make 2024 Participants

Fiona Breen is a devisor and performer based in the midlands of Ireland. Her practice flexes between ecology, autobiography, and live archiving.

Her recent performance work includes Gull, an outdoor walking performance dedicated to Dublin’s seagulls (co-commissioned by the Abbey Theatre and Dublin Fringe Festival, 2022) and Root, a performance about Ireland’s failed forestry system (commissioned by Creative Europe for Dublin Theatre Festival, 2021). Both projects she devised alongside her daughter, Shanna May Breen. In 2019, Fiona developed The Meadow with composer Tom Lane, a site-specific soundscape and planting project for Birr Workhouse (commissioned by Creative Ireland for Birr Festival of Music).

Currently Fiona is developing How to Bury a Brother Dead or Alive? a new solo performance about her missing brother Peter.

She is Bealtaine Festival’s Emerging Artist 2024 and was recently a participant on PANPAN’s International Mentorship in 2023.

Luke Casserly is a multidisciplinary performance maker from Longford, Ireland. His work weaves together ecology, documentary, sound art, and site as a way of carving out space for new possibilities to emerge between live performance and physical landscape. To date, his work has brought audiences through city streets, back gardens, train stations, beaches, and a bog in the Irish Midlands. These projects have led to the creation of a network of wildflower meadows across Ireland and the UK (1000 Miniature Meadows, 2020-23), the planting of 1000 indigenous trees (Root, 2021), and the development of an organic perfume made using botanicals from the Irish bog (Distillation, 2023). He holds a BA in Drama and Theatre Studies from Trinity College, Dublin, and a Diploma in Art and Ecological Practice from NCAD. He is currently Biodiversity Artist in Residence with Dublin City Council.

Originally from Sicily, I am a costume designer and costume maker located in Ireland. I work across theatre, opera, dance, circus and occasionally with musicians. I believe designing for theatre is a collaborative act because working with others leads to original solutions. I have a hands-on approach and interacting directly with materials informs my final designs. Costume designer credits include: Shades Through a Shade (Gare St. Lazare), Grace (Graffiti), A Summer I Robbed the Bank (The Everyman), Home Sweet Home (Suisha Arts), The Weight (Once Off Productions), The Magic Flute (Cork Opera House), Twelfth Night (Shakespeare Squared), The Glass Menagerie (Everyman Theatre), The Four Lovers (Circus Factory), (Un)Holy Blood (Live at St. Luke’s), Whale (Cork Opera House), Contact (Corcadorca), The Small Things (Corcadorca), Cosy (Gaitkrash), How it is (Gare St.Lazare). I am a Lecturer of Costume and Makeup Design at the Munster University of Technology and since 2023 I am part of the committee of the Irish Society of Performance Designers.

Rhiannon Faith is a boundary-breaking Artist whose work and experiences cross artforms. Brought up in a big Irish Catholic, working-class family, she is an exciting British female voice making waves in choreography, directing, social activism and as a published author.

Artistic Director of Rhiannon Faith Company, nominated for five National Dance Awards UK; ‘Best Digital Choreography’ (2021), ‘Best Dance Film’ (2022), and ‘Best Independent Company’ (2021, 2022 & 2023). Their critically acclaimed work DROWNTOWN received 4STARS in The Observer, The Stage and The Reviews Hub, and recently toured to Wuzhen Festival, China. New work Lay Down Your Burdens, Co-Commissioned by Barbican, London and Harlow Playhouse, premiered at the Barbican in November 2023 and was shortlisted for a 2023 One Dance UK Award for ‘Innovation in Dance’ and nominated for a 2024 Olivier Award for ‘Outstanding Achievement in Dance’.

“Choreographer Rhiannon Faith is one of the few UK artists making dance theatre that is pointedly socially conscious” – THE GUARDIAN

Mai Ishikawa is a Japanese theatre translator, theatre maker and poet based in Dublin. She has translated several plays into Japanese for full productions. A tap dancer and actor, she played various theatre parts over a span of 10 years, in Tokyo and at festivals such as Festival d’Avignon, KYOTO EXPERIMENT and World Puppet Theatre Festival Bangkok. She won the Unohana Prize in the 8th Kyoto Writing Competition and her poem was shortlisted in the Westival International Poetry Competition 2024. Her poems have appeared in literary journals The Stony Thursday Book, Banshee, Channel, Ragaire, The Storms and Ink Sweat & Tears. She was selected for the Dedalus Press Mentoring Programme 2024. She was a participant in PAN PAN International Mentorship Programme, IWC’s Foundation Programme, Dublin Fringe’s Weft Studio, and also received an axis Assemble bursary and the Arts Council’s Agility Award.

