Forecast 2021 Participants

Agnieszka Jakimiak (1987) works as a theatre director (“Nature morte” inspired by the work of Joseph Beuys, 2020 and “Fear Eats the Soul” based on the script by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 2017 in Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw, “nosexnosolo” on the accusations against Jan Fabre and on sexual misconducts in theatre, 2019 in Komuna/Warszawa, “Futurological Congress” based on the novel by Stanisław Lemin Teatr Współczesny in Szczecin and Wrocław, “Lord of the Flies” and “Rosa Luxemburg” in Scena Robocza, Poznań), an essayist and a playwright and she has been working as a dramaturg with Polish and international theatre directors, such as Oliver Frljić (“The Curse”, 2017, “Un-divine Comedy. Remains”, 2013), Anja Susa (“Blood on the Cat’s Neck”, 2015, “The Republic”, 2019) and Weronika Szczawińska. Her plays were translated into Ukrainian, Slovenian and English.

She is currently is a PhD student in Royal Holloway, University of London (Department of Drama, Theatre and Dance). Her research is focused on traces of censorship and self-censorship within the realm of theatre and performing arts. Her current work combines self-referential analysis and institutional critique and remains focused on interrogating forms of distribution of power and challenging hegemonic practices in theatre.

Aleksandra Jakubczak, artist working in the fields of performing arts, theatre and installation. Coming from a background of theatre directing (graduated from the State Theatre Academy in Warsaw), she has collaborated as a director with such theatres as Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw, TPB Bydgoszcz, Horzyca Theatre in Torun, Schauspielhaus  Graz and others. For some time now, she has been exploring different formats and modes of working in the arts. In her practice she works with various documentary styles, empathy, presence and lately with senses and imagination. Right now, she is working on a performative installation for SommerBlut Kulturfestival in Cologne, where she will work with scents and their dramaturgy; and on an installation for Stary Theater in Kraków, in which she explores the performative potential of literary descriptions of nature, and the relation between gaze, word and imagination in the context of  natural landscapes and their transformations.

Ali is an Irish artist working through film and theatre, creating performance that involves imaginings from both mediums. She holds a BA in Film & Broadcasting from TU Dublin and an MA in Theatre Practice and Production from NUI Galway. As a performer and director, she explores how we can interweave film and theatre through physicality, projection, video mapping and cinematic techniques, untangling our inner human experience with atmospherically nostalgic, intimate and playful narrative work. She loves all things whimsical, forever fascinated by puppetry and stop motion.  Ali is currently coordinating film projects for Baboró International Arts Festival for Children, Galway and devising theatre performance work with SQUAD Productions, Dublin.

Andrea is a theatre artist interested in creating work through the body in off site spaces. Her company Floating World collaborates with professional and community artists exploring human stories through innovative theatricality with a particular interest in making the invisible ‘visible’ through image, the body and space. Andrea works consistently with The Elders, a community group of older people creating original theatre. We are Abbey Theatre community partners. Her current focus is to collaborate creatively with the natural world. She is trained in dance and acting, has an MA in Directing and trained in movement composition at SITI Company New York. Andrea is a lecturer in Physical Theatre, Beckett in Performance and director of a devised Peformance Project each year at the UCD School of English and Drama.

Aoife is a Director and Writer.  For the past seven years she has been working Internationally on large-scale Spectacle shows.  She was Artistic Manager for Franco Dragone’s show The House of Dancing Water, Macau before becoming part of the team that set up MGM’s first theatre in Asia as Artistic Director.  Later she joined Cirque Du Soleil’s arena show Corteo as the Artistic Director on their North American and European tour.  This year she became Resident Director for C!rca’s two new European performances, Maria De Buenos Aires at Nuits De Fourviere, Lyon and Bounce at Veranos De La Villa, Madrid.

Returning to Ireland, Aoife is reconnecting with her own practice.  Her focus is to create unique performances that combine her large-scale spectacle experience with her background in immersive performance and storytelling.  She is grateful to have received support from the Arts Council through the Spectacle Bursary and Agility Award.

