creative Climate Leader and is the host of Off Book, the Young Vic Podcast. @Dandelamotte
Chardine Taylor-Stone is an award winning activist, writer and trade unionist. She was the founder of Black Girls Picnic, Stop Rainbow Racism and bangs the drums in Black feminist punk band Big Joanie. In 2017 she won the British LGBT award for contribution to LGBTQIA life 2017 and is a member of the Musician’s Union Equalities Committee.
Q&A with Chardine Taylor-Stone and Dan de la Motte, chaired by Prof Ben Campkin.
Recordings from Soho Scenes are shared according to an attribution, non-commercial and no-derivatives Creative Commons license.
