Across Seas - Toi Whakaari to Tehran

Creating a background for cultural exchanges between Iranian and foreign theatre groups forms the basis of the festival. We will be soaking up as much as we can, reviewing some of the shows, working hard and meeting many talented performers and practitioners. Our aim is to bring back this wealth of experience to New Zealand. 

And you can help. Any donation, large or small get's us one step closer. By donating you will qualify for a 33% tax credit and be strengthening New Zealand's performing talent in the process. Kia Ora to that! The $3500 we hope to raise will cover 60% of our travel costs. We are working hard to cover everything else ourselves.

As part of being offered such an exciting opportunity we will be documenting the experience through blog posts, poetry, illustrations, photographs, videos, basically any medium appropriate to capture our experiences/inspirations. We hope this will allow other artists or companies to get a little peek of the skill, forms, and stories that are alive in Tehran.

This opportunity arose from the friendship that has grown between Ella and Nazanin Mehr (dancer, actor artist working with Tazeh Theatre Group at the time) since their first meeting in Singapore during The 8th Asia Pacific Bureau Theatre Schools Conference. We're excited by the prospect of one day being able to return the invitation to Ashkan and Nazanin so that we can extend the performance we produce to audiences in New Zealand.

Who are we?

Ella Gilbert is an actor entering her 3rd year of training at Toi Whakaari New Zealand Drama School and is also a former member of Wellington's Long Cloud Youth Theatre. In her first year of training Ella developed her solo piece 'Gaggle' which she had the opportunity to stage at The 8th Asia Pacific Bureau Theatre Schools Conference in Singapore in June 2015. Through her work she has an interest in exploring the effects of social cultural restrictions on the body in performance through physicality and choreographic score.

Poppy Serano is a design graduate (November 2014) of Toi Whakaari New Zealand Drama School. She has worked alongside companies Barbarian Productions, Red Leap Theatre, Two Productions and Muscle Mouth. Poppy first met Ella while designing for Long Clouth Youth Theatre's production of Charles Mee's 'The Bacchae' in 2013. Like Ella, Poppy has an interest in exploring social conventions but through the lens of design such as the treatment of space, choreographic scoring and materiality.