Chris Moran is a theatre director and writer from Co. Wicklow. His work focuses on LGBTQ+ stories and theatre-in-education. He has a particular interest in developing new writing, international collaboration, and using archival and historical research to reimagine forgotten stories.

Chris holds a BA in Theatre from NUI Galway (2015) and an MFA in Theatre Directing  from the Lir Academy (2019), where he directed Homos, or Everyone in America. He was associate director on ANU Productions’ Faultline (DTF 2019).

With Irish Arts Council and Wicklow County Coucil support, Chris is currently developing a theatre-in-education animated film for Wilde Shamrock Touring Theatre, drawing on the history of folksong collecting, for young audiences in Europe and Ireland.

His article on Gordon Craig and Micheál MacLiammóir was published in The Review of Irish Studies in Europe (2021). He is a producer for the resource webcast Stage Door Live.

Colm is an Irish theater and opera director based between New York and Dublin. He is a playwright and essayist, and has assisted Raja Feather Kelly, Milo Rau, the Wooster Group, and Pan Pan. Next: love is hard and definitely (probably) worth it by Johnny Lloyd at Clubbed Thumb and Wednesday by the feath3r theory at New York Live Arts, both New York, and The Inheritance by Matthew Lopez at the Geffen Playhouse, Los Angeles in 2022. www.colmsummers.com.

Conall is a producer, arts marketer and project manager with a particular focus on artist develop and support. He was worked in a variety of roles with organisations including BrokenCrow Theatre Company, Attic Projects, Catherine Young Dance, ANU Productions, Conflicted Theatre, Project Arts Centre, Poetry Ireland, and Cork Midsummer Festival. He was the programme producer for Tessellate, an artist development and mentorship initiative of Corcadorca Theatre Company, Cork Midsummer Festival and The Everyman. He joined the board of Firkin Crane in February 2020.

Eduardo Abraham (Puebla, Mexico. 1990) Group facilitator, actor and bodywork practitioner based in Mexico City. I’m interested in the relationship between body sensations, power dynamics, culture and representation which opens spaces to process and dismantle narratives around personal and systemic issues from a non-expert model.

Currently finishing the 4-year professional program in Radical Aliveness Institute, I’ve worked on reimagining concepts like trauma, complexity, confidentiality, movement and tenderness.

Non-binary/ gender non-conforming and amateur gardener.

Gea Gojak is a theatre director who has devised collaborative and socially engaged art projects. She finished BA in Acting and Puppetry at The Academy of Arts and Culture in Osijek, Croatia, and MA of Acting at Art Academy Novi Sad, Serbia. A few years ago she transfers her focus of interest to directing and creating socially engaged projects and collaborative practice through theatre. On that path besides directing she gained experience as a producer, project coordinator, PR and leader of diverse workshops. Gea has achieved artistic projects in prominent theatres in Croatia and Serbia. The main interest of her occupation is to raise critical awareness towards society exploring socio-political issues.

Since coming to Dublin in 2019, Gea is excited to continue her professional, and collaborative artistic work. This year she was a recipient of Create and Fire Station Artists’ Studios 2021 Residency Award.

James Notin (Richard Kayode O.) is an experimental artist whose work investigates with interest the spaces of the individual and it’s intersections and position in universals, and interest the self in exploring Yoruba and it’s “-ism”. James is curator with Tantdile Xperimenta Lab.

Kevin Keogh is a 22 year old emerging theatre maker from the greater Dublin area. He originally trained as an actor in The Gaiety School of Acting, graduating in the class of 2019 and has since primarily pursued making his own work as a theatre artist. He likes creating unconventional, investigative work that does three things:

-Elevates street and counter culture into a higher art space, examining it’s nuances

-Challenge audience’s perceptions of theatre and its place in modern society

-Creating space for those not typically engaged with theatre.

He co-founded iiiSTATES theatre collective and its debut production, Cove Creek Boys and Summer Girls, was seen at the 2020 Smock Alley Scene and Heard festival.

He is currently examining rave culture as part of his current work-in-development Curfew, which is being developed as part of the 2021 Artist at Work programme in Dublin Fringe Festival.

