SoloSirens Symposium, 13th October 2022

Ann is a Limerick performer, playwright, director, podcaster and musician. She works freelance and collaboratively with organisations such as Gúna Nua Theatre Company, Narrative 4, Ormston House, as well as institutions such as Mary I and UL. Her podcasts include Three Things That Matter, Ann and Steve Talk Stuff and The Limerick Lady.  In 2023 she will be directing a new work, No Woman Is An Island by Róisín Stack, as part of Dublin Theatre Festival. In 2017 she wrote and performed in The Morning After The Life Before, an autobiographical play with Gúna Nua Theatre which has since become an internationally acclaimed, multi-award winning success that has toured Ireland, The UK, Canada and New York.

  Ruby is a recent graduate of TU Dublin's BA in Drama Performance. She has worked as a performer, facilitator, assistant stage manager and stage manager. Performer: As If By Chance (Tallaght Community Arts, 2022), Unwrapped (Tallaght Community Arts & South Dublin County Council, 2021), A Museum for Gulliver (Tallaght Community Arts, 2021). As assistant Stage Manager: Oliver Cromwell Is Really Very Sorry (Xnthony Ltd., 2022), Hive City Legacy: Dublin Chapter (Hot Brown Honey, 2022), Romeo and Juliet (Moving Stories, 2019), Brontë (Illustrated Productions, 2017), A Winter's Tale (Moving Stories, 2016). Stage Manager: Sióg: Away with the Fairies (Freshly Ground Theatre, 2022) Facilitator: Growing a Future (Tallaght Community Arts, 2022)

   Pauline is the Choral Director of Kingswood Community and Youth Choir. She facilitates Health and Wellbeing singing workshops to the corporate, private and community sectors where her aim is to introduce people to the many health benefits of singing. Pauline has worked on numerous projects with Tallaght Community Arts, including their annual “Unwrapped” winter festival and ‘As If By Chance’. Pauline has been a member of SoloSIRENs Collective since 2019. 

  Across Farah Elle’s childhood, music was a sanctuary. It gave her a vocabulary to process various life happenings from the impact of her incredible family history in Libya to universal experiences intrinsic with becoming a fearless young woman in modern society. Farah graduated from BIMM Institute Dublin in 2016. Farah has played numerous prestigious venues and festivals in Ireland including Vicar Street, The Sugar Club, Electric Picnic, and All Together Now. In November 2021, Farah collaborated with renowned Irish folk musician Liam Ó Maonlaí for a performance commissioned specially for the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards. Farah also dedicates time to humanitarian aid work and working with young people from ethnic minorities on creative expression through music.

 Sarah FitzGibbon is an applied drama practitioner, participatory theatre maker and drama in education specialist for nearly 30 years. She lectures at T.U. Dublin Conservatoire and on the Early Childhood Education BA for The School of Social Science and Law. Her practice focuses on drama and theatre in non-traditional theatre spaces with often under-represented audiences. Her current work includes Small Wonders with Púca Puppets which is an inclusive piece for babies and young children with complex needs and ASD. As a socially engaged practitioner, she is part of Critical Friends who are artists in residence in Create 2022/2023 and she was part of the team on Echo's Bones, a Fingal County Council Commission by Sarah Browne   

    Helen was born and bred in Derry. She studied psychology followed by education for contemporary society and she has worked most of her life within the ‘third’ sector in community education, peacebuilding and social activism. She managed a peace centre in Derry for many years and ran a global education programme with a small international NGO. She currently works freelance, facilitating and delivering training on human rights, resilience, trauma education, social action and critical literacy. She is also a part time commissioner with the NI human rights commission. 

   Courtney Helen Grile is a theatre artist and scholar. She will graduate in December with her PhD in Drama from Trinity College Dublin. Her current research looks at the intersection of applied drama and democracy, with a focus on deliberative democratic practices. She holds a BFA in Media & Performing Arts from the Savannah College of Art & Design, an MFA in Theatre (emphasis in Theatre for Young Audiences) from the University of Central Florida. She has worked in the United States and Ireland as an administrator, adjunct instructor, teaching artist, performer, facilitator, and director. Her passion is for using applied drama and theatre techniques to work in community settings. 

   Martha Knight is a director, composer and sound designer, interested in incorporating music and sound practices into visually bold and ambitious theatre. Her recent directing credits include Supermoon (2022 Centre Culturel Irlandais Romilly Walton Masters Award recipient), and as lead artist on ongoing work The King of All Birds, initially developed as part of the Pan Pan International Mentorship. She is a core artist with Tallaght-based collectives Freshly Ground Theatre and SoloSIRENs.

