About Lift
Lift International Associates
Caroline Calburn, Cape Town, South Africa
Born in Johannesburg and currently living in Cape Town, Caroline has a long history of involvement in theatre and education. Trained in both she taught drama in a number of institutions from pre-school through to adult education over a period of 15 years, including the University of Cape Town. Caroline’s company ‘Lindiza the Mlefie Stalks Theatre’ toured to the UK in 1998 to perform Bed of Bricks at the Young Vic. Caroline was a founder member of Project Phakama, an international arts exchange programme that began in 1996 as a collaboration between Lift and Sibikwa Community in Benoni. A series of Phakama performance projects followed, exploring new ways of creating theatre in the community that involved full participation from audiences and community. Caroline was also involved in extending the project into Southern Africa as well as into India.
Ishrat Nishat, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Ishrat was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 1966. In 1982 she began her career as an actress. Ishrat She formed theatre company Desh Natak in 1987 to which she still belongs. In 1988 she became a playwright and director and from 1989 she began making light and set designs for stage. Despite the absence of a professional theatre in Bangladesh, she and eight other renowned stage designers formed a new body named Theatre Designers Institute, last year. As a playwright and director she has worked in New York and India, as well as Bangladesh, and in 2002 Ishrat was honoured as the most talented theatre activist in the country by a leading theatre group Dhaka Theatre. She is a regular theatre critic and published a book Bikkito Theatre in 1992. She also works as a cultural curator.
Oby Obyerodhyambo, Nairobi, Kenya
Oby is a playwright, actor, theatre director, critic, short-story writer, storyteller, cultural activist, radio presenter and HIV & AIDS educator. Oby has been using interactive, participatory community theatre to mobilize and rally diverse communities for the last fifteen years. Oby has been a creative innovator of the use of the 'Sigana' art form - a genre of storytelling that infuses narration with song, percussions, dance, banter, riddling and contestation to raise community dialogue on controversial taboo matters (like sex and sexuality) surrounding citizens rights, governance political processes and democratisation. In 1995 he established a learning and resource centre (Mzizi Arts Centre and later Abila Creative Centre) for continuing education as a tool for democratisation of knowledge.
Jonathan Parsons, Brisbane, Australia
Jonathan is currently Director of Public Programs at the Queensland State Library. From 2002 to 2007 he was Festival Director for Brisbane’s major annual cultural and environment festival – The Riverfestival. He collaborated with staff at the Queensland Art Gallery to develop the performance programme for the 5th Asia Pacific Triennial. Jonathan was Associate Director for the Adelaide Festival of Arts 2002 and was primarily responsible for the development and implementation of the Australian Cultural Residency Programme (ACRP) in collaboration with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. From 1996 to 2000 Jonathan was the Artistic Director for the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival. In 2000 the festival comprised of some 130 events across all artforms. He also initiated and co-produced the inaugural Pacific Wave Festival in 1996, which focused on contemporary Pacific arts and showcased the work of Aboriginal, Gubba, Maori, Pakeha and islander artists.
Roma Patel, Nottingham, UK
Roma comes from a traditional theatre design background but the increase in access to digital technology in recent years has had a profound impact on her work and ideas. She is mostly involved in the making of experimental theatre performances and collaborative art installations that integrate elements of space, motion, light, sound, movement and composition with real-time computer technology. She has worked in the UK and the Netherlands designing stage sets, video projections and costumes. As a 3D computer artist she has modelled theatre spaces, landscape designs, cityscapes, 3D animations, music videos and interactive environments. She is also a visiting Tutor at Central St Martins College of Art and Design and Rose Bruford College and freelances as a 3D visualisation artist in film, television & architecture.
Menno Plukker, Montréal, Canada
Menno Plukker was born in 1958 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Since 1981, he has been involved in theatre and dance management. From 1981-1985 he directed a foundation for multi-ethnic theatre in The Netherlands (S.T.I.P.T.) and programmed a multi-cultural theatre festival (Stagedoor) in Amsterdam in 1983-1984. He was Administrative Director of Theater De Balie in Amsterdam, 1986-1988, and founded his own theatre booking agency in 1987, providing financial, production and promotion services to a wide array of theatre and dance companies in The Netherlands. In 1990 he moved to Montréal and has since dedicated himself almost exclusively to world-wide representation of Canadian theatre and dance artists. Menno initiated and produced the Six Stages festival in Toronto in 1995, 2001 and 2003, with Sherrie Johnson, as well as Six Stages in Europe, a presentation of Canadian theatre in Glasgow, Berlin and Prague.
Lemi Ponifasio, Auckland, New Zealand
Lemi Ponifasio was born in the village of Lano, Samoa. He is one of New Zealand’s leading theatre artists and a pioneer in the evolution of Pacific contemporary dance and theatre. He is founder and artistic director of MAU, which he established in 1995, naming it after the Samoan independence movement Mau. His work has been presented throughout the Pacific Islands and at major international arts events including the Venice Biennale, Holland Festival, Adelaide Festival, Prague Quadrennial and Theatre Der Welt in Germany. His most recent work with MAU, Requiem, premiered at the Vienna Festival 250th Mozart Anniversary (New Crowned Hope) in November 2006.