Lauren is a writer and theatre-maker. She makes work using technological conceits to deepen audience immersion and interrogate the meaning of the performing body onstage. Viva Voce (Dublin Fringe 2018, nominated for a Fishamble New Writing award) cast an animated light sculpture as the second performer in a solo show. Fetch (Dublin Fringe 2019) used binaural technology as a transporting device to tell a story about travel in the anthropocene. Rescue Annie (Dublin Fringe 2021) is a show about death, image, and intimacy that uses binaural sound and an onstage avatar to solve the problem of audience participation under Covid.

Work in print has been published in The Irish Times, IMAGE magazine, Banshee literary journal, Rogue Collective, and The Dublin Review.

Liza is a performer, designer and maker. She is co-artistic director of Baubo, a new physical theatre company dedicated to creating high-octane physical theatre, rooted strongly in visual design and traditions of clown and bouffon. Baubo have been recipients of funding from the Arts Councils of Ireland and England, and were selected for the 2021 N.E.S.T (New Emerging Street Talent) residency with Waterford’s Spraoi festival. Liza was a participating artist in the Creative Europe Make A Move 2019 creation residence, and is part of an international team of artists selected to represent Europe in the UNIMA International World Puppetry Congress.

Liza trained for two years in Lecoq and is undertaking a part-time MA in Performance Design at the University of Leeds. As a creator, Liza’s process is rooted in materiality and play, and the transformative potentialities of objects and the human body. Her work aims to explore the limits and boundaries between the body and the outer world.

Melissa is an actor, theatre maker and producer. She is co-founder of Mouth on Fire, a theatre company specialising in the work of Samuel Beckett, and has performed in Footfalls, Rockaby, Come and Go, Play, Catastrophe, Not I, Rough for Radio II, as well as the world premieres: Rocabaí, Matalang, Cén Rud Cén Áit, Teacht Is Imeacht. The company is currently developing Cor Deiridh  (Irish translation of Endgame, supported by the Arts Council).

She is also developing Finding Love in an Abattoir, a play that explores the world of an Irish abattoir (supported by the Arts Council, Kildare County Council, UNESCO Dublin/produced by Speckintime).

Melissa is producing What I (Don’t) Know About Autism by Jody O’Neill (Abbey Theatre 2021) and about:blank by Adam Wyeth (Civic Theatre/Dublin Theatre Festival 2021).

MA Performance Drama (UCD); Dip. Arts, Media & Entertainment Law (Law Society of Ireland); Vice President of Irish Equity.

I am a Dublin based Independent Producer working across multi-disciplinary live performance. I prioritise and develop work that playfully traverses form and discipline, foregrounds rich storytelling, and creates accessible spaces for audiences and artists to meet in the live moment.

I’m currently making work with Murmuration, a Dublin-based collective of theatre artists making live, narrative sound installations in unconventional spaces. I also produce interdisciplinary work with choreographers and performers Robyn Byrne and Rachel Ní Bhraonáin, and have recently set up a new collective, Lark, with writer and performer Emer Heatley.

Other companies I have worked with include Dublin Dance Festival, Landmark Productions, TED Conferences, New York Live Arts, Live Collision, Amanda Coogan, Dublin Theatre of the Deaf, Sugarglass Theatre, and Create Ireland. In 2016 I co-founded Bombinate Theatre.

Tobi Balogun is a Dublin based multidisciplinary creative specialising in dance and fashion. Tobi has garnered tremendous experience in styling, visual merchandising, brand consultancy, direction. Clients include Arnotts, Selected Homme, Reiss, Dublin Vintage Factory to name a few.

As a Dance Artist, Tobi is a professional member of Dance Ireland. With a background in Hiphop and other forms of Street Dance he has won International competitions and continues to mentor youth dance groups nationally through weekly classes and workshops.