 Ashley (she/her) is a Zimbabwean - Irish Journalist, Writer, Radio Producer and Activist. One of the Co-Founders of The GALPAL Collective, Ashley was also named as one of The Irish Independent’s 22 Activists to watch in 2022 and is featured in The WOW Foundations Young Leaders Directory 2022 as part of the International Day of the Girl. As a collective “GALPAL” is dedicated to the celebration and creation of art by young migrants, women, people of colour, ethnic minorities and queer folk. Ashley has worked for organisations such as Tallaght Community Arts, Eurobug International and The Irish Museum of Modern Art   

     Jenny Macdonald is a theatremaker and facilitator. In 2019, she created SoloSIRENs to amplify women's voices onstage and beyond. Recent work with SoloSIRENs includes as director, "Cessair" Civic, Tallaght, co-production with Tallaght Community Arts, "Dear Ireland III" (Abbey Theatre), and "Falling" (SoloSIRENs Festival and Abbey 5 x 5); as writer/performer, "Enthroned" (First Fortnight Festival and Irish tour, 2022); and as facilitator, Irish Hospice Foundation's Compassionate Culture Network, and Liz Roche Company's "Creative Audiences". In 2020, she curated the first SoloSIRENs Symposium. She is an Associate Artist with Tallaght Community Arts, a mentor to emerging artists, and a tutor on New York University's Masters programme in community-engaged drama 

Pamela is program creator & dramaturg for the diversity playwriting project The Baptiste Project with Black Irish theatre makers in Smock Alley Theatre 2020-2022. As co-chair of Dramaturgs Network Ireland, she runs Dramaturgy Now, a dramaturgy mentorship program partnered with Irish Theatre Institute and Smock Alley Theatre. This program is funded with a Theatre Resources grant from the Arts Council of Ireland. Pamela is creator & dramaturg of the Mavens Programme at Mill Theatre Dundrum for female playwrights. Pamela was New Play Dramaturg at The New Theatre; Temple Bar 2017-2020 She holds an M.Litt. in Dramaturgy & Playwriting from the University of Glasgow.   

  Ali is originally from Argentina and has been living in Dublin since 2011. Building supporting bonds has been part of Ali’s life abroad from the beginning and since 2018 she is founder and part of a large Hispanic feminist collective in Dublin. Ali has been an active participant in the SoloSIRENs journey since the 2019 festival. Ali is an early childhood educator committed to nurturing creative pedagogy for all small beings!

    Tatiana is a Socially Engaged Artist and Cultural Mediator. Since 2018, Tatiana has facilitated talking circles and dance activities to encourage equity and integration -- having worked with the Immigrant Council of Ireland, Dublin Council, CDETB, Irish Theatre Institute and Theatre Forum. She performed in the Hot Brown Honey production of Hive City Legacy Dublin at Dublin Fringe Festival this year, and works at Mother Tongues researching and developing activities focused on Equity and Diversity. Tatiana is also a dance facilitator at Tallaght Community Arts, aiming to build trust and self-esteem through arts.

  Sarah Jane Scaife, Artistic Director of Company SJ, Assistant Professor Trinity College Dublin, researches and directs the work of Samuel Beckett both nationally and internationally. She has conducted two main research projects: Beckett in Asia (2002-2006) where she directed and researched with actors in Georgia, Mongolia, India, Singapore, Malaysia, China and Greece; Beckett in the City (2009-2016) which set out to place side-by-side the socio-historic wounds of Ireland’s past with the current social tensions within the city itself, utilising the writing of Samuel Beckett in interaction with the social and architectural spaces of Dublin. She has worked with women from many different ethnic and social backgrounds using the texts of Beckett’s plays as a point of communication and departure, her production Beckett in the City: The Women Speak was inspired from this work. 

     Sorcha is a theatre practitioner from Derry with a passion for using drama as a tool for social change. Having trained as an actor at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama she has toured in shows all over the UK and Ireland, the US, Belgium and Germany. A professional clown and stilt walker, Sorcha is currently studying for a masters in Trauma Studies from UCC. Along with her friend Gemma Walker Farren she is also part of MakeyUppers, a comedy storytelling duo who create sketches, shows and facilitate projects on social issues they are passionate about.

  Jennifer is a producer/facilitator and the producer of SoloSIRENs. She is the coordinator of Creative Places MacUíllíam and  Associate Artist with Tallaght Community Arts. She conceived and directs ACT UP! Festival of theatre directed/performed by young people. Her work as producer/coordinator includes Creative Places MacUíllíam, Cessair, SoloSIRENs Festival, Dear Ireland III, Where in this World, The Great Rope of Tallaght, Gaza Monologues, Aeridheacht -Taking the Air, and Creative Campus. For the Arts Council, she produced Shukuma Mzansi, a visit of South African participatory theatremakers to Ireland in 2018. In 2019, she was a delegate on Voices of Culture: Gender Equality with the European Commission. She set up Carousel Theatre School in 2010 and continues to direct and teach on the programme. She facilitates and produces Doors to Elsewhere, a theatre ensemble for adults with a disability.

           As a theatre maker, performer and dance and drama facilitator, Nicola's artistic practice is informed by the power of connection and serving the truth of the moment through play, words and movement. She has written, directed and choreographed over 50 plays and musicals that have been produced for youth theatre, drama groups and secondary schools across Ireland. The founding Artistic Director of Creatrix Theatre, she wrote and performed her recent work in progress 'Breaking Deep' in the Scene and Heard Festival 2022. Previous work includes performing in 'One Night Stand' commissioned by Vodafone Galway Comedy Festival.