Julie Kelleher is a Theatre Director and Producer. Directing credits include: Found by Aideen Wylde (BrokenCrow/Cork Midsummer Festival 2023), The Lonesome West by Martin McDonagh, Bluetooth by Rachel, Autumn Royal by Kevin Barry (associate director), Dancing At Lughnasa by Brian Friel, The Factory Girls by Frank McGuinness, The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart by David Greig, Lovers by Brian Friel, all for the Everyman, and Mantle by Ronan FitzGibbon (BrokenCrow, 2013). She was Artistic Director/CEO at Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray (2020-24) and Artistic Director of The Everyman, Cork (2014-20). She holds a BA and an MA in Drama & Theatre Studies from UCC and was the 2022/23 Jerome Hynes Clore Leadership Fellow. She has a professional background in performance (acting and singing) and has worked in a range of roles with numerous Irish arts organisations. She is Chair of the board of Graffiti Theatre Company, and sits on the Irish Playography Panel at Irish Theatre Institute.

Michael John McCarthy is a composer, musician and sound designer – originally from West Cork, currently based in Glasgow – who has been working primarily in theatre for the past 20 years. As a composer & sound designer, he has worked on upwards of 90 productions for companies including the Royal Shakespeare Company, Druid Theatre Company, the Abbey Theatre, the National Theatre of Scotland, the Young Vic, the Citizens Theatre Glasgow, the Royal Exchange Manchester, and the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh amongst others. He has written, recorded & toured with many bands: as a founder member of Elephant, Zoey Van Goey, & Album Club, and as a session musician with artists including Aidan Moffat, Emma Pollock, the Trembling Bells & Bonnie Prince Billy, Niall Connolly, and Alasdair Roberts. He is the lead artist on Turntable, a participatory arts project produced by Red Bridge Arts, and creator of The Dream Frequencies podcast, produced by the Traverse Theatre.

Ciarán McGannon is a composer, producer, performer, and multi-instrumentalist. They graduated from BIMM Dublin with a BA in Commercial Modern Music (First Class Honours), and received the Arts Council Agility Award 2024. They’ve worked with a wide range of artists, including award-winning collaborations with multidisciplinary artist Venus Patel that deal with Queer identity and nonconformity. Their latest collaboration is ‘Monsters’, an experimental musical theatre piece, which debuted in the Dublin Fringe Festival 2024, and will also be performed in the Centre Cultural Irlandais in Paris in 2025, where it was developed during a residency last year. McGannon has also produced several independent releases for multiple bands. They are a seasoned live performer who has played for several live music acts, including at Electric Picnic with Actress, and organising their own sold out shows at the Workman’s Club. They recently founded Mothbell, their experimental rock/singer-songwriter band which creates music about a fantasy world of McGannon’s creation based on Irish folklore.

Zoe Ní Riordáin is a theatre and filmmaker from Dublin, committed to making challenging and heartfelt work with a spirit of adventure. Her practice as a writer, director, songwriter and performer is based on collaboration and drawing from a wide range of disciplines. Zoe is co-artistic director of One Two One Two with Maud Lee. Their award-winning work in theatre, film and music has toured nationally and internationally since 2014. Recent projects include Tar Anseo (come here) short film featuring Seána Kerslake and Peter Coonan (Best Director award at Fastnet Film Festival ’23), Dúirt Tú (you said), short film, (Best Director award at Cork International Film Festival 2020); Everything I Do, theatre/music piece (winner of Best Performer at Dublin Fringe Awards 2019-“Thrilling gig theatre”-The Guardian). Zoe is a 2023 Clore Fellow. She was selected as a participant in X-Pollinator, a film initiative of Screen Ireland in 2024. One Two One Two directed ‘Sound of The Northside’ a hip-hop music/theatre piece with Kabin Crew (The Spark) and Irish National Opera at the Everyman Cork, July 2024.

