Ignė is a Lithuanian theatre-maker, musician, and the founder of Bristol Physical Theatre Project. Trained at Ecole Jacques Lecoq, she has since collaborated with Complicite, Mechanimal, Missing Pieces, and Wassail Theatre. Ignė’s practice encompasses movement, visual theatre, music and poetry, with a specific focus on migration, mental health, global conflict and the climate emergency. As a migrant artist, she advocates for the inclusion and representation of marginalised voices and underrepresented narratives. In 2023, Ignė released her debut album ‘Listen I Have Something To Tell You’ which explores the emotional ecosystem of loss, responding to the war in Ukraine.

Maria Silva is a Brazilian theatre creator, dancer, director, and facilitator based in Bristol. Her background lies in clowning, physical theatre, movement, and performance, with a career spanning over 25 years in theatre creation. Maria has acted in various theatre productions in Brazil, Portugal, and England, directing plays and performances, training actors, and creating costumes and sets. Over the years, she has delivered workshops in clowning, physical theatre, acting, pre-expression, and movement for children and adults of all abilities.

Weronika Dwornik is a Bristol-based creative with experience working across different mediums, from devised theatre to filmmaking and participatory art. They are an experienced facilitator and producer interested in ways of placing creativity & co-creation at the heart of community building.

Weronika is a member of a non-hierarchical theatre company, Coin Toss Collective, formed as part of Made In Bristol residency at BOV. Since 2018, they’ve been working for LAJF, an international, non-profit, youth program focused on social justice, where they design and facilitate programs. Some organisations Weronika has worked with include Bristol Museums, House of Imagination & Creative Youth Network.

Filiz Ozcan is the Associate Director at Prime Theatre and Joint Artistic Director of Komola Collective. She was the resident Assistant Director of New Vic Theatre and currently the Creative Producer of Punjab to Potteries. Filiz has over fifteen years of workshop facilitation experience.

For Komola Collective, she has directed: Aleya Twist in Bangladesh, Women of Tagore, Shahrazad, Women of Shakespeare (cabaret style); Daughter of the Forest, Of Blood and Fire, and the Offie-nominated Birangona: Women of War.

Filiz’s previous productions include: Shakespeare is Coming Home at Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Treasure Island, Lord of the Flies, Romeo and Juliet (site-specific); You Are Always With Me, Bonbibi at Rich Mix London (as part of A Season of Bangla Drama); Animal Farm (Mercury Theatre, Colchester); A Midsummer Night's Dream (Newcastle-under-Lyme); The Legends of King Arthur (for the Without Frontiers Festival - in Poland); Rusalka (BAC London); The Cost of Living which toured secondary schools in Stoke-on-Trent.

Viktoria is a Greek / Mauritian / Ghanaian (Keta) Midlands based community organiser, creative producer and facilitator. Her commitment and passion to tackle loneliness and isolation and dealing with trauma through healing and movement through her creative practice has led to her producing a "Creative Wellness" programme, bringing people together through their stories to create safe spaces that cultivate acceptance, belonging, and equality. Viktoria practices the process of collaboration and co-creation to learn, create and connect. She is a co-founder of COVert Arts, a Coventry based grassroots artist collective that prioritises the interests of local communities that traditionally face barriers from the arts.

Jana is a Latvian working-class theatre artist based in West Midlands, primarily working through devising, movement, and film. She is a trained street dancer, grounding her process in play(ing) to create work that offers space for interpretation and conversation.

Jana is interested in the current systems of labour, applied theatre and co-creation. Her devised work 1001 has been awarded the Warwick University Research prize (2021), programmed in London at Omnibus Theatre (2022) and Camden People’s Theatre (2023). The short film adaptation has been selected for Take A Bite Festival with China Plate (2021). She is part of Foundry, a programme at Birmingham Rep focusing on co-creation practices.

