Mafwa Theatre brings major summer festival to Leeds' transformed 'Garden of Sanctuary'
Mafwa Theatre’s free three-day 'Mafwa Midsummer' festival brings music, storytelling, and an emotional world premiere to Lincoln Green for Refugee Week
Not long ago, the Roxby Community Garden in Lincoln Green was a derelict playground, forgotten and unused.
Today, it stands as a thriving, vibrant ‘Garden of Sanctuary’ - a green oasis designed to combat isolation, foster local wellbeing, and give one of Leeds' most under-resourced areas a vital cultural heart.
For three days this month, this transformed urban space will become the focal point for the city's Refugee Week celebrations as independent company Mafwa Theatre launches Mafwa Midsummer.
Marking a major milestone for the local Theatre of Sanctuary, the event is expanding from a single-day celebration into its first-ever full three-day weekend festival.
Free and open to all, it promises an eclectic, powerful weekend of live music, storytelling, workshops, and communal connection.
This year's national Refugee Week theme is Courage; a concept deeply woven into the fabric of the communities Mafwa Theatre supports.
Since 2018, the Leeds-based organisation has used drama, nature, and the arts to bring together over 1,000 refugees, asylum seekers, and settled residents, championing migrant voices and building bridges across different cultures.
The crown jewel of the upcoming weekend will be Sunday's world premiere of ‘Of Course, Flowers!,’ an immersive, open-air dance performance.
The piece is the culmination of an intensive creative project between professional contemporary choreographer Mahshid Alavi and members of Mafwa’s Kuluhenna Drama group - a weekly creative sanctuary bringing together women from refugee, asylum-seeking, and settled backgrounds in Leeds.
Blending traditional cultural dance elements with contemporary movement, the piece explores deeply personal themes of memory, displacement, and new beginnings.
"The piece has grown out of workshops exploring movement, memory and cultural dance traditions and it feels deeply rooted in the women involved in making it," says Tamsin Cook, Co-Artistic Director of Mafwa Theatre.
"Mafwa Midsummer is our most ambitious Refugee Week celebration yet, and we can't wait to share it with everyone. We hope people will come along, stay for a while, dance, listen, make something, meet someone new and leave feeling more connected."
Mafwa Midsummer runs from June 19 to 21 at the Roxby Community Garden, Lincoln Green (LS9 7LR). For the full, detailed line-up of daily events, performance times, and participating community groups, head over to the official Mafwa Theatre website.