Item List

Dan Walsh creates narrative work, which connects with various audiences to create a platform of work anyone can enjoy. Dan started choreographing throughout his time at university, performing at local festivals such as Footprint Dance Festival 2016 and parallel local events. He graduated in 2016 from the BA Hons Dance Studies course specialising in performance and choreography. During his time at university he had the opportunity to create and shadow emerging and established choreographers, which helped him develop his choreographic technique and style. Since graduating from Roehampton in 2016, he has worked with small scale Dance Theatre companies such as Wriggle Dance Company on their national tour of Colour Of Me as an apprentice dancer and workshop facilitator. He has also worked with charities such as Wise Thoughts on their LBGT+ festival G-fest, which collaborates with LGBT+ artists. He returned to Roehampton to perform at Footprints Festival 2017 as a dancer. His most recent work has included work with Daisy Moorcroft on her collaboration with Imagineer Productions on their Halloween Festival in 2017 as a dancer. He now wants to create his own work within Coventry and the surrounding area to bring his narrative to new audiences.

DAN WALSH

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Lisa Franklin is a Warwickshire based actress and live artist originally from Hull. Most recently she has performed a piece of collective digital poetry at the Birmingham Rep as part of Birmingham Literature Festival, an immersive experience in collaboration with Lord Whitney at Leeds Town Hall (The Wood Beneath the World) and with The Rude Mechanicals. Lou Sarabadzic is a French bilingual poet, blogger, and novelist. She has published two books in French: a novel and a poetry collection. In January 2018, she received the Dot Award for Digital Literature for the #NERDSproject. Lisa and Lou came together to create The Digital Philosophers, combining their love of literature and performance, after a chance meeting in a library.

GERTRUDE

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Hopefully the box of tricks – a broomstick, a pair of odd socks, a pink dress and much more - will help them act out what makes them different. Knockabout comedy in an inimitable style by Jake Jarvis and Luke Greenwood – who may be but probably aren’t twins – but definitely joined at the hip. In 2017 Open Theatre was awarded Arts Council of England’s National Portfolio funding to deliver a broad range of work centred around an Artist Professionalization Programme, which commenced in April 2018. The Talent Lab, aims to enable young people with learning disabilities to work towards becoming artists, performers, practitioners and creative enablers in the arts. In 2015 Open Theatre Company had supported the development of an association of independent emerging artists BecauseWeCanCanCan (BWCCC) with aspirations to become professional artists. Some of these emerging artists have been working with the OTC for over 17 years and have developed into strong performers and theatre makers in their own right. During Spring 2018 five members of BWCCC worked on a partnership project with Birmingham Hippodrome Theatre, Metro Boulot-Dodo and Open Theatre to create and tour Hansel & Gretel. Two of those members are now developing a physical theatre duo called Juke and Lake.

JUKE AND LAKE

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Inspired by the timeless words of Audre Lorde’s quote, ‘your silence will not protect you’, this one woman show recounts stories of Lanaire’s childhood 'through intricately woven poems: stories of loss – the loss of memory, misremembering and the forgetting of memory, through to stories of Black women’s resistance in several parts of the world.’ Lanaire Aderemi is a poet, playwright and performer and a second year sociology student at Warwick. She is President of Warwick Anti Sexism Society and Diversity and Outreach Officer of Warwick Drama Collective. She has been featured on the BBC, student radio and in Coventry Telegraph condemning institutional racism and sexism in universities. Lanaire has performed in several festivals such as the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Lucid Lemons Festival in Lagos, Nigeria. Lanaire also wrote, produced and directed a play called ‘you did not break us’ which was seen by over 300 people in the UK last year. Since then, she has written, produced, directed and performed two one-woman plays at Warwick University and the Tristan Bates Theatre, London one of which is called ‘an evening with verse writer’ She is also a resident artist at the Birmingham Rep Theatre.

LANAIRE ADEREMI

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Soil. seed-living as a weed is an intimate examination of witches in British folklore. Lauren Sheerman explores a woman's struggle to find a sense of place and belonging in an evolving urban setting. Turning to her plants for company, the ‘hag’ uncovers a whole world of women and stories that help her on a mystical and somewhat dangerous journey to find a sense of place. This personal and profound story uses physical theatre, performance poetry and ritual to create an immersive story telling experience. Lauren is a performance artist and facilitator whose practice seeks collaboration between the inner and outer spaces of the physical body and the natural and unnatural worlds around us. Her work is concerned with the folkloric, the mythical; with eco-poetics and ritual. Weaving stories of place, time and people to create multi-disciplinary encounters. Lauren's work uses a combination of poetry, movement, and ritual to create worlds steeped in the ancient but reworked into a modern day context. Lauren's work is rarely performed in traditional spaces and looks to re-imagine the everyday mundane into something mystical and unexpected. Lauren has previously performed in warehouses, abandoned factories, and on cliff tops. Lauren's work is always created directly for the space in which it is performed creating site responsive experiences for the audiences. Lauren was born in Coventry and studied theatre at Coventry University and following graduation has lived in Cornwall and London but is now based between Coventry and Rugby. Alongside making performance work Lauren also produces poetry pamphlets and performance poetry which she performs around the country. She also works as a theatre and performance facilitator working with children and adults (both professional and non-professional) providing fun and accessible performance education for all.