Dawn Reid, Stratford, London, UK
Dawn’s long association with Theatre Royal Stratford East has producing Gateway to the Arts, a festival of shows for - and by - young people. She also directed Ade Ikoli’s Diary of a Single Man and DRD’s Dis is How We Do It, which were both part of the festival. She produced Boy Blue’s sold-out show The Book of Koraka; and produced and directed Club V. Once again Dawn directed Theatre Royal’s Youth Theatre in Flight, part of ‘Contacting the World’ Youth Festival organised by Contact Theatre in Manchester. She directed Funny Black Women on the Edge here at Theatre Royal Stratford East and Llewella Gideon’s premiere of Fruit Salad at the Greenwich Theatre. She has also directed rehearsed readings for Brit Asia and New Voices, part of the Theatre Royal’s work with new writers. Dawn won the Carlton Multicultural Achievement Award for Direction. Dawn will be the Associate Director for Avenue Q in the West End and the Director for Snow Queen later in the year.
Fabio Santos, London, UK
Fabio started his career as an actor in Salvador da Bahia Brazil, where he was born, with Bando de Teatro Olodum. He has worked extensively with homeless youth on the streets of Brazil and has developed community art projects in Germany, Holland, USA, and the UK. A Having completed dance training in New York, Holland and London, Fabio now works as a teacher, choreographer, project manager and arts project coordinator. Fabio is the Creative Coordinator of Project Phakama UK, working with young refugees and asylum seekers living in London to create Strange Familiars, a promenade piece at the National Children’s Home and Breaking the Glass Box at the Horniman Museum, 2004, in collaboration with Lewisham Youth Theatre. Fabio became the 2003 winner of NIACE’s Tutor of the Year Award and has undertaken an 18-month traineeship funded by the Arts Council of England with Lift. Fabio is also a guest lecturer at the Metropolitan University and a facilitator for Contacting the World.
Jenny Sealey, Hackney, London, UK
Jenny’s professional acting debut was with Graeae Theatre Company. After being a touring actor for eight years she was awarded the Calouste Gulbenkian director training bursary with Interplay Theatre Company. There she co-directed Sea Changes, the award-winning Stepping Stones and a new opera, Mad Meg. Jenny returned to Graeae in 1997 as Artistic Director and is fired by the company’s policy to explore full artistic accessibility. She has directed many Graeae shows, most recently a popular and successful run of Bent and a reprisal of the critically acclaimed 2003 production, Diary of An Action Man. For Spring 2006 Jenny will direct Sarah Kane’s Blasted. In 2003 – 04, Jenny was an Evidencer for Lift, enquiring into the impact and affect of theatre.
Subathra Subramaniam, London, UK
Subathra Subramaniam is a freelance dance artist/choreographer and dancer and co artistic director of ANGIKA, one of the UK's most dynamic and imaginative British Indian dance companies. Angika were resident choreographers at The Place in London till June 2006 and are currently affiliated artists at the Merlin Theatre in Frome, Somerset.Subathra is a qualified science teacher and has a Masters in Education. She is the co-director of Cape Farewell Education, a climate change project that brings together young people, artists, scientists, educators and journalists to raise awareness about climate change. Subathra has also presented educational, science and arts programmes for “Teacher’s TV”, a channel dedicated to schools and teachers.
Prasad Vanarase, Pune, India
Prasad Vanarase (alias Vidyanidhee Sudheer) is an actor, playwright and director who graduated from the National School of Drama (NSD), New Delhi. He set up the Academy of Creative Education (ACE) in Pune, part of the ever-growing experimental theatre scene in the state of Maharashtra. A Founder Trustee of Abhijaat Rangabhoomi, Pune and Trustee of Mitrapariwar Education Trust, he has been a National Coordinator for Project Phakama since 2001. He served as a mentor during the International Debate on the rights and roles of young people as future art makers as part of Lift’s 2003 Enquiry Season and served as a Lift Enquirer in 2004.
Wen Hui, Beijing, China
Wen Hui was born in 1960 in the Chinese province of Yunnan. She has trained in traditional dance in Yunnan and at the Choreography Department of the Beijing Dance Academy. Her training at the Limón Institute, the Erik Hawkins School of Dance and the Trisha Brown Company in New York equipped her to become a choreographer for the “Oriental Song and Dance Ensemble of China”, before founding the Living Dance Studio in 1994. In the context of an emerging independent art and culture scene in China, the Living Dance Studio in Beijing has been an important factor in the development of new performance forms and despite this, are tolerated but not supported by the state. The Living Dance Studio's best-known production, the 1999 “Report on Giving Birth”, paints a panorama of the last 50 years of upheaval and changing circumstances in Chinese society from a women's point of view and has been performed throughout Europe.