People are hard-wired for stories. Stories tell us about our deepest motivations and desires, what justice and injustice look and feel like, and who we want to be. We all tell stories, all the time – for fun, to share experiences, to create bonds and connect.
Experiencing richly imagined stories told live, together with other people, whether ancient myth, real life experience, or new textures of possibility, is a joyous and vivid experience. It plunges you deep into lives of others and returns you safely home - changed.
Adverse Camber is an independent production company and registered charity, powered by a dynamic team of freelance creative producers, artists and associates. We were founded in 2006 with the ambition to create more access to and more ambitious artistic support for storytelling.
Now our work has transformed, and continues to grow, to include national, international and locally relevant projects exploring the power of stories in a changing and challenging world.
We know stories can create positive change and this is what drives us.
The stories have prodded me into making very simple decisions of change, so that instead of being haunted I actually act and do something...Audience Feedback on 4 Tales to Save the World
What we do
In all our creative work, we listen to storytellers and communities. Together, we discover the stories that need to be told, and we shape and share these in theatres, neighbourhoods and public spaces across the UK and the world.
We nurture the power of all our imaginations to open new horizons.
We spend our time...
- commissioning and producing storytelling and music performances, events and tours. These include sharing epic stories from Northern Europe, West Africa, Wales and Kurdish Iran with international and intercultural ensembles, to story walks in our local town centres and events in libraries and communities
- providing training and developmental opportunities, skills-sharing and professional development, live and online
- producing bespoke co-creative projects, designed with and for communities, currently focused on young people age 11+, including care-experienced young people and an international collaboration between the UK and Eastern Africa/Northern Kenya on themes of climate justice
- embedding research and learning across our work, driving future investment in creative and community practice
Our Team
FAQs
Why are you called Adverse Camber?
Our name is inspired by the road sign ‘Adverse Camber’ which describes a bend in the road where the curve is unexpected and more dangerous than usual. It flags up that something different is about to happen. We are excited to take artistic risks to forge new ground and invite you to embrace the risks and rewards with us!
Where do you find the stories you work with?
We work closely with artists and communities to identify and shape the stories they want to tell. Sometimes, these are traditional oral stories, passed down through word of mouth over hundreds of years, and sometimes they are personal or family stories, and sometimes a combination of both. Traditional stories have often found their way into print and can languish on the shelf, hard for the casual reader to unravel, which is why we’re passionate about making them come alive and restoring their relevance for society today. Framing personal stories through the lens of traditional stories, can also bring new perspectives.
I'm an artist and I'd like to work with you - what should I do?
There are many more artists we’d like to support if we had more resources, and we have to be selective about the work we produce and tour, based on creating high quality experiences for audiences, artists and venue partners. We are only able to support a few artists to tour each year. However, we'd love to hear from you, so tell us about your ideas and keep us up to date with your work, especially if you’re looking to take an ambitious new step, or your voice isn’t reflected in the creative work which is already out there. Also look out for call outs for storytellers on our social media channels, we're often recruiting for projects and offering other professional development opportunities.
Get in touch by email or come and say hello if you're nearby.
I'd like to book a storytelling artist to run a workshop or develop a project - can we talk through ideas?
Of course! We can match-make artists and partners for workshops, work on longer-term projects, and are always happy to talk through ideas, so do get in touch.
How accessible and inclusive are you?
In the work that we produce, artists draw on diverse influences. We acknowledge that artists with lived experience of diversity have enabled our company to be what it is, and diverse influences enrich what we do and how we do it.
Diversity is essential in a healthy organisation and society. We acknowledge that often, diverse voices are marginalised or appropriated in our society. We do not want to do this in our company. We recognise that the arts sector is implicated in many systemic injustices and are working to change this through our work.
We commit to actively working to dismantle barriers to inclusion for artists, audiences and producers who are underrepresented in storytelling. This means that we prioritise working with Global Majority artists, Disabled artists and female identifying artists.
We are constantly challenging ourselves to make sure that we have the knowledge and skills to support the artists we work with and the confidence to challenge systemic prejudice when we witness it.
We regularly consider the backgrounds of our team, our Board, artists we work with, our audiences and partners, and want to make sure we are reflecting a broad and diverse range of perspectives and stories in our work.
We have committed to long-term change to make sure that our organisation is representative of the artists we support and the audiences we serve. We’ve expanded our programme of work to help us listen to and work with communities who are less well represented in our audiences and artistic communities. These include young people close to our base in Derbyshire, particularly from areas with a rich cultural history but less access to resources, care experienced young people and asylum seeking young people who we want to help welcome to our area. We work closely with partners and experienced artists to understand how best to work with storytelling in these contexts.
Wherever possible, we provide shadow or support roles to enable artists to add value and gain new learning including on current projects Culture Café Tells Stories and The Gods Are All Here tour. These roles are always advertised through open calls, with panels that include partners bringing a range of experience to selecting the best artists for the role.
When on tour, we offer activities which connect with wider communities such as workshops, or school visits, and we also initiate bespoke programmes such as libraries tours or story walks in town centres to reach beyond arts venues.
We acknowledge the barriers to participation experienced by disabled people and we provide BSL interpretation for our performances, caption all our videos and online content, provide audio described trailers and resources and include access budgets to add further bespoke support.
Our work is driven by an action research process, through which we pursue change through action and reflection/learning cycles, to reach our goals of a more healthy, equitable and net zero society.