2021
Maaike Begstra, Gable Roelofsen, Jude Christian, Neske Beks, Chinonyerem Odimba, Enver Husicic and Uma Nada-Rajah - The Boom! creatives.
December 2021 Cre-Actors Paris. Owing to COVID Theatre du Soleil had to cancel some pre-Christmas performances, and then France decided to try and stem the UK COVID tide, so we had a zoom meeting to reflect back on the July workshop and look ahead to Bologna in Spring 2022
November 2021 My Heart is in The East. As part of Interfaith week, Jessica Litwak and Fred Fortas presented extracts from the play online, Jessica ran 2 zoom poetry workshops. All overseen by Creative Associate Rosalind Parker, with whom I presented on the project to those gathered to mark the work of Birmingham Interfaith communities. This is all part of developing the engagement work around MHiiTE https://www.mhiite.com/
November 2021 Decadence Staged reading – at The Albany – of extracts from Remy de Gourmont’s Lilith (1892), in a new translation by Dan Rebellato; Jean Lorrain’s Ennoïa (1905), translated into English for the first time by Jennifer Higgins; Djuna Barnes’s one-act play The Dove (1923); and a little-known text by Izumi Kyōka called Kerria Japonica (1923). Curated by Dr Adam Alston and Professor Jane Desmarais from Goldsmiths. Performers: Lauren John Joseph, Georgia Sansom, Sadao Ueda, Yuriri Naka, Philip Arditti and Adam Alston, with myself as (Director) https://www.thealbany.org.uk/shows/decadent-plays/
October 2021 Plays for Young People 3. Worked (through zoom, as 3 weeks quarantine was prohibitive) with Five playwrights Khairi Anwar (Malaysia), Lin Meng Huan (China), Olga Macrinici (Moldova/UK), Chinonyerem Odimba (UK) Dr Vicki Ooi (Hong Kong), one Festival Director extraordinaire Joe Sidek (Malaysia) and 20 fantastic emerging Hong Kong translators. All hosted at AFTEC https://www.aftec.hk/en/ by the redoubtable Lynn Yau and her crack team. Third edition of this project, which just keeps getting better and better. (Dramaturg)
October 2021 – Artaud Residency Inis Oirr exploring the beauty, cruelty and the legacy of Artaud’s fortnight on the islands off Galway, with 10 actors from Blue Teapot, Compagnie de l”oiseau-Mouche and Theatr 21, as part of Trasna Na Line, at the Aras Eanna Arts Centre with Zone Poem under the direction of Simon Capelle and Mélodie Lasselin (TNL Project Dramaturg)
September 2021 Escalate – worked with Share Music and Performing Arts http://sharemusic.se/english/ and Ben Evans (British Council) from the European Disability Arts Cluster to create a bid to the Creative Europe Platform, which brings together 20 disability arts organisations to promote European emerging disabled artists working across theatre, music and dance (Consultant)
September – November 2021 CTL Digital Festival, in which the Crossing The Line partnership shared online digital versions of all the work – and more – they would have brought to Galway in 2020, had COVID not scuppered that festival http://www.crossingtheline.eu/the-festival/ (Project Dramaturg)
September 2021 Ogmius documentation completed on the project, which you can read about http://www.crossingtheline.eu/activities/ and which the French Erasmus agency has since elevated to Best Practice project status (Project Dramaturg)
August 2021 Appointed Sue Williams to succeed me as Chair at Vital Xposure
July 2021 Cre-Actors Paris. First workshop week at The Cartoucherie led marvellously by Dominique Jambert and Vincent Mangado of Theatre du Soleil – with Teatro Dell’ Argine and Border Crossings
https://cre-actors.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-first-live-meeting-of-cre-actors-is.html
(Dramaturg as Creative Evaluation)
June 2021 Fence 29a Graz, 7 Fencers as part of the Dramatikerinnen Festival. (Couldn’t get to this owing to COVID restrictions, hope we can come back with fuller network participation once COVID is somewhere else.)
June 2021 Fence 29b La Charité-sur-Loire 7 (different) Fencers as part of the Bourlinguer-themed Festival Quatres Coins du Mot. ( 3 x salon presentations’ team)
June 2021 Ogmius In Full Flight – a day in which all the partners presented on all the work of their organisations and the partnership as part of the project. (Project Dramaturg).
May / October 2021 European Arts & Disability Cluster – under the productive leadership of Ben Evans, building on the face-to-face meeting in Den Haag end of 2019. (Working Group Member)
May 2021 IETM IDEA working Group – after a year of zoom meetings we nearly got somewhere. Despite the problems this group encountered, IETM has done some very good work around diversity and equity. (Working Group Member)
May 2021 Podcast with Ben Yeoh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=durvzE1WdhM
April / May 2021 Mentoring Dublin-based dramaturg Pamela McQueen – which was peer mentoring, if I’m honest, ostensibly around my theatre & disability and Fence network work, but also all the diverse work Pamela makes happen too. (Mentor)
February 2021 completed 5 Boom (zoom) Labs, for the UK / Dutch playwrights / theatre makers to explore their works-in-progress (Producer/Dramaturg)
Jan / Mar / May 2021 Ogmius Textlab – The Little Prince, under Harald Leander’s skilful trilingual direction, this became a successful experiment in collaborative transnational staged audio production. (Project Dramaturg)
Jan / Mar / July 2021 Brixton House Advisory Group – how will this exciting new venue launch under Gbolohan Obisesan’s vision? Can’t wait for it happen! (Artistic Advisor)
January 2021 / ongoing support to Tom Minter’s fascinating play By Me You’ll Never Know and the rich development through its different frames (Fence network Director / Curator)