About the International Mentorship

From December 2018 to June 2019 Johanna Freiburg, a member of the German performing arts collective She She Pop, worked with five participants based in Ireland. In addition to meeting Johanna in Dublin, each of the participants received a bursary to help them dedicate time to work on their ideas, and we also offered travel subsidy to help them see relevant work internationally.

This mentorship programme is a unique opportunity for theatre and performance makers of all kinds to develop an early-stage idea for performance, outside the pressures of production. The engagement of the mentor is aimed to pose challenges and offer interrogations within a supportive structure.

The Pan Pan International Mentorship was funded by the Arts Council. The Gate Theatre was the mentorship partner for 2018-19. Johanna Freiburg’s participation was supported by the Goethe-Institut Irland.

Mentor

Johanna Freiburg is a member of the German performing arts collective She She Pop and the British-German Arts Collective Gob Squad (both based in Berlin, Germany). Since the group’s inception in 1993 and 1994 she has worked for both companies on strategic planning and on the development of new work through conceptual vision and stage devising. She is currently appearing in more than eight different pieces as a performing artist and is touring internationally with both companies. She also gives lectures and workshops.

Participants

Doireann Coady is a Dublin based performer and theatre maker. She is a member of THEATREclub and a recent recipient of the Next Generation Bursary 2017 from The Arts Council.

During the Pan Pan International Mentorship, Doireann will work on ideas for a second solo piece which will make up a suite of works about how to disappear completely.

Veronica Dyas is an artist working primarily through theatre, new text and installation. Facilitation, Action and LOVE are crucial to her practice, she works regularly with communities of identity, purpose and/or place.

Most recently Veronica wrote and directed My Son My Son (2018), a new play interrogating class, gender(s) and education inspired by Bertolt Brecht’s play The Mother. She made HERE & NOW (2012-2018) exploring housing, homelessness, and the practice of walking in response to the economic crash presenting in stages at THISISPOPBABY with St. Patrick’s Festival Where We Live Festival (2018), Project Arts Centre (2014), and Sorcha Kenny’s Walking We Ask Questions (DFF 2012). Her solo performance ‘In My Bed’ (DFF 2011) marked a shift in her practice toward embodied autobiographical work.

Installation work includes ‘We Preserve This Object’ made in collaboration with Transition Year Students at Margaret Aylward’s (2017); ‘Extracts of the HERE & NOW’ HOMES/SICK Exhibition, Science Gallery Dublin (2015) and ‘YOU’ (DFF 2009).

Veronica intends to develop a new theatre work interrogating The Great Hunger, the Irish famine(s) from the perspective of contemporary human struggle, issues of gender(s), migration, the environment and suffering created by arbitrary policy and global economics.

Fionnuala Gygax is an actor and theatre-maker from Dublin. She is interested in making ambitious, contemporary work, which interrogates form and spans across genre and disciplines.

In 2017/2018 she was awarded the ‘Next Generation’ award from the Arts Council.Fionnuala is a co-founder of Chaos Factory, a new experimental theatre company, who presented Kiss Kiss Slap Slap in Dublin Fringe Festival 2018. They will develop a new show, Morph Me, throughout 2019, supported by the Arts Council. In 2016 Fionnuala wrote HOSTEL 16 which was nominated for the Stewart Parker award and nominated for Best Ensemble in the Dublin Fringe Festival. She has a number of other shows in development and will also write the Gaiety School of Acting Graduation show in 2019, directed by Raymond Keane.

Performance credits include: Finky (Dathaí Keane, TG4), Kiss Kiss Slap Slap (Dublin Fringe), Love A La Mode (Colm Summers), The Shitstorm (Maeve Stone, Peacock Theatre), Toraíocht (Mikel Murfi), The Seagull and Other Birds and Cascando (Gavin Quinn, Pan Pan Theatre), HOSTEL 16 (Raymond Keane) and Eipic (Louise Ní Fhiannachta, TG4).

During the mentorship Fionnuala will develop a piece of multidisciplinary work examining porn addiction and the impact of the internet on communication and relationships in society.

Alan Howley is a performer and theatre maker based in Dublin. He began acting with Dublin Youth Theatre, subsequently studying Performance at Dartington College of Arts, Devon. He has performed both nationally and internationally including shows in Dublin Theatre Festival, Dublin Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe, as well as festivals in France, Germany, Denmark, Holland, Finland and Malaysia.

Alan’s solo performance works box, bruise, show off and looking have been shown in the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow, and the Expo festival of Live Art in Nottingham.

Alan is director of performance group Breach & Quinn. Their short performance pieces manifesto, captive, umbrage, and An Act of Violence have been shown at Project Arts Centre and Smock Alley. Their show SCORE (Tiger Dublin Fringe, 2015) played venues around Ireland, as well as Theaterszene Europa festival, Cologne and, in August 2018, at George Town Festival, Malaysia.

During the mentorship, Alan will develop REMEMBER YOU MUST DIE (A History of Onstage Dying); a performance lecture (exploring death, performing, and being ‘live’), which falls apart when Alan’s mother intrudes. She’s an attention grabber. And she’s dead.

Michelle Read’s work in performance includes playwriting, co-devising, dramaturgy, acting and improvisation. Her writing awards include the Hugh Leonard Bursary, the Eamon Keane Full Length Play Award, the Stewart Parker/BBC Northern Ireland Drama Award and a Fringe First. She started out as a stand-up comic and is a founder-member and current player with the Dublin Comedy Improv. Michelle also teaches Live Art, Immersive Theatre and Ensemble Theatre for the BA Drama at Coláiste Dhúlaigh CFE. Her tiny play The Nation’s Assets featured in the Fishamble’s Tiny Plays For Ireland (Project 2012) and in 2011 she wrote Toxic for the eighteen graduating students of the Gaiety School of Acting. In 2011/12 Michelle was Theatre Artist in Residence, Civic Theatre / Tallaght Library where she worked with primary school groups to create eight new plays for and by children. For READCO/Living Space Theatre (1996-2008), Michelle produced, wrote and performed new and experimental work including, You Are Here (Ulsterbank Dublin Theatre Festival, 2008), The Other Side (Project, 2006), Play About My Dad (Project, 2003).

During the mentorship, Michelle will develop the form and text for Into The Blue: an immersive performance idea drawing on autobiographical memory, iconic memory and cognitive function.