PORTFOLIO

HOW TO BREAK OUT OF A DETENTION CENTRE

RIVERSIDE STUDIOS | 2023

Director: Nico Vaccari

Set Designer: Jida Akil

Sound Designer: Dan Balfour

Video Designer: Dan Light

Lighting Designer: Johanne Jensen

World premiere of a female, migrant led international co-production between BÉZNĂ Theatre (UK) and Giuvlipen (Romania), How to Break Out of a Detention Centre follows four women working in and experiencing detention in the UK.

The show puts the responsibility of the state in balance with the actions of the individual while exploring the relationships between the women - as mothers, friends, lovers, co-workers and resistors.

Take a leap into the darkness with us as we ask what it takes to build a movement.

Because we will be free. We will fly.

CARMEN

OPERA HOLLAND PARK | 2022

Director: Cecilia Stinton

Conductor: Lee Reynolds

Set Designer: Takis

Lighting Designer: Johanne Jensen

Carmen doesn’t play by the rules. She lives as the mood – and her instinct – takes her. When José deserts the army for her, he discovers that her freedom must always come first. Hispanic rhythms and seductive songs turn sour as obsessive jealousy leads to a brutal murder. Our production of Carmen told the traditional story our heroine but through a modern feminist view

A SMALL PLACE

THE GATE THEATRE | 2018

Director: Anna Himali

Set Designer: Camilla Clarke

Sound Designer: Munotida Chinyanga

Lighting Designer: Johanne Jensen

For A Small Place at the Gate Theatre we transformed the tiny black box studio theatre into a broken down community library. The audiences were scattered on benches around the space, making them an integral part of the spacial design. The 2 performers would walk amongst them, sometimes only a few inches away as the told the story of Antigua - and how capitalism and colonialism have destroyed the paradise island.

I’M A PHOENIX, BITCH

BATTERSEA ARTS CENTER | UK & AUS TOUR | 2018

Director: Kirsty Housley

Writer: Bryony Kimmings

Set Designer: David Curtis Ring

Composer: Tom Parkinson

Sound Designer: Lewis Gibson

Video Designer: Will Duke

Lighting Designer: Johanne Jensen

A funny and tragic story written and performed by Bryony Kimmings about overcoming trauma, learning motherhood and writing a new modern myth of what it entails to be a woman. The production was a part of the Grand Hall reopening at Battersea Arts Centre and later commenced on a tour across Australia and the UK.

CRAVE

THE BARBICAN - THE PIT | 2018

Choreographer: Julie Cunningham

Movement Director: Joyce Henderson

Sound Designer: Nell Catchpole

Lighting Designer: Johanne Jensen

I AM AN EMOTIONAL PLAGIARIST,
STEALING OTHER PEOPLES PAIN,
SUBSUMING IT INTO MY OWN UNTIL
I CANʼT REMEMBER WHOSE IT IS ANY MORE

CRAVE is an adaptation of Sarah Kane’s tragic powerless story which was performed by 4 performers with 4 corrosponding dancers.

The choreography was responding to the pauses, breaks and rhythms of the poetic broken text with overlapping monologues which made it a complicated algorithm of movement and reaction in which behaviours emerged.

The lighting was just as independent but interwoven the dance. The rig consisted primarily of cold harsh light from steep angles covering the space symmetrically. All fades were slow and organic - almost like an ominous breath. At times the lighting would lead, leaving the characters in darkness before the dancers would follow into the light.

THE YOUNGER THEATRE REVIEW:

“Continually relying on each other, Cunningham’s strong ensemble holds the energy of the stage remarkably: sustaining a collective rhythm that drives the piece. With the preciseness of machinery, bodies react in sequence as lines are delivered, emotionally expressive whilst maintaining poetic nuance.

Darkness shifts across the stage as mundane sounds creep in, often unnoticed at first. Cunningham’s and Henderson’s adaptation is a tightrope walk in which the text prevails - managing to compliment the material without overpowering it. “

THE DEVIL SPEAKS TRUE

UK TOUR | 2017

Director: Joel Scott

Sound Designer: Dominic Kennedy

Video Designer: Alex Vipond

Lighting Designer: Johanne Jensen

The Devil Speaks True is a chilling exploration of the psychological effects of war.

Often in complete darkness, the play narrates the story of Macbeth as told by Banquo through wireless headphones, projection, scent, a physical performer and binaural sound design to plunge audiences into an intimate, 360 degree experience, cutting the text of one of Shakespeare’s most notorious works with interviews with military veterans. 

The Devil Speaks True invites audiences into the heart of one of Shakespeare’s most notorious works in this immersive take on the last hours of Banquo’s life.