Exciting news! We’re delighted to unveil our 2024 Associate Artists Programme, generously supported by The Arts Council and in collaboration with Project Arts Centre and Galway International Arts Festival.Now in its third year, our programme extends invitations to artists currently engaged in some of our projects, as well as those invited to explore fresh ideas through our initiative. This vibrant cohort of talented artists will receive support to develop their own concepts while also participating in a dynamic year-long dialogue with each other and THISISPOPBABY. Together, they’ll serve as a cultural think tank, challenging norms and redefining perspectives on art, theatre, and the evolving urban landscape.
Our Associate Artists are: Alessandra Azeviche, Brian Teeling, Conner Habib, Jade O’Connor, John King, Kate Finegan, Maeve O’Mahony, Oonagh Murphy, Shane O’Reilly, and Wayne Jordan. This year’s programme will be led and facilitated by former Associate Artist Una Mullally.
At THISISPOPBABY, we’re dedicated to showcasing world-class theatre from Ireland’s most innovative artists. Recent highlights include award winning productions like WAKE, and Mark O’Halloran’s Conversations After Sex as well as Panti Bliss’ If These Wigs Could Talk and Party Scene which recently returned from Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
In addition to our own productions, we have a rich tradition of commissioning and presenting new works by emerging and established artists. Notable platforms include our recent Club Salty, Queer Notions Festival, POPTENT at Electric Picnic, Where We Live Festival, and the performance art club, WERK. Throughout the years, we’ve proudly supported the creative endeavours of artists such as Sarah Greene, Kate Stanley Brennan, Clare Dunne, Rosaleen McDonagh, MALAPROP Theatre, Emmett Kirwan, Tara Flynn, Cian Kinsella, Tonie Walsh and FeliSpeaks.
As leaders in the arts, we’re committed to nurturing talent and shaping the theatrical landscape in Ireland through initiatives like our Associate Artists Programme. Together, we’ll continue to create opportunities and platforms to elevate fellow artists and enrich our vibrant arts community.
- Alessandra Azeviche
Alessandra Azeviche is an Afro-Brazilian dancer, Capoeira performer & instructor from Salvador, Bahia – home to the largest African diaspora population & Afro-Brazilian culture. Her practice is rooted in body movement to promote connections and cultural education.
Since moving to Ireland in 2015 she has established herself as an ambassador of Afro-Brazilian culture, working with choreographers Catherine Young, John Scott & more as well as Dublin City Council, Axis Ballymun, Carlow Arts, Dublin Fringe Festivals & Brazilian Embassy, and is a board member of Dublin Dance Festival.
Leading her dance groups Quilombo Terra (the first Afro-Brazilian Arts performance group in Ireland) & Natural Rhythm, Alessandra has performed at major festivals sharing rhythms & dances that developed from her roots that echo the resilience & beauty of indigenous communities. Alessandra is working increasingly in contemporary arts performance dealing with themes of de-colonisation & intersectionality.
www.alessandradancer.com
- Brian Teeling
Brian Teeling (b. Dublin, 1987) is an Irish multidisciplinary artist living and working in Dublin. He has no fine art qualifications and is entirely self-taught. His practice collides distillations of photography with aspects of the innately personal to create sombre poetic works that reflect on romance, melancholy, and masculinity. His work explores themes of queer working-class dynamics, psychogeography, cosmology, automotive psychology, and portraiture.
Recent work includes Portrait Lab, a group exhibition at The Model, Sligo; c-space, installation at The Dean Art Studios; and forthcoming work including publication Busáras, and a commissioned body of work, Building As Witness, for The Crawford Gallery, Cork (2024). Recipient of Arts Council Visual Arts Bursary (2020, 2021, 2023), shortlisted for Zurich Portrait Prize (2022) and a studio residency with IMMA at The Dean Art Studios (2021-23) and Fire Station Artist Studios (2023-24), and also selected as an Associate Artist with ThisIsPopBaby (2024).
- Conner Habib
Conner Habib is the author of Hawk Mountain, which was longlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award, and was named a Best Of book by The Irish Times, Audible,The Guardian, and more. His podcast, Against Everyone with Conner Habib is in its seventh year, and is one of the most popular and respected conversation-style podcasts in the world. For two years, he worked with the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI), offering his course Ulysses for the Rest of Us, which walked audiences worldwide chapter by chapter, through James Joyce’s novel. He also gives lectures on occultism, esoteric Christianity and the Western esoteric tradition worldwide.