Mary Kate (MK) O Flanagan is obsessed with story – her day job is in script development for the film industry in Europe and the Northern America.

She was Ireland’s first Grand Slam Champion Storyteller at The Moth. She is also a Grand Slam Champion Storyteller at The Moth in Los Angeles and a Champion Storyteller at The Dublin StorySlam several times over. You can hear one of her stories on The Moth Radio Hour at: https://themoth.org/stories/carry-him-shoulder-high This story went viral on TikTok getting 1.3 million hits in 48 hours.

Under Will O’Connell’s driection, MK turned a number of her winning true-life stories into a piece of theatre, Making A Show of Myself (www.makingashowofmyself.com) which sold out and received stellar reviews and standing ovations and is now on tour.

Will O’Connell is an actor, musician and director from Dublin. A graduate of The Samuel Beckett Centre, he is most recognised as an actor and recently appeared in On The Waterfront at The Complex. Other recent theatre roles include The President (Gate Theatre), The Long Christmas Dinner (Abbey Theatre), The Blackwater Lightship (Gaiety Theatre), CLASS (Abbey Theatre, Bush Theatre, Traverse). Recent Film and TV credits include Anniversary (Lionsgate), Queen Charlotte, A Bridgerton Story (Netflix,) Top Boy (Netflix) and The Doll Factory (Paramount+). Directing credits include Making A Show Of Myself (Irish tour), Hue and Cry (Bewley’s Café Theatre), The Laramie Project (Samuel Beckett Centre), The House of Blue Leaves (Dublin Fringe Festival) and The Playboy Riots (DYT fundraiser, Abbey Theatre). Will was Associate Artist with The Stomach Box, co-devising and performing in all their works, culminating in and Irish Times Theatre Award for Best Production in 2010.

Venus Patel is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist working in theatre, film, and visual arts. Her work uses an absurdist lens to examine social conformity and Queer/POC suppression, informed by her experiences as a trans woman of colour. Her first show, “Monsters”, debuted at Dublin Fringe Festival 2024, which she directed, co-wrote, and performed in. She co-collaborated and performed in “Hive City Legacy” (Hot Brown Honey) and “Privilege: The Musical” (Louise White). She completed performance residencies with Centre Culturel Irlandais (Romilly Walton Masters Award) and Live Art Ireland. She has exhibited work in the Butler Gallery, the Complex, and the Crawford Art Gallery, and her films have been screened in film festivals across the US and Europe.

Róisin Stack is a writer and theatre maker interested in formal experiment and process-led work. She creates post-dramatic theatre by drawing on anti-drama and absurdity, exploring the interplay between intimate personal experience and broader political contexts. Recent work includes No Woman is an Island (Dublin Theatre Festival 2023) and Also for Roaring (Black Box Theatre, Galway & Belltable, Limerick 2022).

shaéirah, aka Ayesha, an adopted Dubliner of Punjabi-Pakistani-Swiss roots, is a multidisciplinary artivist, creative director and social justice advocate. As a 3CK, she is avidly curious about the themes of identity, belonging and migration. With her Sufi lineage and background in Sociology serving as her compass, shaéirah’s artistic practice shape shifts by the provocations around her. As a theatre maker, shaéirah examines intersectionality in non-conformist ways – she has created impactful work through the Dublin Fringe Festival (2023), Scene + Heard Festival (2024) and the #BlindianProject in New York, Berlin, London and beyond. shaéirah was awarded a place at the Summer School on Collaborative Practice and Social Change, by Create & Counterpoints Arts earlier this year. She holds the titles of Community Manager at GORM Media where community building and storytelling unite and Managing Editor of the #BlindianProject, where she focuses on positing decolonisation as an everyday practice for Black x Brown allyship.

Emily Terndrup is a performer and director working across the mediums of dance, theater, and film. Her choreographic projects have been presented at The Knockdown Center (NY), The McKittrick Hotel (NY), The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (D.C), and Lincoln Center’s Clark Studio Theater (NY). For over twelve years, she worked as a performer and Resident Director for the immersive theatre company Punchdrunk on their productions of ‘The Burnt City’ and ‘Sleep No More’. As a movement director, she created choreography for ‘I Fall Down’ (Cork Midsummer), ‘Suddenly Last Summer’ (The English Theatre, Frankfurt), ‘The Tragedy of Macbeth’ (The Almeida Theatre) and ‘My Brilliant Friend’ (The National Theatre of Iceland), for which she was nominated for “Best Choreography & Stage Movement” at the Gríman Awards. Emily has also collaborated and performed with choreographers Andrea Miller, Bobbi Jene Smith, Luke Murphy-Attic Projects, Shannon Gillen, and Liz Roche. Recently, she served as Associate Director on ‘Life and Trust’, currently playing Off-Broadway.

