Young Barbican Night: Noguchi

Jack O'Fall is a budding drag king mentored by two incredible drag performers, Lilly Snatchdragon and Mark Anthony. Jack O'Fall is part of Bitten Peach, the UK’s premiere Pan-Asian performance collective, and is thrilled to have the opportunity to perform and bring people some laughs at the expense of the ridiculous patriarchy!

"I wrote Softboi in a few days - performed it to my drag mum over zoom, and then at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. People seemed to like it quite a lot. I had fun."

Claudia Cumberbatch-Chedzoy works across multiple different formats using both live performance and film. Claudia uses art to understand and process relationships around them particularly, family members, using set and colour as key elements in work to achieve a liminal space that is familiar in some aspects but strange or absurd simultaneously, in order to mimic the irrationality of our political landscape. 

"My work usually begins with the body, recently I have been really interested in gestural language and how this can be translated into whole movement sequences, which is how parts of ‘How it is …’ was devised."

Eliza Cass is an emerging poet, comedian, theatre-maker, and soon-to-be dancer, that makes experimental, accessible, intimate solo work that celebrates sensuality and the liveness of performance. Eliza invites audiences to connect through big stretches between darkness and joy, and permission
to fail.

As an emerging artist, all Eliza's work is both a singular expression and part of finding and building her own craft through experimentation. At the moment, much of this work is focused on Eliza's desire to learn about movement and dance.

Frankie Thompson is a queer clown, as well as a performance and visual artist. Their work interrogates the fraught relationship between body and space.

Frankie produced a one-woman clown show Forbruker, which was a ‘one woman advert break’ parodying the ridiculousness of advertising past and present. Forbruker had two sold out runs at Camden People’s Theatre and Soho Theatre following an eight-day run at Edinburgh Fringe 2019 to critical acclaim.

Frankie's visual arts practice investigates scale and perspective. Before the pandemic Frankie built miniature sets out of rubbish and found objects, these were then animated live on stage in a multimedia show called, SPACE which had two sold out work-in-progresses at The Place Theatre and Camden People’s Theatre before undertaking an online performance during the lockdown in aid of BEAT: Eating Disorders, raising £777.

Frankie is also the founder and artistic director of The Wardrobe, a traveling performance and arts venue built inside a real-life wardrobe. The Wardrobe is designed to bring groundbreaking new work from exciting queer artists to audiences for whom arts spaces are inaccessible e.g old people and young people care homes. The company received ACE funding to develop three deliverable shows with the wardrobe. 

Martha Pailing is a northern born spoken word and performance artist with a background in theatre and live art. Her performances blend personal material with fictional characters to create absurd and tender narratives. MP’s work considers what it is to remain empathetic and soft in a brutal, emotionally temperamental world.

Martha talks about the tiny things that make up an hour, a week, our entire lives - forever. For it is the small and seemingly insignificant moments that often determine the fantastically huge events. In doing so, her work (sometimes) interrogates everyday actions, points fingers at supposed cultural norms and brushes shoulders with the political. Using bodies and spaces that are sharp, refined and decisive in their design / her content is often unruly, messy and generous.

Martha is a former artist in residence at the Roundhouse (London). Her past work includes commissions for The Royal Court, Essex Book Festival, METAL Southend and Penned In The Margins. She has performed across the UK including the Roundhouse, The Royal Court, LADA, People’s Palace, Curve Theatre and Bootleg Social. She has also performed in some dingy pubs and they were no less extraordinary.

Princess Bestman is an early career multi-disciplinary creative whose work is committed to highlighting the stories of underrepresented individuals, whilst ensuring that we are acknowledged and understood. Their creative process draws on a range of techniques and performance styles, such as spoken word, live art, film and movement; to create alternative performance languages and environments that invite the freedom of mind, body and soul.

Following their graduation from Rose Bruford College, Princess has collaborated with artists internationally, using a variety of theatrical and media forms to create platforms for underrepresented individuals. Their practice is highly collaborative, and they are continuously seeking to connect with individuals and communities that share their values. Princess's personal practice is centred around the creation of work from the lens of a queer, dark-skinned, Black, care experienced person. In doing so, they seek to delve into the complex factors that form an individual's identity, whilst creating alternative performance languages and ways of storytelling.