- Jade O’Connor
Jade is an actor, singer, multidisciplinary performer & theatre maker. After graduating on a scholarship from Millennium Performing Arts, London she began working & collaborating with various directors, artists, musicians and theatre companies both nationally & Internationally. Most notably she is a long time collaborator with Catherine Young Dance Company – Shows include: Floating On A Dead Sea, State Of Exception & Welcoming The Stranger. The company is touring in Autumn. jadeoconnor.org Jade is delighted to be a recipient of the Next Generation Award 23’. And a commissions awardee for her new work DANCEHALL. She was also selected for the 2023 Next Stage Programme. Jade is one half of the award winning multidisciplinary company FemmeBizarre. Their work includes: CAGED ( Dublin Fringe 17’ & National Tour), Mrs. Cellophane (Theatre Machine Turns You On at Project Arts Centre) & HAUS of FASH HUN (Dublin Fringe 23’). The company received The Romilly Masters Award and took up residency at CCI in Paris in Jan 24’. As an actor & performer she has played roles in Harry Wild starring Jane Seymour, Joyride with Olivia Coleman and Netflix Show – Vikings: Valhalla. Other shows include: Privilege The Musical by Louise White, Woman Undone with Mary Coughlan – by Broken Talkers Theatre Company, Oklahoma Directed by Nikki Woollaston at Riverside TV Studios, London – Role: Laurey, On The Town Directed by Nikki Woollaston at Hampstead Town Hall London – Role: Brunhilde Esterhazy, Bombshells by Joanna Murray Smith Directed by West End Star Annette McLaughlin – Role: Mary O’Donnell. As a music artist she performs under the name JADE O.
- John King
John is a director and theatre-maker based in Dublin. With theatre collective Murmuration, he has made the headphone shows One Moment Now (Dublin, Washington D.C.,Philadelphia), You’re Still Here (Dublin Fringe commission, co-presented by the Abbey), Will I See You There (Dublin Fringe), and Summertime (Dublin Fringe, Drogheda Arts Festival, Abbey Young Curators’ Festival). Other directing work includes Emergency, The Cyclone Kid (Bewley’s) and The Overcoat (Omnibus Theatre, London). Works as playwright include side-walks, Somewhere in the Future Dark (Solas Nua) and ERIS (Bunker Theatre, London). He has worked as assistant director on Audrey or Sorrow, The Quare Fellow (Abbey Theatre), Faust, Maria Stuarda (Irish National Opera) Conversations After Sex (THISISPOPBABY), The Children, Queen of Basel, Kings and If I Forget (Studio Theatre, Washington D.C.). John is a Resident Director at the Abbey Theatre.
- Kate Finegan
Kate Finegan is an actor, aerialist, theatre maker and playwright. Kate’s debut play GAMMY will premiere this year in Project Arts Centre, Cairde Arts Festival and Galway Theatre Festival. GAMMY will be directed by Laura Sheeran and has received dramaturgical support from Wayne Jordan. Theatre work Kate has created with Jade O’Connor (as Femme Bizarre) include HAUS OF FASH HUN directed by Eoghan Carrick and CAGED dir. by Jenny Jennings. Kate is an accomplished aerialist and specialises in aerial hoop and aerial silks. Kate has performed aerial dance internationally and with companies/festivals such as Fidget Feet, Fíbín sa Taibhearc, Beyond The Pale Festival & Brigit’s Day Festival. As an actor, Kate’s screen credits include feature films JOYRIDE opposite Olivia Coleman and TARRAC, Cine 4 2023. Kate has co-created the short film VENOUS RETURNS (with Alison Lowry, Jess Kavanagh & Laura Sheeran), commissioned by The National Museum. The short film premiered at Belfast International Arts Festival 2023 and is currently doing the international short film festival circuit. Kate has just completed a month residency in Centre Culturel Irlandais Paris where she has begun writing her next play, DOLLY.
