Veem House for Performance, in Amsterdam, invited artists and members of their community to reflect on and communicate their current experience of the Covid-19 pandemic through poetic graphs. I made this one for them, in response to how my needs were changing throughout the first 10 weeks of the lockdown.

I am very happy to have been invited by Frascati in Amsterdam to participate in their Fraslab programme this Spring. I’ll be spending a few weeks in the studio, starting to work on the research for a new performance project. There will be some (very first!) public sharings of the research on the 12th, 13th & 14th March, in a double bill with Jessie L’Herminez. Full details and tickets here: frascatitheater.nl.

This new project is called Commitment Phobe (for now!), and here’s something I wrote for Frascati about what I will be working on:

Commitment Phobe will explore (and celebrate) multiplicity, inconsistency, ambiguity, and doubt. It is a response to a perceived social and cultural demand for the clear, the certain, and the consistent – ways that we are taught it is worthwhile and understandable for a person to be. How can we conceive of doubt as a tool? How can we value ambiguity without making ourselves powerless?

For Fraslab, Ira will engage in a series of formal experiments, with a focus on the relationship between performer and audience, and the uncontrollable qualities of live performance. Ira’s process is often one of starting with broad conceptual questions, translating them into something embodied, visceral, human, and playful, and for Fraslab she will attempt to do the same. 

I’m presenting Ways To Submit at Festival Cement in Den Bosch on the 24th, 25th & 26th March. In advance of this I took part in a conversation with fellow artist Marijn Graven about our work, and ideas around bravery.

The interview is in Dutch! But in case you speak it, you can read it here: www.festivalcement.nl/beleef-cement/id-8869.

It’s almost a new year, GOODBYE 2019! I’m very happy to be continuing to tour Ways To Submit into 2020. Some already confirmed dates below, and watch this space for more..

Maketank, for SCARE THE HORSES, Exeter, UK
Friday 17th January 2020, 7.30pm
Tickets on sale soon: scarethehorses.uk
(SCARE THE HORSES is a live performance and events club. You can join as a member and subscribe for the year, or buy tickets for each individual event.)

Monty Kultuurfaktorij, Antwerpen, Belgium
Thursday 13th & Friday 14th February 2020, 8.30pm
Tickets: €12/€10
Booking: monty.be

Festival Cement, Den Bosch, Netherlands
Tuesday 24th March 2020 @ 5pm, Wednesday 25th March 2020 @ 7pm & Thursday 26th March 2020 @ 9pm
Tickets: €15/€11.50 (or buy a festival pass!)
More programme info: festivalcement.nl

I am in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, participating in a two-week exchange residency. The project is a collaboration between Forest Fringe and FIAC Bahia Festival, who are hosting us. I am working alongside Deborah Pearson, and three Brazilian artists – Roberta Nascimento, Laís Machado & Lenine Guevara – sharing our artistic practices, ideas, concerns, questions, strategies, and needs. So far it is proving to richly stimulating and exciting, and I am very inspired to be working with these women.

There will be an open studio sharing on Friday 25th October at 10am, for members of the public to share in our exchange also: fiacbahia.com

Here’s a review of the recent performance of Ways To Submit at Frascati from Theaterkrant. It’s in Dutch! But google translate assures me it says some very nice things about the show, and that the reviewer would have liked to have seen the work a second time.

Read it at: theaterkrant.nl

Ways To Submit is touring..

I’ve also just released a new trailer for the show, made by the brilliant Claire Nolan. Check it out below!

Frascati Theatre, Amsterdam
Wednesday 2nd & Thursday 3rd October, 9pm
Tickets: €13/€9.50
Booking: frascatitheater.nl

New Queers on the Block, Folkestone Quarterhouse
Friday 1st November, 7.30pm
Tickets: Pay what you decide
Booking: creativefolkestone.org.uk
More info about NQOTB here.

Arnolfini, Bristol
Friday 8th November, 7.30pm
As part of the expanded programme of Still I Rise: Feminisms, Gender, Resistance
Tickets: £12/£10
Booking: arnolfini.org.uk

Touring of Ways To Submit kicks off at the beginning of October with two performance at Frascati in Amsterdam.

Ways To Submit
Wednesday 2nd & Thursday 3rd October 2019, 9pm
Frascati Theatre, Amsterdam
Tickets here.

More upcoming dates to be announced soon!

Excited to announce that Ways To Submit will be part of New Queers on the Block at Folkestone Quarterhouse in November! A weekender of experimental performances, conversations and video works by a line-up of local and international LGBTQ+ artists.

The New Queers on the Block weekender runs Friday 1st & Saturday 2nd November, and features work by Nando Messias, Last Yearz Interesting Negro, and Benjamin Sebastian. All events are pay what you decide.

More info and to book: creativefolkestone.org.uk

In March, just after the first showings of Ways To Submit at The Yard in London I did an interview with TANK Magazine about the show for their ‘talks’ series.

The interview is now out in print in their beautiful looking summer reader, and you can also read it online here: tankmagazine.com

I will be in Köln in Germany this coming week, participating in Theaterszene Europa Festival which takes place at the Studiobühne Köln. The festival runs from the 8th to the 15th June, showing the work of ten German and British artists and companies.

I will be performing two shows: Break Yourself on Friday 14th June, and Ways To Submit on Saturday 15th June.

For the full programme, and booking see here: studiobuehnekoeln.de/theaterszene-europa-2016/.

Somewhat unbelievably, I am nearing the end of my two years on the Masters Programme at DAS Theatre! As a culmination of this intensive period of study and research, we will be sharing our final presentations with the public, as part of an event entitled Hiding in plain sight.

The presentations run from Tuesday 28th May – Sunday 2nd June, and I will be presenting my work on Thursday 30th May at 20:00 & Friday 31st May at 19:00. All presentations are free, but reservation is required.

Hiding in plain sight: DAS Theatre Masters Presentations 2019
28th May – 2nd June
DAS Graduate School
Overhoeksplein 2, Amsterdam

To book your tickets and read more about the full programme of work, go here: atd.ahk.nl/en/das-graduate-school/das-master-presentations/