We Caliban

“When Shobana Jeyasingh is firing on all cylinders there is hardly another UK choreographer who can touch her” – The Times

Shobana Jeyasingh was born in Chennai ,India and has lived in Sri Lanka and Malaysia. She founded Shobana Jeyasingh Dance in 1989 and has created over 60 critically acclaimed works for stage, screen and out and indoor sites ranging from Palladian monasteries in Venice to contemporary fountains in London.

Shobana’s work is noted for both its intellectual rigour and its visceral physicality. It is rooted in her experience and perspective of life as a female postcolonial citizen of the world. She trained in Bharata Natyam (the classical dance of Tamil Nadu), under Vazhuvoor Samaraj Pillai and read English Literature, specialising in Shakespeare at The University of Sussex. Over the course of a distinguished career she has collaborated with scientists, curators, composers, film makers, digital creatives, dancers and designers to make dynamic multi-disciplinary work that places the body centre stage in the dialogue of ideas.

“Petipa’s La Bayadère is the ultimate orientalist fantasy. Now, 138 years – and a seismic shift in sensibility – later, Petipa’s ballet is ripe for reinvention. And there’s surely no choreographer better qualified for the task than Shobana Jeyasingh …marvellous, inspiring mesh of history, poetry and ideas” – The Guardian

Her work has toured extensively in UK, Europe, USA, Turkey, India, China Singapore and Hong Kong. A number of works form part of the National Curriculum for Dance in the UK. Notable commissions include work for Rambert, Ballet Black, Company Wayne McGregor, the Venice Biennale, Beijing Modern Dance Academy, Contemporary City Dance Company Hong Kong, and Opera National du Rhin in France. Works such as Faultline (a response to the London tube bombings) TooMortal (for historic churches) Material Men redux (on 19th century indentured labour) have been included in UK end of year best-of lists for their respective years.

“With her emotionally honest approach to choreography, she has produced more than 50 dance works that make the audience think, dream and dissent.” – The HIndu

“The choreography is dizzyingly vibrant, absolutely engrossing … While the surface is hard and aggressive the dancers are ambiguous human subtle ” – Dagens Nyheter Stockholm

Her work for theatre includes choreography for the trailblazing Tara Arts in London and Tamasha Theatre Company. She has worked in productions at the Half Moon Theatre and at The National Theatre London.

“The show is emotional, arduous, and enlightening. It’s a stunningly distressing piece, telling untold stories through sweat and exacting movement, while Jeyasingh both educates and wows through two artists who are truly mesmerising to watch. ” -Theatre Review

Shobana’s contributions to dance include writings, talks as well as presentations on numerous media platforms. She worked as researcher and scriptwriter for two pioneering programmes on British Asian Arts for Channel Four. More recently she was a judge for BBC Young Dancer in both 2017 and 2019. She has served on the panels of the Arts Council of England, Greater London Arts, London Contemporary Dance Trust and The Royal Opera House. She is patron of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing.

Shobana was a founder member and research fellow of Rescen at Middlesex University a research centre into processes, practices and contexts of performance. She was invited to take on the role of knowledge producer by the Cultural Institute at Kings College London in 2014 which led to Translocations, a series of films where choreographic narratives met a range of academic disciplines such as Informatics and Neurobiology. She was awarded a Nesta Dream Fellowship to visit China and Japan and experience their contemporary dance cultures. Shobana holds honorary doctorates from the universities of Leicester and Chichester as well as an honorary MA from the university of Surrey. She was named Asian Woman of Achievement in Art and Culture 2008. Shobana was awarded the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award at the WOW Women in Creative Industries Awards in 2017. In 2020 she was appointed Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE).

” Jeyasingh plays elegant games with the question of how an art form can feed off its history without actually cannibalising it. Such tempering of energy with intelligence is the mark of a classic” -The Evening Standard

Thierry Pécou, born in Boulogne-Billancourt near Paris studied piano and composition at the Paris Conservatoire. Scholarships for study abroad took him to Canada, Russia, Spain and Latin America from 1989 to 1999. Travelling in different countries and their cultures have become the chief inspiration for his creative activities.

Pécou composes music across a wide range of genres. In recent years, he has composed several concertos and operas: Soleil Rouge (2015) for trumpet player Håkan Hardenberger and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France was followed by Cara Bali Concerto (2020) written for pianist Alexandre Tharaud. Pécou’s latest opera Until the Lions is based on a book by Indian poet Karthika Nair, in which she adapts the Indian epic Mahabharata. Premiered at the Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg (2022), the piece denounces the violence of war and gives its victims a voice.