- Maeve O’Mahony
Maeve is a theatre-maker, performer, and a founding member of MALAPROP, an award winning theatre company based in Dublin. She recently performed in Club Salty, a THISISPOPBABY Cabaret. Stage credits include HOTHOUSE, Where Sat the Lovers, Before You Say Anything, LOVE+, Everything Not Saved, Jericho (MALAPROP), The Boy Who Never Was (Brokentalkers), An Octoroon (Abbey Theatre), White Rabbit Red Rabbit (Dublin Theatre Festival), All Honey (Project Arts Centre), Outlying Islands, Ethica (Sugarglass), Sounds of Wood on Muscle, The Aeneid, Conor: at the end of the Universe (Collapsing Horse), Boys & Girls (59E59, New York). Screen credits include the RTÉ Storyland production of Everything Not Saved, Ripper Street and Rebecca’s Boyfriend. Voice credits include BBC Radio’s Faith, Hope and Glory, and narration for the RTÉ series One Day. She was a participant of the Pan Pan International Mentorship Programme (2019/2020) and holds a BA in Drama & Theatre Studies from Trinity College Dublin
- Oonagh Murphy
Oonagh is a director and producer working at the intersection of art and social change. Having trained as a director at the Donmar Warehouse, she has made critically-acclaimed work for Battersea Arts Centre, The Gate Dublin, Druid, Lyric Belfast, Soho Theatre, and the Abbey. Her creative life has brought her into collaboration with refugees, young adults with experience of the care system, former sex workers and survivors of torture and trafficking. In 2015,she co-founded Change of Address, a three-year arts integration programme for individuals seeking asylum in Ireland, which included the foundation of an LGBT support group, for which she won the inaugural Jo Cox Award for Young Female Changemaker in 2017. She recently oversaw the launch of the London Ticket Bank, a cultural variation on a food bank in response to the cost-of-living crisis. She is currently developing Future Stories, a new project creating access points into the cultural industry for under-represented communities, collaborating with a group of prisoners to create a new musical work, and curating a conversation series with other artists about their co-creative change-making practice.
- Shane O’Reilly
Shane is an actor and a writer and is currently a resident artist at The Dean Arts Studio in Dublin. Shane has made a lot of work about and with the Deaf Community in Ireland which is inspired by his growing up as a proud CODA (Child of Deaf Adults).
His recent theatre writing work includes: Gold in the Water (Project Arts Centre, Mermaid Arts Centre); Swansong (Barnstorm Theatre Company); Windowpane (The Abbey Theatre – Dear Ireland); The Water Boys (Equinox Theatre); Näher… closer, nearer, sooner (Liz Roche Company); FOLLOW, FARM and CARE (co-created with WillFredd Theatre) and The Matador (Fringe: Show in a Bag).
Shane’s film writing and directing includes: The Water Boys (KCat), PAL (Culture Night 2020); Näher (co-created with Liz Roche and directed by Alan Gilsenan). Shane has worked as a dramaturg in both dance and theatre with Aisling Byrne (Run of the Mill), Jean Butler (What We Hold), Liz Roche (Dēmos, Here Trio), Emma Martin (Birdboy), Emma O’Kane (Jockey) and Paul Curley (Bake!) among others.
As an actor Shane has performed with The Abbey Theatre, The Gate Theatre, Rough Magic, Landmark, Barnstorm and Prime Cut along with other Irish and international companies in productions such as: Peter Pan, Gatsby, Hamlet, An Ideal Husband, Private Lives (Gate Theatre), The Dead, Oedipus, Me Michael, Seven Jewish Children, One Good Turn, Richard II, 14 Voices from the Bloodied Field (Abbey Theatre), Madhouse (Una McKevitt & PJ Gallagher), Woyzeck in Winter (Landmark Productions), Signatories (Verdant Productions), Conquest of Happiness (Prime Cut/East West Productions), Override (White Label), Jack, Song From The Sea, Murder Of Crows, Boy with a Suitcase (Barnstorm Theatre Company).
- Wayne Jordan
Wayne Jordan is a theatre artist and writer. He has worked as a director in many of Ireland’s Major theatres including creating new plays, new versions of old plays, devised projects dance and music theatre. He has also worked as a performer and deviser in Ireland and in the Czech Republic (where he studied at an experimental puppet school for a few years). He has written his own original plays and adaptations of classic drama that have been performed in The Abbey, The Gate, Project Arts Centre And The Ark. He works frequently as a dramaturg on text and non-text based or dance projects and has worked as teacher and speaker in universities and institutions at home and internationally. For THISISPOPBABY Wayne has developed and directed Alice In Funderland (2012, Abbey theatre) Elevator (Project Arts Centre, Dublin Fringe Festival2012), both written by Phillip McMahon, and he was commissioned to create Leaving (a devised autobiographical performance for Where We Live 2.0). Other Recent work includes Somewhere Out There You By Nancy Harris in Dublin Theatre Festival 2024, Root, devised with Shanna MayBreen and Luke Casserly, Dublin Theatre Festival 2022 and dramaturgy on Yes and Yes By Liz Roche (Project Arts Centre, New York Arts Centre2023, Dublin Dance festival 2024). He is currently preparing to work with Veronica Coburn on the project Nest at Draíocht, Blanchardstown and is developing projects with environmental artist Shanna May Breen and choreographer Emma Martin of United Fall.
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