International Delegates
As part of HOLD ON LET GO this year, we are hosting an International Delegation who will be attending all performances and gatherings throughout the festival. We’ll also be setting up some additional activities and moments to connect with this incredible group of arts leaders — reach out to holdonletgo@theatrereplacement.org for more information.
Funded by the Canada Council for the Arts.
Mathew Austin
Co-Director
MAYK / Mayfest
Bristol, UK
mayk.org.uk
Matthew Austin is Co-Director of MAYK – a producing organisation based in Bristol, UK. MAYK’s flagship project is Mayfest, a biennial festival of international performance that takes place in sites and venues across Bristol every other spring. MAYK also work long-term as producers with a range of artists to develop new ideas and move them through creation, production and touring. Matthew is Chair of Bristol DIY Arts Network, an informal gathering of arts organisations and freelancers across Bristol who meet regularly to address issues and organise to make change in the cultural sector. Through MAYK, Matthew was also most recently part of a consortium of organisations delivering Horizon – a showcase of performance made to help artists internationalise their practice and build long-term relationships with presenters around the world.
Matthew also has extensive experience of audience development and marketing for live performance, and was previously a tutor a residential course for early-career arts marketers to build their skills in campaign delivery. He has previously sat on the boards of Fierce Festival, Camden People’s Theatre and Bristol Festivals.
Brad Krumholz
Executive Artistic Director
North American Cultural Laboratory
Highland Lake NY, USA
nacl.org
Dr. Brad Krumholz is Executive Artistic Director and Co-Founder of North American Cultural Laboratory, an artist-run, member-supported, nonprofit residency center dedicated to research and development in the performing arts. Brad has created and directed 10 original NACL works, and co-directed 10 seasons of the Catskill Festival of New Theatre. His recent publications include Why Do Actors Train? Embodiment for Theatre Makers and Thinkers (Methuen Drama, 2023), "The Problem of Movement Theatre" in Movement for Actors (Second Edition: Allworth Press, 2017) and “Locating the Ensemble: NACL Theatre and the Ethics of Collaboration” in Encountering Ensemble (Methuen Drama, 2013). He is currently co-writing an essay with Data Scientist, Niki Athanasiadou for Performance Research about Artificial Intelligence, Breath, and Acting.
Ragnheiður Skúladóttir
Artistic Director & CEO
Festspillene i Nord-Norge
Harstad, Norway
festspillnn.no
Ragnheiður Skúladóttir was born and raised in Reykjavík. She finished her BA in theatre and multimedia at the University of Iowa in 1991 and her MFA at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis in 1996. Following her studies she moved to New York City where she lived and worked for four years. In 2000, following a 13 year stint in the U.S, she moved back to Reykjavík after being offered the position of Dean of Department of Theatre and Dance at then newly founded Iceland Academy of the Arts. Ragnheiður worked at the Academy until 2011, initiating new programs in contemporary performance practices and contemporary dance. In 2008 she co-founded the LÓKAL International Theatre Festival, an annual event that presents new local and international work in the field of theatre and performance. She was artistic director of the Akureyri City Theatre from 2012 to 2015 and manager of Iceland Dance Company 2016-2019. Ragnheiður is the Artistic Director and CEO of Festspillene i Nord-Norge since 2019.
Ragnheiður has years of experience as teacher and mentor (at IAA, University of Syracuse, Academy for Scenekunst in Fredrikstad, MAKE Ireland). She has also worked with various artists/groups as a producer and served as a critical friend (Kviss búmm bang, Dance for Me, Room 408, Shalala, Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir)
Raydun Bolk
Assistant Programmer
Noorderzon Festival of Performing Arts
Groningen, Netherlands
noorderzon.nl
Raydun Bolk is a programmer based in Groningen, in the north of the Netherlands. She worked for various cultural institutions and festivals in different roles, such as Arcadia in Leeuwarden and SPRING Performing Arts Festival in Utrecht. At the moment, she co-curates the main program of Noorderzon: a cutting-edge performing arts festival with a globally rich program as well as a large-scale summer fest for more than 135,000 visitors. Besides her programming work, she works independently to set up and manage the artistic lines of Grand4: a performing arts programme working with new technologies at the Grand Theatre in Groningen, with year-round programming and residencies that support new makers with keen digital minds.