Thierry Pécou is the recipient of numerous prizes including the Georges Enesco Prize from Sacem (1993), the Pierre Cardin Prize from the French Academy of Fine Arts (1996) and the Grand Prix of the SACEM (2016). The recording of his Symphonie du Jaguar received the Grand Prix de l’Académie Charles Cros (2010).

Thierry Pécou currently lives in Normandy.

Photo (c) Sophie Dupressoir

https://ensemblevariances.com/fr/

https://www.schott-music.com/en/person/thierry-pecou

Mayou Trikerioti is an award-winning designer, dramaturg, and creative director working in theatre, film, and TV. Most recently, you can see her outstanding work as costume designer for the Amazon Prime Series House of David, which will be returning for season 2.

Mayou designed costumes for Anthony Chen’s Drift, starring Cynthia Erivo; David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future, starring Viggo Mortensen, Léa Seydoux and Kristen Stewart, Scott Speedman and Don McKellar; and the period film Fantasmi in Viaggio starring Paolo Rossi and George Chorea face. Her other film work includes collaboration with Venice Silver Lion winner Alexandros Avranas on Dark Crimes, starring Jim Carrey, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Agata Kulesza and Siamak Etemadi’s first feature, Pari, staring Melika Forurtan and Shahbaz Noshir. Mayou has designed feature and short films that have opened at international film festivals, including Cannes, Venice Film Festival, Berlin, and Toronto IFF. She is also an alumnus of Berlinale Talents.

In the UK, Mayou’s designs include the musicals: George Takei’s Allegiance, Charing Cross Theatre, Piaf at Bristol Old Vic and Syncopation at Bridewell Theatre; Captain Corelli’s Mandolin at the Rose Theatre, Kingston, Harold Pinter Theatre, and on UK tour; Macbeth at the Garrick, Man for the Young Vic, as well as When we Dead Awaken by The Norwegian Ibsen Company in London’s Coronet Theatre and Norway, the UK premier of Belbel’s Blood at The Tobacco Factory, the tour of The Hero Next Door by Onjali Q. Raúf and the innovative baby dance shows Underwater and Skydiver (Sadlers Wells and international tour).

In Greece Mayou’s designs include Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine at Diana Theatre, Athens, for which she won the Best Set Design award and Lysistrata at the Ancient Amphitheatre of Epidavros for the National Theatre.

Since 2016, Mayou has been bringing community artists together in the Wapping Open Studios, which she created and now manages. Mayou was also one of the founding members and co-artistic directors of Change of Art, a community art project created by a group of theatre practitioners and artists who came together through shared activism.

Mayou currently lives in London. She trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School after finishing her BA (Hons) in Drama and Theatre Studies at the University of Kent. Mayou also trained in forum theatre with the Cardboard Citizens.

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Recent Credits include: Hamlet, Hail To The Thief (RSC/Manchester International Festival); Figures in Extinction (Nederlands Dans Theatr); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Barbican/RSC); Macbeth (ETT, Lyric Hammersmith); Passing Strange; The Convert (Young Vic); The Girl on the Altar (Abbey Theatre Dublin, Kiln Theatre); Into The Woods (Theatre Royal Bath); ); Grief Is The Thing With Feathers (Barbican & St. Ann’s Warehouse, New York); The Encounter (Complicité; Barbican, International Tour & Golden Theatre, Broadway); Queen Anne (RSC); Khovanschina (Salzburg Festival); The Handmaid’s Tale (San Francisco Opera, Royal Danish Opera); Breaking The Waves (Houston Grand Opera, Detroit Opera, Opera Comique Paris, Scottish Opera); Peter Grimes; Giulio Cesare (Teatro alla Scala); Don Giovanni (Gottenburg Opera); Wozzeck (Aix Festival); Carmen (Scottish Opera); Cabaret (Lido, Paris); The Life And Death of Alexander Litvinenko (Grange Festival).

www.willduke.net

Floriaan Ganzevoort is a lighting designer for theatre, music, dance, and spaces of all kinds. He graduated in Theatre Studies at the University of Amsterdam on the subject ‘Light as a dramaturgical means’. Since 2000, he has designed lighting for various companies. As a result of his dramaturgical background, the light he designs is always strongly connected to the content of the piece. He specializes in the sequence of light images and the timing thereof.

In 2008, Floriaan founded the Theatermachine. This partnership provides an environment in which light is treated in an analytical way and in which light is seen as an important carrier of meaning within the whole of a project. These are not just theatre projects; the work extends to music, public space, architecture, as well as light as an independent art form.

