Dragon Radio

4th of November 2013 The Dragon Café celebrates the news that we have secured funding for another year, and Sarah explains that we will reopen in February 2014, to allow time for some necessary strategic planning for the long term future of the Café. Birthday celebrations and a paean from Stephen and Tim who, after a bit of Bangra, also tell us about a missing cat flap. We compare and contrast the Art World as represented by Grayson Perry’s lecture with art world of the Dragon café and we dance with David.

courtesy of Kevin McClean John Constable wishes The Dragon Café a happy first birthday aided by Norman and David debuts his new Southwark Walks song. Eleanor Longden's TED talk introduces the subject of 'hearing voices', one we'll certainly be revisiting in the future, a snippet from Sue and Joe's amazing film, Southwark Tale (hopefully screening on this site soon!), Moonlight Sonata from Blue, The Dragons parade with samba from Bloco Maluco, and finally, voices from 'We Need To Talk About…Hope and Meaning in Recovery' (You can hear the whole of this here).

19th of August 2013 In this weeks show we speak to D Rosier who tells us about the highly recommended blog, SLam TWIG: Operations (http://slamtwigops.wordpress.com),  Barbara questions whether "life is just a bowl of cherries" in her poem 'The Turning Tide' and D shares with us the graphs and charts of her artwork. (You can see it at http://drosier.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/graphs-and-charts-illustrated-talks-and-q-as-at-dragon-cafe-19th-august/, where you can also listen to her whole talk.)

This was the day of the confluence of a didgeridoo, Lancashire clogs, a tongue drum, a darbuka, amulets and talismans, Kindred Minds at the Dragon Café, a trusty trowel and bucket not to mention gremlins….I said don't mention the gremlins!

3rd of June 2013 Biscuit citizens tell their tale, as the Bandorians play. Behind the scenes at Resonance we go. With poems on the air, in our dear Dragon Café Bubbles, my head, and counsel to go slow. Liz Atkins talks about her compulsive skin-picking and the art she makes, in prose. Then back to our poetic world and month we go.

Aside from the lovely 4-handed piano duetting of Elena Riu and Peter Bridges, this week’s DC podcast is really an assemblage of film soundtrack lucky enough to escape the cutting-room floor, all garnered from the Cafe on the day  Declan’s film month gets off to a lively start. Action!

In this episode our intrepid reporter, Mick, guides us around the tables at the Mental Well-Being Market Place, hosted by dragon Café. In theses days of change as personal budgets come in, it was good to see so many stallholders representing local creative, recreational and mental health groups, and to get news from Southwark Council about day services, personalisation and reablement. We also hear extracts from presentations by The Confucius Institute, Vivien’s singing group, Amanda’s Sonnet group, Thomas Tobias singing Caritas Abundat and the sound of samba from Bloco Maluco, outroduced by Agueda and Monica.

Transitions is the theme of this programme and we start with a saunter around Tania’s drama group, Vivien’s singing group, Mestre Mags’ samba bash and Latin Dance with Ariella  and Renzo, then an interview with Sarah, Maiuko and Marianne and David about the Transitions writing project.   Sarah reads part of her piece for Transitions 2, John Constable sings Spark In The Dark with a little help from the Hawklords and we meet Jennifer who tells us bout the Dragon Café quilt and we end with the sublime Maiuko.

You may wonder what it is that is rocking Sarah's boat so much at the beginning of this Valentine's programme - listen to the end to find out! Sarah and The Eurythmics explore the theme of love in all its forms, artist Simba talks about his graffiti writing, Raga responds to Ken and Paul's homelessness drama. Sally Scantlebury reads us a poem rather than a menu and Martin chunters on about the new Dragon Café computer and, before Sarah takes us out with Ode To A Nightingale, the Rude Mechanicals give us a song.

This week starts with a collage of sounds from our new singing group led by Vivien Ellis followed by Simba telling us about his exhibition of paintings which you can see for just one more week at the Café. A sonnet from Amanda, a 'Bit' from MrH and MfH and part of Paul and Ken's exploration of the issue of homelessness and TAKALAKA!  - samba with Mestre Mags and Handel with Tomas Tobias. (You can hear the whole of this talk by clicking here.)

