The ARTISTS
:zoviet*france:
Ben Ponton and Mark Warren are originally from Newcastle, where Ponton still lives while Warren has escaped the city to a shepherd’s cottage in north Northumberland. They work together as composers, musicians and sound artists as the music group, :zoviet*france:, which, over its 39-year history, has acquired an international reputation for genre-defying innovative music.
Iona Lane
Iona is a folk musician/songwriter fascinated by folklore and undiscovered folktales from rural parts of the UK; where natural environment, sustainability, community and landscape are integral to people’s way of life. Recently graduating from Leeds Conservatoire, Iona is about to record her first album in the Spring of 2021.
Dan Fox
Dan Fox is a multi-media artist, musician and installation creator based in the Lake District.
He grew up on-the-road with the seminal Welfare State International and spent five years touring with site-specific absurdist theatre company Dogtroep based in Amsterdam. In 2008 he formed Sound Intervention Ltd which works UK-wide creating sound and light installations at festivals and events.
Jose Snook & Dean Dennis
Dean Dennis is an electronic music composer and producer & performer
whose career spans over 30 years in independent music production.
Jose Snook is an artist whose arts practice is rooted in photography who also
works with text, spoken word and sound-art and electronic music production.
Based in North Northumberland they collaborate to create music and sound works.
Olivia Furber & Ramzi Maqdisi
Olivia Furber is a theatre director and writer working across theatre and installation; indoors, outdoors and in places you weren’t expecting to find her. She is co-artistic director of ivo theatre. They create a heterogeneous mix of theatre, live art & VR.
Originating from Palestine, Ramzi Maqdisi is an actor, director and film maker. He is co-artistic director of Quds Art, a collective of artists from Europe and the Middle East covering multiple disciplines including film, theatre and installation.
Ellen Moran
Ellen Moran is a poet, spoken word artist and facilitator. Moran works in communities delivering poetry and spoken word performances on topics such as feminist protest, the housing crisis and community change. She took the Great Northern Slam title for spoken word in 2018 and was a semi-finalist at the Hammer and Tongue UK Grand Finals in 2019.
Emma Newrick
Emma Newrick grew up in Cumbria within the heart of the Debatable Lands. Following her MA in Theatre at Northumbria University, she has worked as a writer since 2005. Her roles have included working as a ghostwriter, magazine journalist and creative writing teacher. She is currently writing a trilogy of novels inspired by the region’s rich mythology.
Bridie Jackson & Jude Irwin
Touring for many years as Bridie Jackson And The Arbour, Bridie is now based in Newcastle. She has written for Theatre, Opera and Film, and has a passion for socially engaged projects, which has led to her working collaboratively with many North East based arts organisations.
Jude is a Northumberland-based writer/designer, communicator and artist who has worked on many cross-generational community engagement projects. She has written a series of walking books for children, reading materials for people with dementia, and many other pieces for local groups and charities.
Lindsay Hannon & David Silk
Lindsay Hannon is a musician, composer, performer and workshop facilitator with some 18 years’ experience in the field. Originally from Coquetdale, her formative singing experiences were in the folk sessions at Rothbury and Morpeth. She has toured extensively playing jazz clubs and festivals across the UK and Europe. She now lives on the Stanegate in Newbrough.
David Silk is a Newcastle born storyteller, writer and historian who works across the North of England. He is the co-author of the History Press book Tyne and Wear Folk Tales for Children, and has a passion for collecting and retelling stories of local folklore and history.