Adverse Camber to Tour THE SHANAMEH Across the UK

A route seldom travelled by Western explorers, the borders of Iran present and past open up to British audiences as Adverse Camber, in its tenth anniversary year of live storytelling and music presents the debut tour of The Shahnameh, a literary classic said to be proudly filed on the bookshelves of almost every Iranian household.

Full-blooded performance from performance storyteller, Xanthe Gresham-Knight, accompanied by intergenerational Persian music expert and performer, Arash Moradi, meets with audiences on a debut 11-date UK tour, visiting venues between Thu 29 Sep - Sat 12 Nov 2016.

In every sense an epic, The Shahnameh (translation: the book of kings) was started by the Iranian poet, Ferdowsi at the end of the 9th Century and took him 23 years to complete, covering as it does the sprawling, if largely mythical, birth of the Persian Empire. Today it sits at the heart of modern Persian culture as a national text, not only in Iran, but Afghanistan and Tajikistan, and is an internationally recognised masterpiece written as a 50,000 couplet poem. Developed for touring using the art of live storytelling by Adverse Camber in partnership with Xanthe and Arash, The Shahnameh is staged as a tale of heroic adventure, war and romance with spoken word, expressive movement and traditional, live music intertwined.

As a member of the minority Yarsan community in Iran, Arash develops and performs the duo's performances with an inherent understanding of not only the importance of the text, but the sacred nature of the instruments he plays. Learning his craft from his father, Iran's leading tanbour player Ali Akbar Moradi (an in-demand performer who struggles to play, or see his son play in the UK due to visa restrictions), Arash's childhood was one of miniature instruments being handed to him and picking up compositions by ear, mastering the 5000 year-old, stringed tanbour, made from a single piece of mulberry tree. Having absorbed the musical traditions of his community in his native city of Kermanshah, his range of traditional instruments in this performance extends to the daf, setar and shurangiz, also known as the 'excitement-maker'.

A professional performance storyteller, Xanthe Gresham-Knight was originally commissioned by the British Museum to develop the expansive texts of The Shahnameh for live performance, to continue explorations into the texts and adapt dramatic passages from this remarkable poem. The result is a distinctive art form, which sets the narrator, musician and audience face-to-face in direct communication with each other. Her passionate performances invite every eye to follow her and, subsequently, every word of the story.

A carefully selected and respectfully developed series of excerpts from the book, to experience The Shahmaneh is to encounter a range of characters. They move from the deeply-loved, yet reluctant hero, Rustam, a fabled 'Persian Hercules' whose strengths become a source of personal ire as his peace is shattered by demanding Shahs, to fantastical creatures like the mighty Simorgh, with her miraculous feathers.

Bizan and Mazineh is a tale of star-crossed lovers. Bizan, with tumbling locks and 'eyebrows like bows to the arrows in his eyes', is knocked unconscious by his equal in beauty, Manizeh. Their love unites warring kingdoms, but as with all such stories, the course of true love cannot run smooth.

The Demons, one of the inspirations for The Shahmaneh itself, appear throughout. The gold leaf illustrations on original editions of the poem, portray them with comic book detail, wreathed in snakes, decked with horns, hooved, hairy and alive with colour. It is the defined art of storytelling rather than the ensemble cast of theatre that brings each of these characters to life.

Naomi Wilds, Producer and Founder of Adverse Camber, says: "The Shahnameh stories are recognised as gems of literary history, so doing them justice requires extra care. Xanthe and Arash draw on their years of performing together to bring colour and vibrancy to the texts, enhancing rather than compromising all the intricate details through their choices of rich poetic language, music, costume and performance. Such beautiful, dramatic and historically significant stories deserve the most respectful treatment. Shahnameh audiences will enjoy the experience of being directly spoken to by two most remarkable performers through this artistic discipline which is quite apart from stage dramatization."

Celebrating its tenth anniversary in 2016, the first ever tour of The Shahmaneh also marks a decade of Derbyshire-based, Adverse Camber's exploration and development of contemporary storytelling as a distinct, performative art form. As a means of understanding local, national and global cultures, the company has shared and cultivated work with collaborators from Scandinavia to Australia, producing and touring shows from leading UK storytellers, developing texts and music from Finnish, Iranian, Malian and Welsh cultures.