In this week's programme Sarah Wheeler answers the question, "What have you done with the last ten years?", Barbara Robson stays young and beautiful, and we hear from Barnaby of Cooltan Arts (in full Dickensian sartorial elegance) about their photographic exhibition, Ben Okri reads from the 'Turn On Your Light' section of 'Mental Fight', and an excerpt of David Neita's talk "Beauty and Mental Wealth". 

In this week's programme Patricia Dark from the local studies library with one of two Southwark stories of forgotten heroes followed by some reaction to our new Drama group and a poem from Stephen Micalef. We then hear from Sarah Wise who explores the themes from her book, 'Inconvenient People' which tells the stories of people banished to psychiatric institutions for no better reason than to get them out of the way, a theme continued in the discussion following Kathy Crockford's reading of 'The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox' l. After another poem and an introduction to Sarah Wheeler's Extallation we bring the theme to the present day with the documentary film by Alex Hamel about a Canadian Psychiatric Hospital and part of the discussion it engendered. You can hear the whole discussion here.

A more than usually busy Dragon Café, with its new group activities including script writing, film making, drama and Shakespearen sonnets as well as our new exhibition of art works from the Bethlem Gallery and Museum, also brought us performances around a Survivors Poetry evening hosted by Dave Russel and Celia. In this programme we hear an Appalachian chant from Dave Russel, a poem from Frank Bangay, verse and song from John Constable, "Bloody Normals" from Stuart Black, "Intimacy" from Lidsay Burns and "Little Rose" from Ugly Sulk.

This week we hear sounds from Sadie, news from the kitchen, Native American music and words of wisdom from Barbara, Sarah and the bane of the picture hangers's life, Amanda introduces us to iambic pentameter as her new group explores Shakespeare's sonnets, Paul Ashton tells us about the joys and wonders of volunteering as he relates his experience of Crisis at Christmas and we meet Lee and Jill under the Healing Tree.

New Year’s Eve inevitably means a time of reflection and this week’s Dragon Radio looks back at the first three months of the Dragon Café with sound pictures drawn from the vast array of music, poetry, discussion and the general chit chat that makes up a ‘typical’ day at the Café collaged together by Mick and Monica. We also look forward to the Dragon’s roar in 2013!

It was Christmas Eve at the Dragon Café so what better to accompany your Dragon Roast with all the trimmings than a reading of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" from Lois and others, the presentation of an 'Ice Dragon' by Ivan and Julia, Jill Rock telling us about some of the beautiful artworks made by Café patrons in 2012 and looking forward to 2013, and Max's shadow puppet show, all topped off with an instrumental rendition of "Puff The Magic Dragon".

In this episode we hear from Jill Rock on her art table, Carrie reads from Faffnir and Knights by Stevie Smith, words of wisdom from Barbara, Learning the Hard Way, feedback with a heartfelt appreciation of the Café from Paul Ashton and Grooving With Mr Blow as we go out with a taste of Will Simpson’s Peckham Soul Train, which had us all up on our feet for a joyous conclusion to the day.

In this special issue we spend time in the third space at the Dragon Café, the kitchen, where Mick talks to Marc and Sally and volunteers Martin, Agnes and Anastasia - marvel at their rhythmic chopping skills! Then we take a stroll around the area with john Constable as he takes us on the second of three Southwark Mystery walks.

In this programme we greet the new ‘calmest’ month of December, the month in which we explore the meaning of locality, and specifically, the spirt of Southwark. Guiding us are Carrie Thomas who reads from a piece by Adriana Enciso Diaz, describing her search for Little Dorrit that brought her to St George The Martyr, Sarah and Thomas Tobias tells us of arriving in Southwark and the developing relationship with the ‘Outlaw Borough’, Chris Haydon who whets our appetite for the film making collaboration he will be undertaking with the Dragon Café in January and again in May of next year, interspersed with songs extracted for John Constable’s fantastic performance from ‘The Southwark Mysteries’.