LAUREN SHEERMAN

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Everyone talks about the rosy cheeks and the pride you feel when you become a mother. Women have been doing it for centuries so what’s the big deal? From breastfeeding, health visitors, to the impact giving birth has on your body, MAT1, which is based on verbatim stories, is witty, open and honest. Come and immerse yourself in the ups and downs of motherhood in this exciting first step of a new play. There will be a touch tour before each performance and audio description is integrated within the dialogue. Babies and children are welcome to attend and get involved in the set. Lucy is Associate Artist at The Old Rep Birmingham. She’s currently working across the East Midlands with Mighty Creatives as a member of the Splash Ensemble where she facilitates workshops for young people with specific needs at Curve Theatre. She is also being mentored by Craig Gilbert at Everyman Theatre Liverpool. She has completed the China Plate Theatre Optimist training programme and is now developing her understanding of creative spaces on the Spark Arts Vital Spark development programme. She is being supported by Curve Associate Director, Julie Thomas through Shape Free Reads and has been supported by Neil Reading at Arena Theatre Wolverhampton to develop her play Bordering on Chaos. She is currently developing a play about Sabrina goddess of the river Severn which will be a large scale outdoor project involving a varied selection of artists and circus performers and has gained interest from the Imagineers. After taking part in RNIBs See the Funny Side she is developing her skills in comedy. In 2019 she applied for a residency with Talking Birds and through them will be applying for the RYTDS so she can work on the capsule project and support the development of the Difference Engine. Lucy completed her Master of Philosophy in Playwriting Studies at Birmingham University in 2014, as well as a Writing for Radio Course with BBC Radio Editor Karen Brown. Lucy has trained and worked with Extant, Graeae and Hijinx Theatre and performed in plays at Manchester Fringe and RSC Courtyard Theatre.

LUCY C HAYWARD - MAT1

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Chronic illness can be a frightening and lonely experience. But nobody can ever be truly alone. Seasick is an interdisciplinary piece of theatre from Radical Body, the collaboration between chronically ill artists Katie Walters and Elle Chante. Combining performance poetry, dance and music, Seasick tells the story of a chronically ill woman exploring her connection to nature and her disability. An exploration of what it means to be sick, it examines how close communion with the natural world can help us to understand our bodies and their afflictions. Elle Chante is a musical self-expressionist based in Birmingham. Using her vocals, lyrics and instrumentation she strives to encompass and share with the audience the world that she lives in. Described as 'ethereal' 'angelic' and 'enchanting', Elle combines her unique sound with emotional raw lyrics to capture and hold the audience with her honesty. Katie is an autistic and chronically ill performance poet with a soul full of stories that can’t be contained. She writes complicated metaphors about serious things like sickness, loss, and love. Her poetry is vivid and aching to be heard. In 2014, she was a winner of the SLAMbassador’s national youth slam and has stuck to the stage ever since. She has gone on to work closely with the National Autistic Society on a variety of performances and awareness campaigns, compete in the prestigious Roundhouse slam, and perform at several festivals. Katie and Elle met as members of Free Radical’s 2018 BAIT cohort, where they worked together to create performances for Festival of Audacity and the BAIT final showcase. Together they have formed the Radical Body collective, which aims to create immersive interdisciplinary art that explores chronic illness and disability

RADICAL BODY

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"From Diwali to Eid and culminating in Navratri, each festival has its own specific set of rituals, beliefs and a unique backstory. Using various dance styles, ranging from the contemporary to the traditional, join us for this spectacular and exhilarating celebration!  Sahyadri Friends Group, founded by Mrs Chaitrali S Chitre in October 2016, is a diverse mix of Indian families with a passion to respect the differences and celebrate diversities. Initiated with an objective to bring together talented and multi-faceted women, they’ve grown leaps and bounds to include all the members in the family.  We plan, organise and execute about 30 activities around the year including but not limited to popular festivals such as Sankranti (festival of kites), Holi (festival of colours), Diwali (festival of lights), Ganesh Festival, Navratri, Eid, Christmas, etc. Moreover, we organise lots of activities for kids; such as art and craft, clay modelling, drawing and colouring, computer literacy and language (Marathi and Hindi) learning sessions. "

SAHYADRI FRIENDS GROUP

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