Rowan Rheingans: Dispatches on the Red Dress

Dispatches on the Red Dress is an intimate and adventurous exploration of memory, identity, joy, sorrow, trauma-recovery, bird-song, war and waltzes.

Unravelling the urgent message hidden in the folds of a story from her own grandmother’s youth in 1940's Germany, award-winning musician Rowan Rheingans sings to the past, the present and the future in this unique and deeply personal one-woman show.

At once a warm family memoir and an unnerving elegy on the modern human condition, Rowan explores how hope for the future may be found in the very darkest pockets of history.

Weaving storytelling and song with fiddles, banjo and guitar, live looping and subtle use of pre-recorded sounds, Rowan brings the intimacy of a folk gig to the imaginative possibilities of theatre in this poignant reflection on human empathy and small acts of transformation.

Rowan Rheingans is a fiddle player, banjoist, songwriter and composer best known for her work with acclaimed folk bands Lady Maisery, The Rheingans Sisters and Songs of Separation. With these projects Rowan has won two BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards ('Best Original Track' & 'Best Album') and is a five-times nominee.

Rowan’s debut solo show Dispatches on the Red Dress is supported by PRS Foundation, Arts Council England and English Folk Dance and Song Society.

“big ideas carried off with aplomb…. not only an excellent songwriter but someone with a fine grasp of the delicate balance of joy and pain that makes us human” Folk Radio UK

“carefully crafted words that reveal a deep emotional charge” Louder Than War

“vivid songwriting… spectacularly beautiful" Mark Radcliffe, BBC Radio 2