Elevate East and Rich Mix are supporting four local artists to try, play, fail and test work and ideas that have been brewing.
Join us to see the experiments emerge within an eclectic scratch night and have the opportunity to provide anonymous feedback to extend and develop their practices and performances further.
Artists taking part
Alice Cockayne
Alice Cockayne creates idiotic, unhinged and chaotic characters through clowning and physical comedy. She likes to play with the contrast of mundane situations and as she puts it “ridiculously strange characters”. Her work is inspired by the weird and the wacky. Taking inspiration from real life people and her life growing up in a working class northern town.
For Stuck in the Lift she would like to explore the idea of belonging and narrative within her work.
Harry Drane
Harry Drane is an actor and drag artist based in London, having performed in and out of drag at different venues such as Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, Soho Theatre. Harry has also produced ‘Noah’s Ark’ in association with Boundless Theatre. Noah’s Ark is a cabaret show for young emerging artists to create work in response to the climate crisis. Harry’s work is rooted in telling LGBTQ+ stories and bringing them to the forefront of his work, as he feels there are many unwritten stories from our communities past, present and future.
As part of the Stuck in the Lift program he’s intends to develop his drag further, especially in relation to climate change. “I want to utilise interviews from climate justice activists, footage from protests to tell the story of the climate crisis movement. Utilising my background in theatre I want to find that intersection where drag and theatre can meet. Specifically, I want to begin to explore the use of projections within my drag work, and how multimedia forms can enhance a drag experience, and how far we can push the boundaries of drag on a sensory level”.
Ieva Stakaite
Ieva Stakaite is a textile artist exploring ideas of identity, politics and how work can be generated through audience response. Ieva says “from my first interest in making garments and manipulating cloth, my practice grew to encompass the current socio-political climate and an individual’s place in it”. Currently she is interested in the materialization of the abstract and how we might rethink our relation to objects and consumerism through an anti-capitalist lense.
For the Stuck in the Lift scratch night she is preparing a drag king performance that is inspired by her experience in craft and building, named Paint Stripper. Ieva says “I hope to translate some of the ideas from my visual practice into performance, but mostly, I am planning to embrace the drag format, which comes from play and fun”.
BULLYACHE
Tylor Deyn is a British/Caribbean queer working-class musician, filmmaker, choreographer and one half of the dance and music project BULLYACHE. Together they have been supported by Britten Pears, The Genesis Foundation, ACE 2021, Hackney showrooms and recipient of New Voices Composer Sound and Music 2021.
Tylor trained at Rambert School, is represented by Box Artist Management and as a choreographer and dancer has worked across fashion, film, TV, and theatre internationally. Collaborating with Tirzah, Dazed, Westwood, Film and Video Umbrella, Holly Blakey BBC, South London Gallery, Southbank Centre and Jeremy Deller. He was an artist in residence at Palm Heights, Cayman Islands, in 2021 and chaired the 2022 Fair Access Assembly for Jerwood Arts. They were also Associate Artists of Clod Ensemble.
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