TRAINERS

Sylvan Oswald is a US based, award-winning interdisciplinary artist who creates plays, texts and video. His language driven work uses meta-theatricality and formal irreverence to challenge structures of identity. Recent work includes a phantasmagorical western High Winds (X Artists’ Books) and the lo-fi web series Outtakes exploring trans identity (outtakestv.com). A 2019 Guggenheim Fellow, Sylvan is currently assistant professor of playwriting at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film & Television, an affiliated artist at Clubbed Thumb and an alum of New Dramatists.

Hester is a director and artist based in London. They are Thinker-in-Residence (Young People, Gender & Live Art) at the Live Art Development Agency and a Fellow of the Centre for Contemporary Theatre at Birkbeck University. Directing work includes That Night Follows Day (co-directed with Tim Etchells) for Forced Entertainment at The Southbank Centre (as well as versions in South Korea and China), the national tour of the trans-positive pantomime A Pair of Pantos (as writer and director), and Ten Plagues (Mark Ravenhill's song cycle for Marc Almond). They also curated the exhibition In Visible Ink - Queer Heroes for the National Theatre, and Queer Upstairs (with Mark Ravenhill) for The Royal Court, where they are currently under commission as a 2020 Jerwood New Playwright. Hester has been collaborating with internationally renowned performance company Forced Entertainment since 2009 and established the company's Participation strand, founding their young company Art Breakers. From 2008-18 Hester was Artistic Director of GETINTHEBACKOFTHEVAN, before starting up Hester Chillingworth Company in 2019 for their own work, which includes a trilogy of shows currently in progress to premier in 2021.

Joshua trained at The Royal Central School of speech and drama. Occasionally he Co-designs with designer Naomi Kuyck-Cohen.   Credits as Co-Designer includes There Is A Light That Never Goes Out: Scenes From The Luddite Rebellion (Royal Exchange/Kandinsky); Trap Street (Schaubühne and New Diorama/ Kandinsky); Dinomania (New Diorama/Kandinsky); dreamplay (Vaults).   Credits as Lighting Designer includes in a word (Young Vic); Half Life (Albany and Tour); A Kettle of Fish (The Yard); Tyler Sisters,  Alligators and R and D (all Hampstead Theatre); Still Ill (New Diorama/ Kandinsky); Airswimming (Vaults); Consensual and I won't make it on my own (both Nuffield Southampton Theatres); I Call My Brothers and Caught (both Arcola); Returning to Haifa (Finborough); The Leftovers (Curve and Tour); The Slightly Annoying Elephant (Little Angel and Tour); A Dangerous Woman (Birmingham REP and Tour); How to keep time (Rich Mix and Tour); The Island (French Tour/Freedom Theatre).  

Naomi is a designer for performance. She also Co-Designs work with Joshua Gadsby. Co-Designs include: There Is A Light That Never Goes Out: Scenes From The Luddite Rebellion (Royal Exchange Theatre), Trap Street (Schaubühne & New Diorama), Dinomania (New Diorama), dreamplay (The Vaults). Designs include: in a word (Young Vic), Amsterdam (The Orange Tree, Actors Touring Company, and Theatre Royal Plymouth), The Greatest Play In The History Of The World (Trafalgar Studios, Royal Exchange Theatre, Traverse Theatre), Nightclubbing (Tour), OUT (Tour), The Tyler Sisters (Hampstead Theatre), And Yet It Moves (Young Vic Taking Part), The Tempest (Royal Exchange Theatre Young Company), Fuck You Pay Me (The Bunker), The Sandman and What Was Left (Southwark Playhouse), Passin’ Thru (Lyric Hammersmith), Feast (Battersea Arts Centre and Tour).

Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley is an artist working predominantly in animation, sound and performance. Their work seeks to archive the experience of being Black and Trans while using fiction to imaginatively retell stories. More recently their interactive work blur the lines between the responsibility that viewers have when they engage in tourism of minority groups.

 

They have shown work in the Barbican, Tate Late, Auto Italia and Les Urbains where they premiered their first interactive installation "RESSURECTION PRO LEAGUE " .They also designed sound for We Dig (oval theatre), I tried to fuck up the system ( premiered at Welcome collection) and Hotter than a pan (The Yard)

Hazel Low is a performance designer working across theatre, live art and spatial design. They are particularly interested in work that is multidisciplinary, inherently collaborative, and that challenges form. Theatre credits include: Bogeyman (Pleasance Queendome, Edinburgh Fringe); The Blue House (Blue Elephant Theatre); Who Killed My Father, co-designed with Blythe Brett (Tron Theatre); Splintered (Soho Theatre Upstairs); The Magic Flute, co-designed with Rosie Elnile (Royal College of Music); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Latimer Estate). As well as design for Live Performance, Hazel also took part in the Prayer Workshops led by Rosie Elnile and the Gate Theatre where they conceptualised Myth of Binary and Body, a digital installation exploring how we costume trans bodies, a piece of work they are still developing. Hazel was also Design Associate on NDT Broadgate in 2020, where they helped conceptualise and action the ideals and aesthetics of the space, and were one of Broadgate’s resident designers when it was open. (they/them)