Border Crossings
creates new intercultural, multi-media theatre in response to the contemporary globalised world.
The company works across the borders between cultures and art forms, and between nations and peoples. Since 1995, Border Crossings has collaborated with artists and companies from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Croatia, France, Germany, Ghana, Hungary, India, Ireland, Mauritius, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Sweden, the USA and Zimbabwe, as well as the diverse communities of the UK. Border Crossings productions have toured the UK, Brazil, China, Egypt, France, Hungary, India, Mauritius, Mexico, the Seychelles, Sweden and Zimbabwe.
"Borders may appear in many guises: psychological; racial; sexual; sociological; professional; as well as geographical. Paradoxically, the border may be at once what provides us with some security about our identity, demarcating ourselves from others, while also being the barrier that prevents us from developing new capacities or trying on new identities. Theatre processes, on the other hand, depend upon the willingness of the actor to cross borders not only to impersonate the dress, manner and speech of another but also to achieve, temporarily, the ultimate expression of border-crossing, empathy."
(Prof. Tim Prentki: "Introduction to Border Crossing" - in The Applied Theatre Reader. Routledge 2009)
Vision
Border Crossings will be a global leader in intercultural dialogue between artists and audiences, working through theatre to facilitate mutual understanding, positive development and peace.
Mission
In response to the contemporary globalised world, Border Crossings creates a theatrical and cultural space in which peoples come together as equals for creativity and dialogue.
Values
1. Equality
Border Crossings fosters and promotes intercultural dialogue and international exchange between artists on an equal basis. We recognise and value the contributions made by all the artists and staff involved in our work, and seek to reward those contributions fairly. We aim to make our work accessible to the widest range of audiences.
2. Difference
Border Crossings champions a community of diverse peoples, practices, and ideas. We foster a culture which embraces diversity, respect for the individual and the expression of talent, and engages a broad and varied international audience.
3. Collaboration
Border Crossings produces theatre that is communally created. We strive for a shared vision through dynamic communication, while celebrating the individual voice, the synthesis of competing priorities and the acknowledgement of all contributions.
4. Innovation
Border Crossings encourages and develops theatre that is culturally, socially and politically progressive and challenging. The company recognises the value of theatre as an attribute of democracy and intercultural dialogue, with the capacity to effect real transformations in people’s lives. We are open to new ideas, striving to be creative and innovative, neither bound by formality nor constrained by convention.
Patron: Peter Sellars
American theatre, opera and festival director Peter Sellars, has gained renown worldwide for his transformative interpretations of artistic masterpieces and collaborative projects with an extraordinary range of creative artists across three decades.
Peter's early work crossed genres and travelled in time with powerful contemporary versions of works by Shakespeare, Brecht, Gershwin, Mozart, Handel and Bach. Later, he collaborated with composer John Adams on operas including Nixon in China, Doctor Atomic and The Death of Klinghoffer. New operas by Kaija Saariaho and Amin Maalouf, Osvaldo Golijov and David Henry Hwang, and Tan Dun join new productions of works by Messiaen, Ligeti, Hindemith, Kurtág and Stravinsky.
Peter has directed many path-breaking, international festivals, and is a resident curator at the Telluride Film Festival and Professor of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA. He is the recipient of the 1998 Erasmus Prize for contributions to European culture and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2006 he was Artistic Director of New Crowned Hope, a month-long festival in Vienna for which he invited international artists from diverse cultural backgrounds to create new work in the fields of music, theater, dance, film, the visual arts, and architecture for the city of Vienna's Mozart Year celebrating the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth.
Artistic Director: Michael Walling
Michael Walling founded Border Crossings in 1995. He studied History at Oxford University, and subsequently trained at Trinity College, Dublin. He has directed numerous productions across four continents, winning awards for Two Gentlemen of Verona in the US and Paul & Virginie in Mauritius. He has directed the bulk of Border Crossings' productions, and is responsible for the overall direction of the company. Productions elsewhere include: Die Zauberflote (Spain), The Europeans (Unicorn), The Good Soul of Szechuan, Attempts on Her Life, Victory, Hard Times, The Art of Success, Macbeth (Mauritius), The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, The Tempest (India), Cosi fan Tutte, Romeo and Juliet (USA), The Great God Brown, Play with Cocaine, Beardsley, Spokesong, Sir Thomas More.
