Ma Haili worked with Border Crossings on the first of their three Chinese projects: DIS-ORIENTATIONS in 2006. She was involved in the initial development work, which was a student project at the Central School of Speech and Drama, where she collaborated with Michael Walling on the direction, and was cultural consultant, with a particular stress on the Yueju form, which she had practised in her native China. She then went on to play the role of Song in the professional production, performing alongside the great Yueju star Zhang Ruihong. In this interview, Haili describes how this "life-changing" project led to her current role as an academic researcher.
Anna Perdibon is an Italian scholar and educator who worked with Border Crossings on two projects generated during the Covid-19 pandemic: BOTANY BAY and TOTEM LATAMAT. Both of these projects engaged with Indigenous ideas around the relationship between human and non-human beings in relation to the natural and spiritual environment. Anna describes how BOTANY BAY came to mark a crossroads in her life, as she moved from an academic career to engaging more directly in environmental education. She tells stories from Indigenous American tradition (the Three Sisters) and from her own location in the mountains of Northern Italy, relating the projects she undertook with Border Crossings to her eco-cultural context there.
Stephanie Pratt is a Dakota Sioux art historian, who was brought up in California and now lives in Exeter, UK. Stephanie has been involved with Border Crossings' work since 2016, when she appeared in the company's first film, HIDDEN HISTORIES. She was one of three Native American women who created the REMEMBERING POCAHONTAS ceremony for ORIGINS 2017; offered critical input on the photographic project POCAHONTAS AND AFTER; and also participated in the project BOTANY BAY, dealing with plants, food and colonialism. In 2019, Stephanie was the Indigenous Associate for ORIGINS, speaking at the opening event and chairing a number of panels. The interview deals with Stephanie's Indigenous culture and background, her work with Border Crossings, and the challenges of being an Indigenous person in the UK.
İlke Şanlıer is an academic from Çukurova University in Adana, Turkey. The interview primarily deals with two projects on which she has collaborated with Border Crossings. The first was X-EUROPEAN, an Erasmus + project around Third Spaces, where she first encountered Border Crossings' devising methodologies. The second was a co-production between Border Crossings, Çukurova University and Meryem Women's Co-Operative in Adana: SUPPLIANTS OF SYRIA. In the interview, İlke discusses her transformative encounter with the company's work, and the way it intersected with her research in film and migration to create the play and film. The interview also touches on THE PROMISED LAND: İlke gave a talk for this project in Adana on the subject of refugees migrations in Turkey, which first introduced her to Border Crossings.
Claire Warrior is a curator at the National Maritime Museum, specialising in the Arctic and North American First Nations. Claire has worked closely with Border Crossings for many years, leanin her expertise for ORIGINS Festival panels and educational events, as well as being involved with the POCAHONTAS AND AFTER photographic project. She has also invited the Festival to present events at the Museum, for example when several new galleries were opened in 2018. in 2017, she co-operated with Border Crossings to invite Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq to undertake a residency at the Museum. This process led to an extraordinary performance of a live musical accompaniment to the film NANOOK OF THE NORTH, performed on the Museum's World Map; and to a permanent sound installation in the Arctic Gallery. In this interview, Claire discusses these projects as ways to activate museum collections, as well as exploring their importance in emphasising how history has created the present, and so understanding how power imbalances and cross-cultural tensions might be addressed.