Francisco is artistic director of Teatro do Bairro Alto, a recent city theatre in Lisbon devoted to experimental, emerging and international work. TBA has so far presented pieces by Gob Squad, Tim Crouch, Tania El Khoury, Alessandro Sciarroni, nora chipaumire, Lucy McCormick, Rimini Protokoll, Brokentalkers, or Sh!t Theatre, while also co-producing a host of local artists. From 2004 to 2017 Francisco was theatre programmer at arts centre Culturgest. He has worked as dramaturg (namely for theatre company Artistas Unidos) and translated works by Beckett, Pinter, Howard Barker, Tim Crouch, Annie Baker, Ant Hampton and Tim Etchells, Dennis Kelly, Zinnie Harris, and Lola Arias. He has also written and taught classes and seminars on theatre, film and literature. He was one of the mentors for MAKE 2017.

Ragnheiður was born and raised in Reykjavík.  She finished her BA in theatre and multimedia at the University of Iowa in 1991 and her MFA at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis in 1996. Following her studies she moved to New York City where she  lived and worked as a performer, performance maker, coach and instructor. In 2000, following a 13 year stint in the U.S, she moved back to Reykjavík  after being offered the position of  Dean of Department of Performing Arts at then newly founded Iceland University of the Arts. Ragnheiður worked at the Academy until 2011, initiating new programs in contemporary performance practices and contemporary dance. In 2008 she co-founded the LÓKAL International Theatre Festival, an annual event that presents new local and international work in the field of theatre and performance. She was artistic director of the Akureyri City Theatre from 2012 to 2015 and manager of Iceland Dance Company 2016-2019. Ragnheiður is the artistic director and CEO of Festspillene i Nord-Norge since 2019.

Ragnheiður has years of experience as teacher and mentor (at IAA, University of Syracuse, Academy for Scenekunst in Fredrikstad, MAKE Ireland, NB8 Nordic Circle Mentoring Program, Future Leaders in the Performing Arts). She has also worked with various artists/groups as a producer and as a critical friend (Kviss búmm bang, Dance for Me, Shalala, Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir)

Sonya is a Cameroonian – Finnish award-winning choreographer and artistic director that also works with facilitating, community organising and education. In 2013 she received a MA in choreography from the University of the Arts Helsinki.

She is the founding member and Artistic Director of UrbanApa, an inter-disciplinary and counter hegemonic arts community that offers a platform for new discourses and feminist art practices. UrbanApa facilitates workshops, festivals, labs, mentoring and publications among other things.
Lindfors makes her own and collaborative works such as performances, curated programs and performative actions. Her performance works have been shown and supported by Beursschouwburg, Kampnagel, Spring Utrecht, CODA – festival, Black Box Theater Oslo, Zodiak – Centre for New Dance among others. She is a member of Miracle Workers Collective that represented Finland at the 58th Venice Biennale.

Lindfors’s recent works One Drop& common moves (2023), We Should All Be Dreaming, camouflage (2021), Soft Variations Online (2020) centralise questions around Blackness and Black body politics, representation and power structures, speculative futurieties and decolonial dreaming practices. On a larger scale Lindfors’s time is divided between her own artistic work , educational work and working as the artistic director of UrbanApa. In all her positions she pursues creating and facilitating anti-racist and feminist platforms, where a festival, a performance, a publication or a workshop can operate as the site of empowerment, decolonial speculative practices and radical collective dreaming.
Lindfors has been awarded with several prizes, the latest of which being the State Prize for Public Information in 2022 and the international Live art Anti Prize 2018. During the season 2017 – 2018 Lindfors was the house choreographer for Zodiak – center for new dance.

More info:

www.sonyalindfors.com

www.urbanapa.fi

Photo Credit: Tuukka Ervasti