I am a social theatre maker, academic and activist based in Manchester, UK. I have been working in various settings to advocate for immigrant rights through theatre: in streets, community centres, prisons and refugee camps. I have worked with organisations in Paris, London, NYC, Ecuador and Hungary in the respective, local languages. I aspire to bring my academic work and my practice together through activism.

With Frontierra Theatre Company, based at Immigrant Movement International, Queens, NYC.

Education

And the rest

Trained in the UK, I have been working as a social theatre practitioner in various countries - Ecuador, Hungary, UK, the US and France. I have worked primarily with organisations and groups that advocate for immigrant rights (this advocacy concerns all 'administrative' identities such as refugees, asylum seekers, undocumented, internally displaced, etc.).

After graduating in Scotland, I began collaboratively learning from community theatre in Cuba (Teatro Comunitario) and in Ecuador, where I was partly trained in clowning under Carlos Gallego. My interest in participatory theatre grew with workshops I led in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In Hungary, I trained as a Clown Doctor under Magyar Bohócok a Betegekért Alapítvány and collaborated with Yvette Feuer in workshops with Roma youth, a population which now faces horrendous discrimination.
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With the help of London's Central School for Speech and Drama (University of London) where I studied my Masters degree in applied theatre (a more academic term for this), I was awarded the Leverhulme Award Grant that funded a series of independent, integration-based projects that I organised with Colombian refugees in the northern border region of Ecuador (within a school, Community Health Centre and an all-male prison, located in the suburbs of Ibarra. These were all in Spanish). This led to a commission in partnership with the Ecuadorian National Ministry of Public Health and the UNHCR (United Nations Head Commissioner for Refugees) of Ibarra, Ecuador. My workshops in Ibarra focused on rights advocacy. They resulted in a prize-winning youth theatre collective that is still running today. This is where journey became gradually more professionalised.

Between 2011 and 2013, the community workshops that I led at Immigrant Movement International (Tania Bruguera) in Queens, NY, led to the founding of FRONTIERRA, a non-profit advocating migrant rights through interactive community projects presented throughout centres welcoming new immigrants (bilingual Sp/Eng). The themes we looked at involved workers rights, concerns over deportation, family unity, pain and love across borders. My activism for immigrant rights grew with my involvement in the Occupy Wall Street movement, where I helped set up various Direct Actions and performance initiatives to protest US Immigration reforms at the time. I gave theatre workshops at Make the Road NY and we brought an interactive piece on Housing Rights to a mass event at the 1199SEIU workers union. I moved to Paris in 2014, and started giving workshops in a methodology called Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) with incarcerated youth at Fleury-Merogis, the largest prison in Europe, through the Genepi activist organisation (in French).
Social theatre is financially less recognised in France (see FAQs), and I struggled to find jobs. I was hired by one of France's most established TO companies, NAJE. Francoise, a former student of Augusto Boal, directs this dedicated team of artist-activists and the scale, range and generosity of their work is incredibly inspiring. Some of our work included themes of agricultural politics with a farmers' union and domestic violence with a women's centre.
In 2018, I began a practice-based PhD (half practice, half written) on social theatre in zones of armed conflict and political violence. I am now based in Manchester (UK), but spent time researching in the Middle East. I am (permanently?) learning Arabic.
Other past collaborations include Cardboard Citizens (London), Sharon Aviva-Jones and the Hampstead Theatre, Theatre of the Oppressed Laboratory of New York, Theatre of the Oppressed NYC, homeless centre 240 Project (London), The Civilians Theatre (investigative project on undocumented youth in the US), Desarrollo Social y Habitat (Quito, Ecuador), and many more inspiring organisations, individuals, artists and activists advocating for the rights of immigrants, asylum seekers, refugees and internally displaced persons that I am grateful for.

Forum theatre performance on workers rights at Hace Camino NY, with co-facilitator Montserrat Vargas

Forum piece on housing rights at the 1199SEIU workers' union, NYC.