The end of our Blakean Month is celebrated in this programme with performances from The Children (John Gibbens and Armorel Weston), a poem from DiDi, a blend of Blake and Dylan from Dave Russell, Songs and poetry from Michael Horovitz and Venessa V, Stephen Micalef accompanied by an improvised piece from the Ring Mod Orkestra (Tim Flitcroft) and last bit not least, Grassy Nowel.

This was our third Blakean week, and we feature in this programme performances from Micalef, Cathy, Paul, Nik, John Constable, Musa, JJ and Jazzman John. We also have an extract from  Blake's Book of Job performed by Thomas Tobias and Liam Smith, and Rod Tweedy's presentation, Blake and The God of the Left Brain. We're treated to a performance by long time collaborators Pete Brown (who wrote for Cream and Jack Bruce) and Phil Ryan (formerly of Man) which brought our night to a close.

The Many Voices and Visions of William Blake was the theme and that's certainly what we get in this weeks programme as Susanne Sklar channels the spirit of Blake's Jerusalem, Tim Heath and Stephen Micalef introduce us to The Blake Society and The William Blake Congregation, Butterfly Wheels play their first ever show, Andrea Mclean talks about her wonderful paintings and Blake's influence on her work, Dave Russell sings Tull(!), poems from Hanna, Thomas Tobias and John Constable, instrument of the week and Debbie Eckman Sings Jerusalem

Sally's Plinth Sculpture This week William Blake arrived at the Dragon Café! Phil showed us around his London, Stephen Micalef introduced us to his cat and The Ghost of a Flea, Carrie took us to The Garden of Love and we had Infant Joy from Thomas Tobias. We also hear in this programme poems from John Constable and Blodwyn, a song from Musa, The Book of Job discussed by Barbara and Andrew Solomon and Jah Wobble and fireworks!

Thomas Tobias performs Remembrance of Things Past This week our theme was remembrance and friendship, and we had many, moving perspectives on this subject from Thomas Tobias, Barbara Robson, John Constable and Renuka Bhakta. We also hear a song from Musa Ali, the mystery instrument of the week, Hooray for Hamlet and the revenge of the Toast!

This week we hear the instrument of the week, as Mick Hobbs plays a Chinese marching song, the voices of people attending the Networking Salon, hosted by the Dragon Café in partnership with the Southwark Arts Forum and SLaM. Pete Woodcock reads his poem accompanied by the music from Martin Harrison's film, Two Days In Autumn and Sarah Wheeler reads from 'The Mystery of Mushrooms' and Mikalef takes us on a Blakean journey.

Bach and Boxing! Not an obvious combination, unless, of course you're a regular at the Dragon Café. This week, as well as Carlos Moreno teaching non contact boxing, we had lessons from the Tai Chi Masters of The Confucius Institute, David and Marianne of the Transitions journal, the poetry of Dylan Thomas read by Carrie, Paul Ashton talking about his gift of a painting to The Dragon Café and video from Animated Minds. All in this weeks podcast 

The wet autumnal weather couldn't dampen the spirits on the Dragon Café, and in this podcast we hear the wit of Dr Stewart, the poignant haiku-like poetry of Bill McKnight, part of the discussion led by Sarah Wheeler, in the series 'We Need To Talk About.... ', on the theme of this year's World Mental Health Day, 'Depression: A Global Crisis' and the music of Channel One from Sound Minds. Plus we hear from the voices of you, the people who make The Dragon Café. Click here to listen

The Dragon Café opened its doors for the first step on its year long journey. Over 300 people came to sample the soup, listen to poetry and music, experience the play "Dervish" and take part in the discussion panel "We Need To Talk About Mantal Illness". You can hear a taste of the day here

This is the first of what will become regular podcasts from Mental Fight Club, whose new home will be the Dragon Café, in the crypt of the church of St George The Martyr, Southwark. In this episode we get a taste of the launch event and party that took place on 23rd. of April 2012, St George’s day!