2019 Producer Farm Participants Announced

10 PRODUCERS TO TAKE PART IN A WEEK-LONG RESIDENCY DESIGNED TO DEVELOP THEIR SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE.

Producer Farm is a joint initiative from Bristol Old Vic Ferment, Coombe Farm Studios, Dance Umbrella, Fuel and In Between Time. Now in its fourth year, the week-long residency for creative producers returns to Coombe Farm Studios in Dittisham, Devon in June 2019. The programme aims to provide time and space for producers in any field of contemporary performance to consider their current work and future potential.

Previous speakers have included Cesc Casadesus (Mercat de les Flors), Inua Ellams (Poet and Playwright), Jenny Sealy (Graeae), Tania Harrison (Latitude), Craig Hassal (Royal Albert Hall), Magda Osman (Queen Mary University), Selina Thompson & Emma Beverley (Artist and Producer). Participants in previous Producer Farm programmes include Katherine Jewkes (Freelance Curator & Creative Director), Daniel Kok (Cambridge Junction), Lisa Maguire (National Theatre Wales) and Jackie Wylie (National Theatre of Scotland).

Kate McGrath, Director of Fuel, said: “It’s important now, more than ever, to find ways that producers can build their own resilience and strength in order to be able to open up opportunities for other people, make things happen that might not otherwise be possible, and confront some of the challenges facing the world.”

Producer Farm 2019 Participants will be:

Chloé Naldrett Elwood
Chloé Naldrett Elwood is Executive Producer at Bristol Old Vic.  She has been Assistant to the Director at Oxford Playhouse, Associate Producer/General Manager at Mark Rubinstein Ltd, Associate Producer for National Theatre Productions on War Horse at the New London Theatre and then General Manager for One Man, Two Guvnors.

Nancy Galant
Nancy started working for Nuit Blanche Brussels as producer in 2010 and has been coordinating the event  since 2014. She sees art as a way to address social and political issues.  Her main interests focus on site-specific and participatory projects, and on how to question the public realm through art.

Christine Grimwood
Christine began working in contemporary dance in 1994, as PA to the Artistic Director, Dance City. She became an independent Freelance Producer in 2002 before taking up a full-time post with balletLORENT as Executive Producer in 2004. She has assisted balletLORENT through many transitional periods of development from a small to large-scale touring company.

Henriette Kassay–Schuster
Henriette is a Creative Producer, multi-disciplinary artist and academic who has worked extensively across arts festivals in Australia and Germany. With a background in writing for radio feature, tertiary teaching and her own creative practice in the performing and visual arts, Henriette is a passionate investigator and communicator of ideas.

Bryony McIntyre
Bryony McIntyre is a founding co-director of Arika (www.arika.org.uk) a political arts organisation concerned with celebrating and supporting connections between artistic production and social change. She is particularly interested the practice of hosting: how artistic, philosophical and political desires and struggles are mutually manifested in social spaces and experiences.

Jocelyn S. Mills
Jocelyn is Studio Producer at Kaleider. She leads on hosting and supporting a Resident Community of creative individuals and companies, and produces the company’s international touring work. Jocelyn’s background is in theatre, education and engagement. She trained at El Centro de Estudios Escénicos de Andalucía, and Arts Club Theatre Company, Vancouver, Canada.

Michelle Rocha
Michelle is the Producer (Music and Outdoor) of the West Kowloon Cultural District (HK).  Previously, she worked at the Wales Millennium Centre for the 2012 Olympics, the Hong Kong Dance Company, Lushington/ Live Nation, the Hong Kong Museum of Art and the Hong Kong International Jazz Festival and is a Clore Fellow.

Mayo Rodriguez
Creative – cultural activator with a focus on dance, discipline crossover and connection (networking); creative producer, fund manager and performer. Co-Director and Artistic Director of Bestias Danzantes Dance Film Festival; Creative Producer and performer of Jose Vidal & Cia contemporary dance company (Chile).

Jo Verrent
Jo believes that ‘different’ is delicious not divergent, embedding the belief that diversity adds texture, turning policy into real action. Currently senior producer for Unlimited - the world’s largest commissions programme for disabled artists, she also co-runs SYNC (disability / leadership) and makes work such as Take Me to Bed.  Jo makes award winning jam.

Jen White
Jen’s motivation is to support artists and the creative community with a focus on gender representation. From establishing Glasgow’s multi art form venue The Glue Factory to co-curating the Edinburgh International Festival’s award-winning music season ‘Light on the Shore’ her work is across art forms working with communities to create engaging programmes of work.

Producer Farm 2019 speakers will include:

Matthew Austin
Matthew’s career started as a member of the performance company The Special Guests, who met while studying at Bristol University and worked together for seven years. During this time he also developed a career as a marketer and producer. He started working with Kate while they were both at Bristol Old Vic, and has worked on Mayfest since 2004, whilst also producing and marketing for a range of organisations nationally. In 2010 he was one of the Cultural Leadership Programme’s Peach Placements, working with Fuel Theatre as Audiences Associate. He established MAYK with Kate in 2011. He sits on the board of Camden People’s Theatre and is a Resident Tutor on UK Theatre’s Essentials of Marketing Course.

Pelin Basaran
Pelin Basaran is a curator and producer with an extensive experience of developing and delivering high-profile contemporary performance projects across Europe. She is currently working as programme manager at Contact, Manchester. She founded and worked as director of PARC which supported artistic creation and the presentation of the contemporary performance in Turkey. She also founded and worked as the researcher and co-director of the project “Siyah Bant-Freedom of Expression in the Arts” in Turkey.

