I am a theatre-maker, a poet and a lover of difference. I have a doctorate in post-colonial feminism and performing arts. I have performed in Berlin, UK and Malaysia. I prefer to write and make, than perform.

This project, From The Jungle, began as my PhD project – or truth be told, it began before that, in small performances and pieces of writing, which became part of my thesis. For four years as a PhD student I explored notions of home and belonging and ideas around identity through academic literature and practice-based research. I looked at how performance practices can migrate and how the women who perform these practices, migrate. And then, what happens to the identity of those practices and of those women – how does identity migrate and develop. I focused on the Iban women’s performance practice and migrant women performers.

The PhD was a partly practice-based project that culminated in a written thesis and a full-length show that ran in London for a week.

And now this project is growning…
The next stage involves realising a book from the poetry written through out the research period. It will be an interactive, e-book – a coffee table book for your tablet. It will be a collaboration between myself and a graphic designer, a photographer and a film maker.

And me…
My mother is a New Zealander, and my father is Iban. The Iban are an indigenous tribe of Borneo. Until I was 6 years old I lived in Kuching, Sarawak, then I moved to Auckland, NZ. At 20 I moved to London to study performing arts and here I have stayed. I am now a proud British citizen. 

In 2007 I founded the arts collective behind the bikeshed, am an associate artist of Saltpeter. I enjoy exploring stories about lives and journeys and am interested in the relationships, between performers and audience and space

Lastly… bear with me as I build this new site.

*images are of performer Vera Chok and myself, by Katherine Leedale.