FIRST DRAFTS are our work-in-progress scratch nights, curated by our artistic advisory board.
FIRST DRAFTS are a chance to see new, experimental work from international artists, and engage in the very first stages of the artistic process.
Our second evening of work-in-progress presentations took place at New Diorama Theatre in London on January 23rd 2025. Responding to a quote by Octavia Butler - 'the very act of trying to look ahead to discern possibilities and offer warnings is in itself an act of hope’ - the migrant artists joining us work across disciplines, languages, and cultures; drawing on indigenous practice, AI, participation, and social justice movements.
These are the artists who took part in January 2025:
Sol Santana is a Brazilian-Swiss non-binary transdisciplinary artist working across performance, installation, embroidery, and writing, engaging with themes of Queer Futurity, Migrant Identities, and World-Building practices. Sol’s work reflects on the current state of the world through personal experiences of migration and queerness. Informed by their Brazilian roots, they often incorporate materials from their childhood in northeast Brazil and weave multiple languages into their work.
Alisha + Alysha are a collective of Malaysian-born artists whose work explores body politics, critical race theory and the impact of colonialism manifested through perceptions of the self. They work at the intersection of live art, augmented reality, AI, spatial sound, and experimental theatre as a vehicle for social change, showcasing a unique perspective of objectification theory that has limited occupancy within dominant culture.
Francesca Matthys is a South African interdisciplinary dance artist, writer, facilitator, and Kundalini Yoga teacher, based in London. Her work is rooted in ancestral wisdom, movement, text, inclusivity, and community. Francesca’s career includes collaborations with organizations such as The Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative Drama for Life, JOMBA!, Theatre Rites, Grand Théâtre de la Ville de Luxembourg and Casa de Cultura SoMovimento. Francesca facilitates inclusive dance workshops for the Baked Bean Charity, is a Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg, and is mentored by Seeta Patel in the Sadler’s Wells Mentorship Programme.
Linn Johansson is a Swedish/Dutch actor, feminist theatre maker, singer/songwriter & facilitator based in London. Drawing on collaborative processes she makes multidisciplinary devised work that responds to current events, questions norms and explores the link between the personal and political. Credits include Complicité, Les Enfants Terribles, Slot Machine Theatre and most recently award-winning devising company Potato Potato in Malmö, Sweden. Together with her husband Matthew Coulton, Linn runs the devising theatre company “Trouble and Strife”.
Anita Brokmeier and Devaki Rajendran are two female identifying migrant practitioners originally from Germany/Poland and India respectively. Anita’s practice is influenced by Berlin’s innovative fringe scene, whereas Devaki is from a traditional Bharatanatyam training with experience in theatre and film. Though they come from different schools of training, through the year of shared training they have developed common interests in making new work.
Max Percy is a multi-disciplinary artist creating ambitious experiences across dance, theatre, sculpture, technology and accessibility. Notable work includes ‘Baklâ’ (Asian Arts Award Winner 2023), ‘This is Not a Show about Hong Kong’ (Untapped Award Winner & Scotsman's Fringe First 2022). He has developed creative technology project ‘Convergence’ with Mediale, Glasshouse International Centre for Music, and ‘Technology to make Dance more Accessible for Blind and Partially Sighted’ with East London Dance and the London College of Fashion, which was published by the International Conference of Movement and Computing, Chicago 2022. He is Artistic Associate at Roots, Yorkshire’s queer touring theatre.
Our first evening of work-in-progress presentations took place at New Diorama Theatre in London on September 15th 2024. The quote for the evening was ‘This Is How An Artist Resists’- prompting artists and audience alike to consider how artists experience, perceive and express resistance.
These are the artists who took part in September 2024:
Saili Katebe is a writer, performer and workshop facilitator. Born in Zambia and now based in the South West of England, his work celebrates language and the power of story. Divija Melally is a trained contemporary and Indian classical dancer, dedicated to the arts, and spreading the intricate nuances of dance through performance, teaching, choreography and therapy.
Néa Ishana Ranganathan is a genderqueer land-based sculptor, DIY live artist and anti-colonial organiser of Tamil-British descent from Boston, MA. Their artistic and academic practice centres on iterative, durational and site-specific work focusing on the documentation of Tamil homeland. She curates spaces and interventions around grief work with a focus on Palestinian Liberation as Campaign Officer for the South London anti-imperialist collective, Built On Blood.
Tsoi Huen Wong is a physical performer, maker, practitioner and improviser who works across the spectrum of performing arts, spanning from theatre, dance and participatory context. She draws practices from contact improvisation, Gaga Movement language, and the Frantic Method. Christiano Mere is a researcher, writer, artist, movement artist, and art technician from Niterói, Rio de Janeiro (BR). His work explores the world through gaps—between activities, actions, materials, and time. He holds an MA in Sculpture from the University of Lisbon (PT) and a BA in Graphic Design from UNESA, Rio de Janeiro (BR).
Rieckhof-Silva is an interdisciplinary collective exploring movement and costume relationships, Peruvian rituals, and tradition. Carolina Rieckhof combines sculpture and costume with movement to explore the human emotional experience, while Moyra Silva integrates performance, visual arts, and movement focusing on body-place relationships, and intercultural dynamics.
Jana Aizupe is a working-class theatre artist primarily working through devising, movement, and film. She was born and raised in Latvia, where her first encounter with performance was through many years of training and studying movements familiar to street dance.
Jana has a deep interest in the current systems of labour. Her devised work 1001 based on the theme of burnout has been awarded Warwick University Research prize 2021, performed at Omnibus Theatre and Camden People’s Theatre. The short film adaptation has been selected for Take A Bite Festival with China Plate. Her other performance works like dreaming of you, get me out of here and enchilada have been presented at Emergency and Haphazard Festivals in Manchester. In addition to performance making, Jana is also working as applied theatre practitioner.
Emilia Nurmukhamet (she/they) is a queer migrant theatre maker, performer and creative facilitator. Emilia's work focuses on a multidisciplinary approach to performance: combining live sound, digital media and performance art alongside focusing on autobiographical and documentary style writing. Dear Annie (they/she) is a queer transdisciplinary artist, Dance Movement Psychotherapist and co-founder of Mud Summons Records, using dance, music and spoken word to weave binary-melting stories with autobiographical beginnings.