The confirmed tour dates for The Shahmaneh: the Epic Book of Kings are:

Thursday 29 September 2016 - mac Birmingham

Friday 30 September 2016 - Derby Guildhall Theatre, part of Derby Folk Festival

Friday 7 October 2016 - Ilkley Literature Festival

Wednesday 19 October - Hounslow Arts Centre

Friday 21 October 2016 - Cornwall Newlyn Arts Festival

Saturday 22 October - Exeter Phoenix

Thursday 3 November 2016 - Arts Alive - Kinokulture, Oswestry

Friday 4 November 2016 - Arts Alive - The Wightman Theatre, Shrewsbury

Wednesday 9 November 2016 - The Capstone Theatre, Liverpool

Friday 11 November 2016 - Richard Whitely Theatre, Giggleswick, part of Settle Stories

Saturday 12 November 2016 - Oldham Library (family performance, ages 7+)

For full performance and booking information, visit www.adversecamber.org.

Adverse Camber has inspired new thinking about storytelling as a distinct art form for a decade, by producing and touring outstanding ensemble storytelling and music performances inspired by epic mythology from around the world. Founded by producer Naomi Wilds in 2006, the company has produced ten UK tours featuring artists at the leading edge of contemporary storytelling including Creative Wales major award winner Michael Harvey, Thüringe Märchen prizewinner Jan Blake, Nick Hennessey and Katy Cawkwell. Adverse Camber has attracted repeaTed Grant funding support from Arts Council England as well as support from Arts Council Wales, Cultivate East Midlands, Arts and Business and Exmoor National Park. In 2009 Naomi Wilds received one of only four Arts Council England producer bursaries, enabling her to research traditional and new storytelling in Australia and New Zealand/Aotearoa.

Xanthe Gresham Knight - Xanthe has been telling stories for over?twenty years. She is a graduate of Oxford University and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. ?Xanthe's?work is energetic and distinctive and has captured?audiences all over the world. ?Her stories of The Shahnameh have been shaped by many visits to the British Library to study different translations as well as years of dreaming about characters in this epic and performances to audiences of all ages. ??She also performs?the Goddess Tales, described as?a series of minor miracles as she morphs from one goddess to another, performed at The Barbican, The National, Northern Stage and The Cheltenham Literature Festival. Her commissioned work has toured to the Smithsonian, the Ulster Museum and the Harvard Art Gallery. www.xanthegresham.co.uk

Arash Moradi - Arash was born in the Kurdish city of Kermanshah in Western Iran. He is the eldest son of Iran's leading tanbour player Ali Akbar Moradi. Arash started learning this ancient art form from an early age from his father whom he has since accompanied in numerous concerts and festivals throughout the world. Arash lives in London where he teaches tanbour and runs workshops on Persian music. ?He has also collaborated with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the London Philharmonic. He also actively promotes Kurdish music. www.parvazensemble.co.uk

Naomi Wilds - Producer - Naomi Wilds is an independent producer and literature specialist and founder of Adverse Camber productions. To date, she has produced ten national tours for Adverse Camber, including Fire in the North Sky, which is a co-commission, in association with mac birmingham and Beyond the Border Festival. In 2009 Naomi was awarded a Producers Bursary from Arts Council England East Midlands enabling research on storytelling traditions in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. Naomi worked in literature development for the East Midlands Literature Network from 1999-2008. Other recent producing, development and fundraising work includes Wirksworth Festival, Apples & Snakes, Signposts, South Yorkshire and East Staffordshire Borough Council.

Louisa Davies - Associate Producer - Louisa Davies is an independent creative producer, working on a range of projects encompassing music, spoken word, theatre and outdoor arts, alongside a part time role as Events Manager for the Royal Shakespeare Company. For ten years, she was the Producer - Performing Arts at mac birmingham, where she first discovered Adverse Camber. Louisa has a Master's degree in European Cultural Policy and Administration from the University of Warwick, and is a board member of Birmingham-based theatre company, The Bone Ensemble.

Kate Higginbottom - Collaborating Director - Kate Higginbottom is a writer, director and performer with a background in theatre, physical theatre, film, music and dance. Her principle work as director has been with Nicole & Martin, creating staged versions of Grimm's tales. Kate studiEd English Literature at Cambridge, Theatre Performance and Creation at the École International de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, Paris, Dance at Laban London and the European Dance Development Centre in Holland. As a performer and devisor she has worked with many international companies, including Complicite, Herdeg&Desponds, and Theatre O.

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