Over the last three years he has danced and performed regularly in several projects with various companies including EMERSION (2016) choreographed by Matt Szczerek which was performed as part of OIL&WATER (2016), a collaboration with Cathy Coughlan (HAVOC), supported by The Arts Council and South Dublin County Council. In April ‘16 as part of the ensemble for LAOCHRA choreographed by David Bolger. In September 2016 he performed as part of the cast for TRANS-BORDER choreographed by Matt Szczerek in collaboration with HAVOC for the launch of IN CONTEXT 4, South Dublin. In 2018 as a founding member of Human Collective he performed in the new piece titled FABLE at Dublin Fringe Festival at ProjectArts Centre. The work was nominated for a Best Ensemble Award. In 2019 he completed a residency in Dance House with Human Collective, mentored by Elon Hoglund of Tentacle Tribe. Creating a piece to be performed at Dance2Connect, a 3 day Urban DanceFestival at The Civic Theatre, South Dublin, Funded by the Dublin Arts Council.

Within his work he focuses on evocative storytelling and the embodient of life experiences, and within his work always searching for ways to show new perspectives and express and heal through movement and film. Currently he is in the research phase of a collaborative Arts project titled Black Canvas, focused on addressing expanding points of access for young adults who do not identify as professional artists, but have expressed a strong desire to engage with the sector; to examine the barriers for Black communities in establishing meaningful and ongoing engagement with the arts. Supported by Create and The Arts Council of Ireland.

Samara Hersch is an artist and director whose practice explores the intersection of contemporary performance and community engagement. She recently completed her Masters at Das Theatre in Amsterdam. Her current research is an exploration into public acts of intimacy through imagining new artistic frames for non-professional performers and audiences to inhabit. Her recent body of work focuses on critical trans-generational dialogue with an enquiry into conversation as performance. Samara is currently an artist in residence at Theatre Rotterdam and is part of the EU Network; ACT; Art Climate Transition. She acknowledges that her practice has been developed and presented on the lands of the Kulin Nation whose sovereignty has never been ceded and pays respect to Elders past, present and emerging.

https://samarahersch.com

Rabih Mroué, born in Beirut (Lebanon), lives in Berlin and works as a director, actor, visual artist and author. He is co-founder of the Beirut Art Center (BAC). At the Kammerspiele Munich he has regularly worked as a director and choreographer for “Dance on”. Mroué’s stage works and exhibitions have included dOCUMENTA (13), Festival d’Avignon and MoMA (New York), Centre Pompidou (Paris) and others. 

Pau Catà is a researcher and curator from Barcelona. He is the co-coordinator of CeRCCa Center for Research and Creativity Casamarles and Platform HARAKAT. He obtained his MA in Critical Arts Management and Media Cultural Studies at the LSBU (London) after graduating in History from the University of Barcelona. He is currently a PhD Artistic Research candidate at the University of Edinburgh. He has been selected to be part of several programmes such as Dawrak, Tandem Shaml, and South Med CV and has co-curated several shows in SWAB_ Barcelona International Art Fair 2016 and 2017, El Behna (Alexandria), Maumau (Istanbul), Le18 (Marrakech) as well as at Es Baluard in Palma de Mallorca. His research has been published in the peer-reviewed journals re-Visiones, Artnodes, and Trans Cultural Exchange.

Petr Dlouhý is a curator and culture organiser based in Prague. His praxis is shaped around a key aspect of a shared environment; time-space established within the frame of an artistic event that invites artists and audiences from different backgrounds to meet & talk and learn from each other. Considering this, his praxis is collaborative work. Therefore, he would like to use this biography space to give credit to at least a few of his most inspiring co-creators: Adam Bláha, Adriana Světlíková, Anna Chrtková, Antonín Brinda, Dana Račková, David Somló, Eric Stevenson, Evgenia Chetvertkova, Ewan McLaren, Heidi Hornáčková, Husam Abed, Joanna Klass, Kenzo Cross, Lena Szirmay-Kalos, Maria Zimpel, Mirek Buddha, Peter Pleyer, Studio Alta, X10, Zefv, as well as all his trajectory colleagues and many human & other-than-human beings of our shared time-space.

RESHAPE is a collaborative, bottom-up research process that proposes instruments for transition towards an alternative, fairer, and unified arts ecosystem across Europe and the Southern Mediterranean, taking place between 2019 and 2021. One of the Reshape’s trajectory, Transnational and Postnational Artistic Practices, has been reflecting the dominating patterns of transnational work and mobility opportunities, that are deeply intertwined with the geo-political context and market-logics of the art world – and looking for an alternative way to build alliances across the border and dominating patterns. The group consisted of Martinka Bobrikova & Oscar de Carmen, Pau Catà, Petr Dlouhý, Heba el Cheikh, Gjorgje Jovanovik, Dominika Święcicka, Marine Thévenet and Ingrid Vranken and has been facilitated by Marta Keil.