Ailin is a Japanese-American director with a passion for daring new works of theatre that engage audiences with under-told stories in a visual, visceral way. She runs Theatre Témoin, a 1ºEast and Without Walls portfolio company based in the South East. Ailin has worked freelance for various companies including the RSC, Bush Theatre, Yellow Earth, and Theatre503, and has also directed and produced work in Gaza, Mexico, Lebanon, Sweden, Switzerland, Montreal, Rwanda, Israel, Kashmir, France, and the USA.

Andreea is an actor and theatre-maker. Originally from Romania, she moved to the UK as a child, and later trained as an actor in France, Colombia, and Estonia. Her practice centres around the notion of diaspora. She seeks to document and reflect on the relationships that members of the diaspora forge to work, land and language. She writes and translates, and over the last few years has become interested in making multilingual work that aims to destabilise the dominance of the English language. She holds a BA and an MA in languages and literature.

Half-French half-Russian, Sacha is a theatre-maker, performer and movement director. She trained at the Ecole Jacques Lecoq and is a founding member of award-winning Clout Theatre Company. She graduated from the 4-year acting course at the University of Cinematography in Moscow and holds an MA in Movement: Directing and Teaching from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. She is passionate about creating emotional connections, working with the intangible, and making the invisible visible.

Elsie is a director, writer and dramaturg from Awabakal and Wonnarua land in Australia. She trained with Actors Centre Australia before moving to London to complete her Masters in Theatre Directing at Royal Holloway, where she won the Alison Hodge Directing Prize for direction of her own adaptation of Oedipus at Colonus. She seeks to create politically engaged works that exist on the borders of theatrical form. In Sydney she has worked with Ninefold Ensemble, Sydney Fringe Festival and Glitterbomb and is a recipient of the Ian Potter Cultural Trust Award and Cate Blanchett Prize.

Jaka is an interdisciplinary artist, composer and improviser, originally from Slovenia. His artistic approach is influenced by classical (choral) and jazz aesthetics, as well as the practice of collaborative improvisation, and how the combination of all three can coexist within a theatrical setting. Currently, he is part of Sound & Music’s New Voices 2021 composer cohort and is developing a solo performance installation combining improvised voice, electronics, visuals and movement, with the support of PRS Foundation’s Open Fund.

Júlia is a theatre director and maker from Budapest. She trained on LAMDA’s MA Directing course and on the Young Vic’s Jerwood Assistant Director Programme. In 2021, she received an MGCFutures bursary, and was also ‘Director in Residence’ at the National Theatre in Belgrade supported by the European Theatre Convention. Her practice focuses on creating formally experimental new work, and radical reimaginations of classics. She is currently developing work both in the UK and in Hungary.

Butshilo is a Theatre of the Oppressed trained Zimbabwean playwright, director, percussionist and storyteller whose work centres on community, heritage and African theatre for often marginalised and overlooked groups labelled as ‘hard to reach’. His approach to co-creation is embedded within all his work across themes such as home and belonging, social justice, hope, diversity and decoloniality. He has been shortlisted for the Woven Voices Prize and has recently been commissioned by York Theatre Royal, Theatre Temoin and Derby CAN. His work with sanctuary seekers is supported by Maison Foo Theatre, Theatre Deli, Sheba Arts and York City of Sanctuary.

Carlota is a Portuguese theatre maker, director and facilitator based in Bristol. She works with young people, communities and artists, focusing on inclusive practice, access and social change. With a background in physical theatre, her practice explores themes of migration, language, identity and mental health. Carlota is interested in making experimental performance with people who are not normally on stage, challenging conventions and broadening perspectives. She is dedicated to breaking down barriers and increasing representation in theatre.

Tina works as a performer, director and producer, and is the Artistic Director of Notnow Collective. She prefers creating experiences over telling stories and is curious about the space where inherited trauma joins a riotous celebration. Tina experiments across disciplines, with movement as her primary tool and she often works in Croatia, and in the Croatian language. She is a Resident Creative at Curve Theatre, Leicester, and one of the co-founders of the Migrants in Theatre movement.