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a FRIENDS & FAMILY fundraiser
We are reaching out to you — our friends, family and community — to help us to take our show Ways of Knowing to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025.
We are incredibly lucky to be one of three winners of the Untapped Award this year, a prestigious award from New Diorama Theatre, Underbelly and Concord Theatricals. This award provides a package of support to companies taking ambitious work to the Fringe — including a cash award, a prime venue and time slot with no upfront hire fees, marketing and PR support, and a publishing deal. It provides an incredible opportunity for us to introduce our work to wider audiences, raise the profile of our company thorugh national press coverage, and open up new relationships and opportunities within our field.
However, while the award gives us a significant base of support and a financial leg-up in getting our show to Edinburgh, we still need to raise some money to deliver this show to best of our capabilities, and make the most of this pivotal moment in our careers.
About the Project
Ways of Knowing is a mysterious, slippery dance-theatre show about the impossibility of knowing the future. Devised and performed by Emergency Chorus (Ben Kulvichit and Clara Potter-Sweet), with live sound design by Nat Norland and scenography by Blythe Brett, the show delves into the ways we predict and prophesy the future, uncovering a mysterious series of visions and omens.
The show combines movement, found text and sound in our signature collage style, taking its audience on a journey from deadpan humour and synchronised dance, to apocalyptic sound design and a terrifying descent into the dark. As we plunge headlong into a future defined by fast-evolving technology, corporate giants and the existential threat of climate crisis, Ways of Knowing processes the precarity of today’s turbulent world. It encourages its audiences to make friends with uncertainty, and leave some room, some terra incognita, for us to imagine radically better futures, together.
Audience & artist reactions
Photos by Jemima Yong
Your Support
Ways of Knowing costs £28,000 to take to Edinburgh. We have already secured 71% of our budget through winning the Untapped Award, earned income from our performances, and private funds and trusts — we are so close to our goal! To realise the full potential of this work, we need to raise the final £8,000.
Edinburgh Fringe is notoriously expensive, and even more so in recent years. Overheads form a huge part of these costs - in 2024, the Fringe Society lobbied Scottish Parliament to protest a 300% increase in accomodation costs in the last 6 years (which is the last time we performed at Fringe - 2019!). However, with limited capacity for producers and programmers to scout new talent elsewhere, the Fringe remains a vital hub of new work, and the best place to get our show seen by touring venues and future project partners. We are determined to get there.
We are a very small team, and used to working on a shoestring to pull off exciting and ambitious projects - from national tours, to community ensembles of town criers, to curating sold-out events and championing other artists. The show, as always, must go on - but with your support, we will be able to staff up and access valuable resources to help secure a future touring life for Ways of Knowing.
This support will enable us to:
- Work closely with a producer to build a strong foundation for future touring opportunities, both nationally and internationally
- Hire a stage manager and/or an access worker to support us on the ground in Edinburgh, ensuring wellbeing of our team throughout a demanding month’s run at the Fringe Festival
- Capture and post-produce high-quality audio, video, and photo documentation to ensure the longevity of the work
- Backpay ourselves for some of the many hours of administrative and producing work that have gone into mounting this project
Pictured here - two moments that made it into the final show. The semi-improvised ‘Two Steps Ahead’ dance on the left, and a speech by Victorian weather-forecasting inventor George Merryweather above.
Photos by Tamsin Drury
Ways of Knowing will preview in London on 16th and 17th July 2025 at New Diorama Theatre (ticket link incoming), and run throughout the Edinburgh Festival Fringe at Underbelly Cowgate between 31 July and 24 August 2025, as part of the Untapped Showcase.
This feels like a turning point for Emergency Chorus. We’ve been working together for 8 years and feel this show is our calling card — our first full-length stage work in five years. We’re so proud of it, and of our incredible collaborators who have helped bring this work into being:
- Clara Potter-Sweet: Co-Creator and Performer
- Ben Kulvichit: Co-Creator, Performer and Lighting Designer
- Nat Norland: Sound Designer and Live Sound Operator
- Blythe Brett: Set and Costume Design
- Charlie Ashwell: Choreographic Support
- Karen Christopher: Outside Eye
- Amy Daniels: Technical Support
Here’s how you can support us:
1. Donate:
If you would like to donate more than £500, but don’t have a Monzo account to do so, please contact emergencychorustheatre [AT] gmail.com for bank transfer details!
2. Share: Please spread the word to friends, family, and anyone who might be moved by this work.
3. Sponsorship: Do you know any companies or business-owners looking to give back to the arts? Do their values align with the themes of our work? Let us know, or put us in touch!
Thank you. Our work together helps us makes sense of this strange world, and we hope that the shows we make can do that for our audiences too. Your support in getting this project out there means a lot to us.
With deep thanks,
Ben and Clara (Emergency Chorus) xx
Photos by Blythe Brett + our caving instructor!