Harun Morrison –  is an artist and writer based on the River Lea and Regent’s Canal. He is the current recipient of the Wheatley Fine Art Fellowship, hosted by Birmingham School of Art, Birmingham City University and Eastside Projects. His forthcoming novel, The Escape Artist will be published by Book Works in 2022. Since 2006, Harun has collaborated with Helen Walker as part of the collective practice They Are Here. He is also a trustee of the Black Cultural Archive (est. 1981).

Isabel Ferreira is cultural producer, creator of projects and artefacts and independent curator. Artistic director of DNA – Festival of Contemporary Dance (2018 and 2018); creator of “Political Compositions”, a program of festivals and exhibitions focused on the body as a territory of the political that took place in Rio de Janeiro between 2011 and 2016; coordinator of the South American Dance Network and other project, residencies and international art collaborative projects. Graduated in History of Art with a MA in Visual Culture. Currently coordinating networking and international development at FIT – Festival Iberoamericano de Teatro de Cádiz.

Calixto Neto is interpreter, dancer and choreographer. He studied theater at the Federal University of Pernambuco, and later enrolled in a master’s degree in choreographic studies at the Montpellier Choreographic Center. He currently collaborates with choreographers Mette Ingvartsen, Anne Collod, Luiz de Abreu, among other artists. In addition, he develops his own work, which unfolds between creation (in the solo “oh! Rage” and in the film “O Samba do Crioulo Doido: ruler and compass”), writing and pedagogy.

Brazil Hijacked

https://composicoespoliticas.wixsite.com/brazil-hijacked

Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol is a flock of artists. We work on stage, we make books, radio, videos and learning processes.

Since 2003, we started developing projects as a mechanism to link work and life, to erase and trace frontiers. Our work seeks to create narratives upon events from reality. It has nothing to do with entertainment, it’s a space to think, articulate, dislocate and unravel what the everyday life fuses, overlooks and presents us as given. Things are what they are, but they can also be another way.

https://lagartijastiradasalsol.com

Weronika Szczawińska is director, dramaturge, culture theorist and performer. She is PhD from the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN). Szczawińska studied directing at the National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw and works as assistant professor at the Theatre Studies Department. She has worked with a number of important theatres around Poland, including Narodowy Stary Teatr in Cracow and Teatr Powszechny in Warsaw. In 2019 she receives the prestigious Passports of the Polityka weekly award for „the intimate and tender performances that combine the private themes with important social issues”. Weronika is member of the Performing Arts Institute collective (InSzPer).

Grzegorz Reske is performing arts producer and curator. Artistic Director of SPRING Performing Arts Festival in Utrecht (Netherlands). Since 2012 he works a lot in tandem with Marta Keil (later on also under label ResKeil). In this constellation they curated five editions of Konfrontacje Festival (2012-2017), Polish edition of Meet the Neighbours project at Galeria Labirynt (2018-2020), and new stage work by Lina Majdalanie and Rabih Mroue – „Sunny Sunday” (2020). In 2017, together with four artists they took over Performing Arts Institute of Warsaw, with idea of creating new model for non institutional art practices. Reske is board member of IETM – International Network for Contemporary Performing Arts.

Marta Keil is a curator, editor, dramaturge and researcher, currently based between Warsaw and Utrecht. At the moment she curates transnational project “Breaking the Spell”, focused on feminist practices in contemporary performing arts (2021-2023) and co-curates the NorthEastSouthWest project in Dresden (2022). She often works with Grzegorz Reske (ResKeil), recently they curated Common Ground season at Komuna Warszawa together with Tim Etchells (2020) and worked at the performance “Sunny Sunday” by Lina Majdalanie and Rabih Mroué (2020). Marta is guest teacher at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków and edited several books, including: Choreography: politicality (2018) and Reclaiming the Obvious: On the Institution of the Festival (2017). She holds PhD in Culture Studies.