Dolina Wehipeihana
Festival Co-Director
Aotearoa New Zealand
Festival of the Arts
Wellington, New Zealand
festival.nz
Dolina Wehipeihana is a distinguished producer, arts manager, choreographer and performer who was recently appointed as Festival Co-Director of the Aotearoa NewZealand Festival of the Arts alongside Tama Waipara. Her impressive career spans roles including Head of Programming at Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki | Auckland Arts Festival and General Manager of Kia Mau Festival. A Co-Director of Betsy & Mana Productions advancing Indigenous storytelling, she serves as Kaiārahi Māori | Director, Māori for PANNZ (Performing Arts Network New Zealand) and is Board Co-chair of Atamira Dance Company, which she helped establish in 2000. Dolina is of Ngāti Tukorehe and Ngāti Raukawa descent and her outstanding leadership and contribution to ngā toi Māori was recognized with the 2021 Te Waka Toi award Ngā Tohu Hautūtanga Auaha Toi | Making a Difference Award.
Dolina brings her wealth of experience to the biennial Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts, which has been creating extraordinary encounters between artists and audiences since 1986, presenting both international and New Zealand performances across multiple art forms in our capital city Wellington | Te Upoko o te Ika a Māui. Each Festival combines international and New Zealand performance across classical and contemporary music, theatre, dance, interdisciplinary arts, literature and visual arts.
Francisco Frazão
Artistic Director
Teatro do Bairro Alto
Lisbon, Portugal
teatrodobairroalto.pt
Francisco Frazão is artistic director of Teatro do Bairro Alto, a recent city theatre in Lisbon devoted to experimental, emerging and international work. TBA has so far presented pieces by Tim Crouch, Tania El Khoury, Alessandro Sciarroni, nora chipaumire, Jacob Wren, Lucy McCormick, Rimini Protokoll, Brokentalkers, Sh!t Theatre, or Faye Driscoll, while also co-producing a host of local artists. From 2004 to 2017 Francisco was theatre programmer at arts centre Culturgest. He has worked as dramaturg (namely for theatre company Artistas Unidos) and translated works by Beckett, Pinter, Howard Barker, Tim Crouch, Annie Baker, Ant Hampton and Tim Etchells, Dennis Kelly, Zinnie Harris, and Lola Arias. He has also written and taught classes and seminars on theatre, film and literature.
Jin Yim
Director
Project Dari
Creative Producers’ Collective
Seoul, South Korea
projectdari.art
Jin Yim is a creative producer, dramaturg and researcher based in South Korea. She has worked on a wide range of art projects including performance, theatre, and multi-disciplinary arts in various types of forms and spaces. Her main interests are in the arts in public spaces.
Since 2010, Jin has produced, programmed, and facilitated the performing arts festivals and arts in public spaces. Her main task was on bringing communal experiences into the artwork for wider audience engagements. She has worked with several arts markets as a producer, director including Street Arts Market and Performing Arts Market in Seoul in the last few years, mainly focusing on international projects with collaboration and creative exchanges between artists from different cultural backgrounds.
Developing and mediating the creative process for arts productions, she also works as a dramaturg. Her recent work <Bird Eye> pitched in 2023 was a sonic performance on the top of the trees, while bringing a view seen in the far distance. She works with Physical Theater Company Momggol and I-Moment as a creative producer, also in charge of project-based productions with Visual Theater Company CCOT and Contemporary Dance Company White Cube Project as an affiliate producer. Currently Jin is an associate director of Suwon Theatre Festival & Gwangju Fringe Festival, a planning team of Asian Producers’ Platform, and a Global Fellowship Recipient of ISPA 2023/24. In 2019, she established the collective company Project DARI with fellow creative producers. Dari means ‘Bridge’ in Korean, which stands for connectivity of/through arts.
Juliet Knapp
Co-Director
Kyoto Experiment
Kyoto, Japan
kyoto-ex.jp
Juliet Knapp is currently co-director of Kyoto Experiment alongside Yoko Kawasaki and Yuya Tsukahara. She graduated Oxford University with a BA in English Literature and Language. After interning and volunteering for Kyoto Art Centre and Shizuoka Performing Arts Centre she later became Communications Manager and Project Manager for Music and Performance at Ryoji Ikeda Studio. Following this, from 2017-2019 she was part of the PR team at Kyoto Experiment and assisted the director in the programming of the festival. She also has experience in editing as well as translation and interpretation related to the performing arts.