Image: Outside Byron’s former residence in Pisa
One reader commented, “Beautifully written! Very, very beautiful. Speaks to me because you have covered areas I know little about, although some of the backdrop may be familiar. Makes me want to go to Pisa and check it out properly. The language in this piece is beautiful. It sings! Excellent photographs too.”
To read the article, please click here.
Image: A photo from this year, unlike the opera or this review!
The reviewer writes “No land remains untouched by foreign feet. It’s a line that uttered throughout Migrations, a new opera by Welsh National Opera and was left stuck in my brain the whole drive home after I saw it this week at the Mayflower Theatre, Southampton. As part of their Autumn season, WNO have finished their run at the Mayflower with a touching show about diversity, acceptance, and migration. Commissioned for the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower, this new opera is a colossal collaboration that leaves a lasting impact…”
And that Shreya’s story, “This is the Life! is a story about Britain in 1968. With the rise of the NHS, young Indian doctors are invited by the British government to help build this brilliant health service. But the roads aren’t paved with gold and the anti-immigrant ideology forges rivers of racist attitudes. Through a series of Bollywood dancing and brilliant singing, these young doctors fight to be taken seriously and find their own happiness in a culture far from home.”
Ending with “Each story in Migrations was thought provoking and reflective. It was hard hitting and uncomfortable at times, but was told in a beautiful way that allowed each story to intertwine and flow through each other to create something magical on stage. It’s staggering to think that over 100 performers take to the stage at each performance, but the diversity of the cast adds to the impact of the show. Migrations is the first opera that I have seen in English, and the first modern opera too, but I loved the fact it felt relevant, accessible, and powerful. It’s a show that will be a lasting memory and will no doubt leave you wondering what migrations you’ve been on.”
To read the review in full, please click here.
Doubly relevant in the current climate, and amidst the controversy over the best-selling memoir ‘The Salt Path’, but Shreya explores much more than that in her inimitable style, and provides solutions. Please get a print copy (as pictured above) from publisher Writing East Midlands or read here.
A “timely and stylish” piece, readers said. Please click here to read it.
Here she is on page 9, at the start of their alumnae section. She is also featured on their website, although we should probably get in touch with them to update their biography, as she’s done a thing or two, including two books, since this was posted!
Image from her time on Loreto’s student leadership, as President of the Literary Society and Quiz Club.
…gearing up to release ‘Tea, Tiffin and Tyranny’ to the world in a few months!
Image from Nottingham’s International Women’s Day at Nottingham Playhouse where Shreya was featured for her achievements
Exploring why we stumble and how to sidestep it, with wisdom from Aristotle to Bruce Springsteen, here’s the article in full
Image is a still from a short film on Shreya’s career
Working with a large number of diverse, individual, secondary school students in Nottingham, UK, and the rhythms and words that speak to them, Shreya guided the youngsters in creating striking lyrics about their everyday and yet very important worlds.
Please click here to read the article in full, and for the first part, which has been posted before, please click here to read it once more.
“I’m with Oscar when he posits, “the truth is rarely pure and never simple.” Wilde! Not at all how a lot of folk, including famous philosophers, view truth – as the single unimpeachable edict on which we must build our world. Yet, the witty Irishman was, as always, spot on. The multiplicity of our planet makes undiluted, uncomplicated truth impossible, begging the terribly modern question of “whose truth?” There’s never just one side to a story, you see, though one of the numerous versions taking wing might brush closest to its empirical moorings…”
Please click here to read the essay in full
Shreya Sen-Handley 