Come and join the #BrufordCommunity and join us for our Upcoming Theatre and Social Change Open Talks series at Lewisham College and Rose Bruford.
The next talks we have are:
Wed, 17 November 2021
- Le Gateau Chocolat
Le Gateau Chocolat’s work spans drag, cabaret, opera, musical theatre, children’s theatre and live art. As a technically-gifted and celebrated baritone, Le Gateau Chocolat has been invited to perform at prestigious venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, Barbican Centre, Sydney Opera House, and as part of the Olivier-award-winning La Clique/La Soiree.
His production ICONS has toured to Sydney Festival, Wales Millennium Centre, Soho Theatre, Underbelly Southbank and more. ICONS has also been presented with accompaniment from the Little Coco Orchestra, a Le Gateau Chocolat initiative to support diverse musicians through the creation of an ensemble formed entirely of women of colour.
His children’s show Duckie, which introduces young people to the ideas of otherness, tolerance and self-acceptance, premiered at the Southbank Centre in 2016 and has toured globally. He has worked with composers Julian Philips, Jonathan Dove, Jocelyn Pook and Orlando Gough. He has performed as Feste in Emma Rice’s Twelfth Night at Shakespeare’s Globe (2017), in the Gate Theatre and English National Opera co-production Effigies of Wickedness – Songs banned by the Nazis (2018), and at The Old Vic in Bagdad Cafe (2021).
Le Gateau Chocolat recently appeared in Wagner’s Tannhauser, starring Stephen Gould, which opened the 108th Bayreuth Festival in 2019 and attracted headlines around the world for the reaction to his participation as a drag artist of colour.
Wed, 8 December 2021
- Stella Kanu
A fierce Londoner with a proud Black British Nigerian identity, Stella Kanu has workedin the theatre sector for over 20 years shaping ideas, communities, events, people, and organisations for great shifts. She is currently Executive Director at LIFT (London International Festival of Theatre) leading the strategic strands of the business and executive producing of the biennial festival.
She sits on several strategic and governing bodies including London Mayor appointee to ArtsCouncil England London Area Council. She founded The Pivotal Place, a coaching practice for cultural and creative leaders, in 2005 and has likely coached and mentored over 700 individuals and people in groups/teams in that time. She is a sought-after panellist, speaker, and writer, having contributed to events on TV, radio, in publications and online on topics such as inspirational leadership, Inclusion, women and power and the future of theatre. She created the concept for Black Womxn in Theatre and is the Founder and co-curator of BWinTevents, the #WeAreVisible & #AllOfUs movements and the iconic intergenerational photoshoot of over 250 Black Womxn in Theatre at The Globe in 2019. During the global pandemic, she co-created #HereToStay – a programme of support ethnically diverse cultural workers who have lost their jobs.
Stella is also an honorary Fellow of Rose Bruford.
Previous talks include:
Wed, 13 October 2021
- Travis Alabanza – an award-winning writer, performer and theatre-maker. Their writing has appeared in the BBC, Guardian, Vice, Gal-Dem and previously had a fortnightly column in the metro. After being the youngest recipient of the artist in residency program at Tate Galleries, Alabanza debut show Burgerz toured internationally to sold out shows in Southbank Centre, Sao Paulo Brazil, HAU Berlin & won the Edinburgh Fringe Total Theatre award in 2019. Their writing has appeared in numerous anthologies including Black and Gay In the UK. In 2020 their recent theatre show Overflow debuted at the Bush Theatre to widespread acclaim and later streamed online in over 22 countries. For their work in LGBT+ conversation, they have been listed in the dazed100 as well as the ForbesUnder30 list.
Wed, 20 October 2021
- Ben Smoke – a journalist and activist from London. Rowdy from a young age, he became involved in activism through the student fees movement. In 2015, he helped found Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants before taking part in a blockade of a deportation charter flight at Stansted airport in March 2017 along with fourteen other people. The action saw the group charged and convicted of terror-related offences, before narrowly avoiding prison in February 2019. As a journalist, Ben is the Politics Editor at Huck Magazine and has written for The Guardian, The Independent, Vice and Dazed. He regularly appears on LBC and other radio and broadcast platforms commentating on current affairs and politics. Ben is writing his first book about the Stansted 15 trial.
Wed, 3 November 2021
- Joon Lynn Goh – working across art and culture, migrant movements and community economies, I am interested in how we can creatively shift from extractive to regenerative ways of living. In organising, I am inspired by communities of colour and diaspora as protagonists of social change; experiment-orientated art practices that create the conditions for collective research and rehearsal; and community economies that enrich rather than extract from our relationships.I embrace the work of organising as science-fiction; work that enables us to shape the future. I organise to build community infrastructure including skills, networks and assets that enable communities to self-determine and resource their futures. I am the founding organiser of Migrants in Culture, a network of migrant culture workers organising towards open border futures. Since 2018 we have produced a national survey and report on the Impact of the Hostile Environment on the Culture Sector, hosted Migrants Make Culture: An Activation Day for migrant organisers, and advocated for a Culture Sector Recovery for migrants. With Annie Kwan, I am co-founder of Asia Art Activism, a network of South East/East Asian diasporic artists, educators and organisers in the UK.