As a lighting designer and scenographer Floriaan worked with: Dutch National Opera & Ballet, Opéra National du Rhin, Lisaboa Houbrechts, Theater Basel, Michel van der Aa, Saskia Boddeke & Peter Greenaway, Swarovski, STRAAT Museum and many others.

Floriaan joined Shobana Jeyasingh on two earlier creations: ‘Material Men – Redux’ and ‘Until the Lions’.

In 2011 Floriaan was awarded together with Rieks Swarte, Jacq. van Eeden en Carly Everaert the TIN Wijnberg Scenografieprijs (the Scenography prize of the Dutch National Theatre Institution) for his light design of ‘The Tempest’ (‘De Storm’).

Selected projects:

• ‘Winter’ (Jon Fosse) Theatre, Det Norkse Teatret, Oslo (2025)
• ‘Schuldig Kind’ Theatre, Het Nationale Theater, The Hague (2025) – nominated for Best Performance in the Dutch Theatre Festival 2025
•  ‘Yerma’ (Llorca) Theatre, Dramaten, Sweden (2024)
•  ‘Disintegration Loops’ Music/Live Broadcast, Holland Festival (2023)
•  ‘Until the Lions’ (Pécou) Opera, Opéra National du Rhin (2022)
• ‘The Fairy Queen – Ein Sommernachtstraum’ (Purcell) Opera, Theater Erfurt (2019)
• ‘Disappearance’ Dance, Ballet de Marseille/ICK Amsterdam (2019)
• Jury selection ‘Make a Splash’ independent light-art work at Amsterdam Light Festival (2017)
• Light design and scenography for ‘Homo Instrumentalis’ Music Theatre, Silbersee/Ruhrtriennale, Germany (2017)
• Light design for ‘Giovanna d’Arco’ (Verdi). Opera in Teatro Regio Parma, Italy (2016)
• Light design for ‘Obedience’. Exhibition in the Jewish Museum Berlin, Germany for Saskia Boddeke and Peter Greenaway (2015)
• Light design for ‘Crystal Cloud’ and Park extension in Swarovski Crystal World in Wattens, Austria for CAO| Perrot Studio (2015)

www.theatermachine.nl/floriaan-ganzevoort

Photo by Anouk van Schie

Uzma Hameed is a British writer, director and dramaturg. A regular collaborator of choreographer Wayne McGregor, she was Dramaturg on Woolf Works (Olivier Award), The Dante Project (South Bank Sky Arts Award), Obsidian Tear, and Multiverse for the Royal Ballet; MADDADDAM for the National Ballet of Canada and the Royal Ballet; Autobiography, Universe: A Dark Crystal Odyssey and Deepstaria for Company Wayne McGregor;  AfteRite-LORE for La Scala (Danza&Danza Award). Other dramaturgy credits include Northern Ballet’s Victoria (South Bank Sky Arts Award) and The Seven Deadly Sins/Mahagonny Songspiel for the Royal Opera. UNDYING, a novel co-authored with her sister Ambreen Hameed, was published in 2021 (Bath Novel Award longlist). Hameed graduated from Cambridge University with a First in Modern and Medieval Languages, and founded The Big Picture Company, for which she wrote and directed A Dark River, Taj and Prophetess. As Associate Director at Derby Playhouse, her credits included Shirley Valentine, Dracula, Frankenstein and Schiller’s Mary Stuart.

Photo (c) Ravi Deepres

A sonic artist and composer, and member of the People Show theatre, Fred learnt his trade in Paris as a recording engineer, moving to England to become the personal recording engineer of the Eurhythmics.

Through his career he has mixed and recorded albums for the likes of Bob Dylan, The Prodigy, Depeche mode, Tom Petty, David Gray and many more. He has sound designed for theatrical experiences created by Punchdrunk, Burberry, Tods and Philipp Plein fashion shows in Paris, London and Milan. Fred has also composed music for choreographer Garance Marneur, on behalf of Levy Dance in San Francisco, for Alone Together and Pull Me Closer part of the SF International Art Festival 2017.

Touring as a live sound engineer, his broad client base includes choreographer Lee Anderson, Patti Smith, and the KLF Welcome to the Dark Ages. Fred has worked with Shobana Jeyasingh for the past eight years.

Priyamvada Gopal is Professor of Postcolonial Studies at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of Literary Radicalism in India: Gender, Nation, and the Transition to Independence; The Indian English Novel: Nation, History, and Narration; and Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent. She has written widely for the press in India, the USA, and Britain in addition to appearing on the BBC, Channel 4, and Al-Jazeera English. In 2021, Prospect Magazine named her  one of the World’s Top Ten Thinkers.  She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has had a long time interest in dance, including Bharatanatyam and ballet.