Dan Canham
Dan Canham is a contemporary performance maker and choreographer. Central to his work lies an exploration that puts those performing and the felt experience of real human stories at its heart. As movement director Dan has worked with Sally Cookson at the National Theatre, Old Vic, Leeds Playhouse, Bristol Old Vic, Tobacco Factory and Rose Theatre Kingston, as well as work with Verity Standen, Idle Motion, Aga Blonska & Tassos Stevens.

Dan has previously worked as a performer for Kneehigh Theatre, DV8 Physical Theatre, Punchdrunk & Fabulous Beast among other companies. He draws a lot of inspiration from work outside of the UK and is open to collaborative possibilities within the UK and beyond.

Rob Hopkins
Rob Hopkins is a cofounder of Transition Town Totnes and Transition Network, and the author of The Power of Just Doing Stuff, The Transition Handbook, and The Transition Companion. In 2012, he was voted one of the Independent’s top 100 environmentalists and was on Nesta and the Observer’s list of Britain’s 50 New Radicals. Hopkins has also appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Four Thought and A Good Read, in the French film phenomenon Demain and its sequel Apres Demain, and has spoken at TEDGlobal and three TEDx events he is currently completing his new book Imagination taking Power. The terms ‘transition town’, ‘transition initiative’ and ‘transition model’ refer to grassroot community projects that aim to increase self-sufficiency to reduce the potential effects of peak oil, climate destruction, and economic instability.  Rob is currently working on the book, From What Is to What If: unleashing the power of imagination to create the future we want, to be published by Chelsea Green Publishing in early October.

Alex Mecklenburg
Alex is a certified and experienced business coach. After a successful career of 20+ years in the creative industries, Alex decided to leverage all of her experiences, knock-backs, bounce-backs and learnings and focus on helping others to shape their own professional journeys. She is working with professionals, leaders, CEOs and boards of organisations who are all looking to break through their own perception bubble and help them to explore how to lead successful, resilient and responsible professional lives in a world of perpetual change. Alex is also the co-founder of Truth&Spectacle, a creative business consultancy who work with organisations to examine their organisational truth and how this translates across everything they create to stay authentic whilst growing. Alex is also an associate at the Digital Think Tank Doteveryone, a fellow of the RSA, and storyteller in residence at SIX, the Global Social Innovation Exchange.

Rachel Nelken
Head of Creative Programmes at the Albany Theatre, leading the multi artform artistic and engagement programme, including the main house artistic programme at 3 performance spaces: The Albany, Canada Water Cultural Space and the Deptford Lounge. Leading a team of producers, managing the youth and community engagement and participation programme including the award winning Meet Me at the Albany project. Management of the community garden and food growing/sustainability programme. Participation in wider national & international networks including Future Arts Centres initiative & Circulate. Previously worked as a senior producer at Roundhouse and relationship manager at Arts council and other funding related roles with PRS, Creative Scotland and BBC.

Geetie Singh-Watson MBE
Founder of organic pubs – The Duke of Cambridge, London & The Bull Inn, Totnes.
Geetie Singh-Watson is the founder of the first official organic pub in Britain, The Duke of Cambridge Organic Pub, in Islington, London. After working in the restaurant trade for several years, she was horrified by the wastefulness that she witnessed – food was regularly thrown away, nothing was recycled and seasonal eating was unheard of. Geetie was determined to combine her passion for pubs and food, and set up The Duke as a business that could thrive without harming the environment, bringing delicious organic food to its customers, and educating them about organics, sustainable living and seasonal eating.

In 2009, she was awarded an MBE for ‘Services to the Organic Pub Trade’, and has also been named Business Woman of the Year, Asian Woman of Achievement and Entrepreneur of the Year. An active campaigner and environmentalist, Geetie firmly believes that businesses must act responsibly and be led by their ethics and values. Her newest venture, the Bull Organic Inn, in Totnes, is due to open in autumn 2019.

Kate Yedigaroff
Kate is a theatre producer with a specialism in developing new work. After graduating with a degree in theatre, film and television she co-founded a theatre company in Bristol and in Oxford and made work with them as a performer and devisor before her first job at Bristol Old Vic where Mayfest was born. Alongside supporting and developing the early incarnations of Mayfest, Kate was the inaugural Creative producer for Physical and Visual Theatre with Theatre Bristol and went on to work freelance as a producer with a number of independent artists.  Back at the Bristol Old Vic, Kate was employed as Programme Producer with a lead on the Studio. Latterly Kate was the founding producer of Bristol Ferment, the Old Vic’s Artist development programme – and then MAYK was made, and here we are.

Partner organisations

Bristol Old Vic FERMENT is the artist development department of Bristol Old Vic and is curated by Ben Atterbury. Ferment supports a huge community of theatre-makers from Bristol and the South West to develop exciting and adventurous new work. Within this ‘ferment’ it is our job to create a playful structure through which the best of these artists can explore their theatrical ideas in an on-going dialogue with audiences.

Coombe Farm Studios is a rural centre dedicated to growing creativity. For over thirty years it has been a place for making & showing work, for meaning-making and for learning supported by a beautiful environment, great food and people who actively enable the creative process.

Dance Umbrella is London’s international dance festival, celebrating 21st century choreography across the capital. Since 1978 it has reached audiences of over one million, and supports artists to present great work in interesting spaces. Our aim is to entice audiences, nurture artists, innovate practice and stimulate interest in the power of the body in motion.

Fuel aims to catalyse positive change in the world by producing new live performance by inspiring theatre makers for and with people across the UK and beyond. Fuel seeks to realise this vision by producing a programme of artistic work inspired by the ambition of the outstanding artists they support. Founded in 2004, Fuel works locally, nationally and internationally to develop, create and tour new performance to the widest possible audience.

In Between Time is an international producer creating extraordinary events and the IBT Festival. Respected as a global pioneer of contemporary culture, IBT work across art forms to tell stories that inspire, awaken the imagination, or act as a catalyst for change.