Michael also directs and teaches regularly at Rose Bruford College, where he is Visiting Professor in the Research Centre for Multicultural and Intercultural Performance, and at Central School of Speech and Drama. For Rose Bruford's Distance Learning courses, he has written Modules on The Social Stage, Shakespeare, The Designer, Elements of the Performance, Post-Colonial and Black Theatres and Ways of Talking about Theatre / Opera. His many publications include pieces in Suspect (Toronto, Alphabet City 2005) and Peripheral Centres / Central Peripheries (Saarbrucken, 2006). He is also a Governor of Russet House, a school for autistic children in Enfield.
Michael directed the ENO's acclaimed workshop productions of Wagner's Ring at the Coliseum and Barbican. He was Associate Director to Peter Sellars on Nixon in China, and to Phyllida Lloyd on The Handmaid's Tale (Canada). During summer 2008, he directed A Midsummer Night's Dream for Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, USA.
Click here for Michael Walling's blog.
General Manager: Sheelah Sloane
Sheelah has had an eclectic career in the theatre and music
world, starting out as a Tour Manager and Lighting Technician for a number of
well-established theatre companies such as Shared Experience, Citizens Theatre,
Glasgow and the Albany Empire. After completing a postgraduate diploma in Arts
Administration at the City University, she went on to become the General
Manager with a number of young people’s theatre companies, such as
Theatre-rites and Quicksilver and more recently with Islington Music Forum. She has also project managed a range of
young people’s theatre projects and site-specific productions, working with
professional theatre artists and participants from London’s culturally diverse
communities.
sheelah@bordercrossings.org.ukBoard of Directors
Emma Courtney -
Previously Head of Marketing, Audience Development and Research at ABL Cultural Consulting Emma established Courtney Consulting in 2007 with a specific focus on marketing, audience and organizational development for the creative and cultural industries. Before moving to London Emma was Head of Marketing at Northern Ireland’s only professional producing theatre, The Lyric, and before that worked for the world’s largest public relations agency, Weber Shandwick, where she was part of the award winning team that rebranded the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). She was recently listed on the Observer’s Courvoisier Future 500 as ‘one to watch’. Emma is a Chartered Marketer, an Accredited Cultural Leadership Coach and a Lead Advisor for the Cultural Leadership’s Meeting the Challenge Programme. Emma joined the board in 2009.Sarah Davis -
Sarah became a director of Border Crossings in 2009. She is Group Director of Commercial Legal Services at Guardian Media Group, publishers of The Guardian and The Observer and the award-winning website guardian.co.uk. Sarah was the newspaper industry representative to LDAP, the former government advisory panel on Legal Deposits. She has a strong commitment to the arts in all forms and is also a director of Poet in the City, a national charity dedicated to bringing live poetry events to new audiences. Sarah lives in London with her husband Harry, who is a pianist. Shelagh Prosser -
Shelagh is an established equality and diversity practitioner with 20 years experience of enabling organisations to make progress on this agenda. Prior to becoming an independent consultant, she held senior equality and diversity posts in the Civil Service, the BBC and the transport industry. As a consultant she has worked with public, private and third sector clients, delivering a range of solutions with passion and integrity. Shelagh has worked extensively on strategies and practical actions to embed equality and diversity into business development, employment practice and service delivery. Shelagh is currently Chair of the Westminster Equalities Partnership (a cross sector body), Chair of the charity ‘Women and Manual Trades’ and Vice Chair of the Institute of Equality and Diversity Practitioners. She is also a chartered member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Shelagh joined the board in 2008.Peter Scott - a founder member of Border Crossings, Peter has been a director and trustee since 1995. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant and a graduate of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Peter was formerly Finance Director of Birmingham Repertory Theatre, and now teaches drama.
Literary Advisor
Dr. Roshni Mooneeram - originally from Mauritius, Roshni is a specialist in post-colonial literature, and currently teaches Literature and Linguistics at the University of Nottingham's campus in Ningbo, China.