Blog Contributors: The Directors' Forum Bursary Barters

Content on this blog is updated daily by CPR's Bursary Barters who have come together from various countries to be part of this ten day forum. Read on to get introduced to them:

Alice Fiedler

I currently live in Zurich Switzerland. I studied scenography at the Zurich University of Arts. Since high school I have been a performer for Strings Attached theatre group and have performed with them at the Edinburgh and Avignon Fringe Festival. I'm interested in extraordinary theatre from around the world!

Sinéad Cormack is an emerging Irish artist. She moved to Wales to study in 2005, and holds a BA in Scenographic Studies and Performance Studies from Aberystwyth University. She has recently completed a Masters in Practicing Performance at Aberystwyth University, from which she will graduated in July 2010. Sinéad has experience in different types of theatre ranging from Forum theatre to scenographical based work and performance art. Sinéad is attending the Director’s Forum to learn more about different aspects of theatre and gain experience in directing, a field into which she is increasingly moving.

Carmel George

I am a performer/director and playright. I completed an MA in Practice as Performance at Aberystwyth University in 2009. My performed dissertation was a piece based on working in the landscape, entitled, "Sleeping with Waterfalls" and explored the question of whether it is possible to go beyond being simply a 'voyeur' of landscape, by totally immersing oneself in it? The performance included text, movement and film.

I am currently a volunteer at CPR - helping to archive photographs from the performances of the Cardiff Laboratory Theatre.

What I hope to gain from the Director's Forum, is more ideas to inform my work, but mainly I want to enjoy working with inspiring companies and directors.

Ragnhild Dale

My name's Ragnhild, and I'm normally an Anthropology student at UCL in London. In addition to this I'm pursuing my own research in theatre and performance, and am searching for the links between my creative and academic work. I direct student productions and observe directors at work when I can, and am particularly interested in how theatre and performance can be applied in different contexts and change meaning in relation to space. I'm at the Director's Conference because I want to participate in the labs, meet and work with people, learn from their experience and maybe add a thing or two myself!

Lisa Wells Turner

A classically trained singer and physical theatre artist, based in Cardiff, my most recent work is 'The Opposite of Waiting'. This blended traditional songs, movement and text, and premiered at the Edinburgh fringe festival last year. I am keen to explore more ways of blending movement and voice work to create innovative theatre based on classical traditions.

I am really looking forward to attending Veenapani Chawla's laboratory and exploring this from a different cultural viewpoint. I am also keen to meet all the other people attending the forum and finding new ways of approaching theatre creation.

Emma Bush

My BA Hon Theatre training took place at Dartington College of Arts 1998-2002. I returned to Dartington to study MA Art and Ecology 2006-2008. My practice is concerned with stillness, silence, cultivating attentiveness, and the pursuit of presence and spaciousness. Recent work has involved two projects based in the small Devon farming village Harbertonford, where I live. ‘Fields’ – a performance research project and ‘Village Walk’ – a performance walk. In collaboration with artist Mary Loveday Edwards – the performance walk – ‘City Walk,’ was presented in Plymouth 09 for the Animal Gaze exhibition, Plymouth.
In 2003 I co-founded propeller arts collective. propeller have developed a reputation for investigating place and social ecologies through performances, writing, teaching, walks, workshops and lectures. Our practice is underpinned by depthful research around perception, orientation and ecology. Our most recent project has been the collaboratively authored book ‘Five Rooms’ published by Acts of Language 2009. http://www.propelleronline.org
I am interested in creating performance which operate a fusing of histories, uncovering what is hidden, merging timescapes, and layering information. Over the last six years I have worked as a visiting lecturer and workshop leader both alone and in collaboration with propeller at various institutions. Using a range of methods participants are invited to engage with the interweaving of minds, of words, of natural processes, of bodies, of internal and external landscapes.
The works ‘Fields’ and ‘Village Walk’ have formed a foundation in working with a range of participants including ‘elderly non-performers’ and ‘non human others’ ie; birds, wind, weather. I am looking forward to taking part in the laboratory run by Richard Gregory of Quarantine.

Vikram Iyengar

I am a Kathak dancer, choreographer and theatre director based in Calcutta, India. My training in Kathak began in 1981 when I was 5 and I still work with my Guru on a regular basis. An interest in dailoguing with other forms of expression and performance led me to Aberystwyth when I completed my MA in Theatre and the World in 2002. I returned to teach in 2003. My experiences both as a student and tutor opened up worlds of possibility and perception for me – worlds which I continue to discover and explore.

Back in India, I founded my own performance company, Ranan, which grew out of a felt need to demystify Indian classical dance and connect to audiences across backgrounds, ages and cultures. That desire has now grown to embrace the act and art of performance in general involving diverse people in Ranan's core group and Ranan in several partnership programmes beyond production work. My production work spans traditional dance, choreographic works and dance and theatre experimentations.

My other life involves writing for various publications – on performance, cultural matters and translations from Bengali into English. I am currently the co-editor of E-Rang, a web-based fortnightly hosted by the India Theatre Forum.

I come to the Forum very much as a student, as someone starting out on my own journey in performance. I hope to be provoked and inspired, hope to have my perceptions of creative process and possibility greatly enhanced, hope to grow as a person and a perfornance-maker.

Kalina Terziyska

I am from Bulgaria and work both as a director and performer
My interest include theatre of energies, intercultural theatre, site-specific theatre and multimedia theatre, Harold Pinter’s “Homecoming”, Shelagh Stephenson’s “An experiment with an air pump”, Sarah Kane, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky and Marques. I am interested also in interdisciplinary projects and the sources of creativity.
In May 2009 I founded an NGO “Creativity&Culture Zone – K2 ZONE” for artistic projects and social work with children through arts. Since July 2009 I have been a full-time PhD student at the National Academy for Theatre and Film Art.
Since 2006 I have been practising different aspects of psychodrama – psychodrama of dreams, fairy-tales, personal stories, drawings, playback theatre, psychodrama and psychoanalysis, psychodrama and art-therapy. Presently I participate in a group for personal experience as first level of the three parts’ education for a psychodrama director.

Jane Dawson

I graduated in BA European Theatre Arts from Rose Bruford College, London in 2007. I also trained at The Higher Theatre School of Estonia, Tallinn where I focused extensively on acrobatics and physical performance. Since graduating I have worked as a solo live artist and performance maker as well as with many theatre companies including Teatr Piesn Kozla, Wroclaw, and the Lab Theatre Collective, UK. I moved to Wales in September in order to study MA Practising Performance at Aberystwyth University.