directing/devising
My beliefs of what being a theatremaker is comes from a foundation in understanding that everyone has a story to share, and the role of a director is someone who can hold the space for people to connect to those stories in ways that work for them, from conception to final showcase. In the rehearsal room I believe in equity, freedom, and the right of every person no matter their professional background to exist in the space. I am constantly taking inspiration from new developments in collaboration and conflict transformation to add skills to my director’s tool kit in order to facilitate this.
2024-Devising member of cross border collaborative experiment Prompts24 (Virtual)
2023- The Politics of Trauma (Generative Somatics) with Staci Haines (Virtual)
2021-Young Vic Springboard Director, supported by the Genesis Network London (UK)
2020- Theatre for Living: an intrduction with David Diamond Vancouver (Canada)
2019- Space and Identity with Trudi Mann, Utrecht (Netherlands)
performing li(m)es (2023)
A performer is confronted by a lime tree full of limes, slowly she picks one for each lie she was ever told. Until either there are no more limes, or the performer has run out of lies. Devised site specific performance.
Milk Coffee (2021)
Virtual performance inviting 4 different writers to develop and perform new work about being a womxn of colour in the UK through the representation of their identity as a hot beverage. Title comes from a Sinhalese term for mixed race “Kiri Kopi” or rather, “Milk Coffee”
Directing and Dramaturgy: Maya Ross Russell
Performers: Jida Akil, Pinky Latt, Ibu Jac, Octavia Nyombi
Solus (2021)
A multi-media movement piece reflecting upon the psyche in lockdown as we experience a cycle of emotional phases: confusion, grief, the stopping of time, and regrowth.
Design and Concept: Jida Akil Composition and Sound Design: Kristina Kapilin Choreography and Performance: Zac Irvin Directing and Dramaturgy: Maya Ross Russell
Phenomenal Woman (2019)
A contemporary dance theatre addressing themes of feminism and reclaiming power from the harmful impacts of the male gaze.
Design and Dramaturgy: Maya Ross Russell Choreography: Leya Matulessy Gullström Performaners: Fernanda Marquez, Artemis Contino, Amy Brown,
and Hannah Le Coyte
OUT! (2019)
A multi-media devised show set in 1980s East Berlin, using the visual framing structure of a lift posing as a psychological space that revolves around the protagonist’s dying moments after his murder. The audience is forced to piece together the non-linear narrative through a combination of nightmares and memories. Exploring themes of betrayal and surveillance, the nature–and inevitable struggle–of relationships is examined through the lens of a queer closeted protagonist surrounded by homophobia.
Writter: Ryan Yapp
Directors: Maya Ross Russell, Mallika Joy, Aggie Jurochnik,
Choreographer: Gabriella Engdahl
Set design: Jida Akil
Lighting, Sound, AV Design: Layla Bradbeer
Costume Design: Inigo Townsend, Isis Hurley-Jones, Jean Ocidio
Wigs, Hair, Makeup: Sol Harding
Props: Yanyi Li, Hanqing Mao Circular (2019)
An interactive, immersive response of two people as they explore the futures of sustainability and the circular economy. Part of the “Alternative Futures Symposium” Selected as a “Critical Student Performance” Devised and Performed with Giulia Vitiello
PQ Waltz 2019: Team London
“We wear white to so that our journey shows on our clothes, we perform on our way so that we can share our journey with whomever we meet, we will be thankful for the hospitality we receive.” -Team London manifesto
Our slow travel team comprised of 3 (Maya Ross Russell, Sharo Liang, Aggie Jurochnik) people each clad in white overalls and white t-shirts taking boats, hitchhiking, sitting on coaches, trains, and walking 5 hours over the Germany/Czechia border. Along the way we performed at each location over our 7 day journey from London to Prague.
Done in collaboration with the Dutch students exhibit at the 2019 Prague Quadrennial, PQ Waltz was a performance consisting of more than 80 international students who became either “welcomers” and slow traveling “hikers”. The “hikers” have to embrace the unknown and the unfamiliar to their life as they bring their artistic experiences to Nádraží Bubny, a former train station in Prague where, during World War II, tens of thousands of Nazi regime victims were deported.
The PQ Waltz 2019 project inhabits this historically loaded giving a space which said such painful goodbyes to so many people a different meaning, one of welcoming and celebration of diversity.
Polyphony and Exhaustion (2018)
Polyphony and Exhaustion is a physical representation of the text “The Iliad or the Poem of Force”, (1939, Simone Weil), written as a response from the battlefield to the polarization of belligerent attitudes of governments and people. Performed in the Tate Modern
Concept and Voiceover: Lucia Rios Gonzáles
Devising and Performance Team: Lucia Rios Gonzáles, Giulia Vitiello,
Maya Ross Russell, Lucia Rios Gonzáles, Aggie Jurochnik
Photos: Sharo Liang
So You Want To Be A Refugee (2017)
An immersive, game show style, political theatre performance examining the refugee crises and refugees are dehumanised within social media, the news, and within government policy. Performed at the Roundhouse as part of their young artists program.
Dramaturgical Mentor: Kat Joyce (Tangled Feet)
Devising team: Marte Pezzatini, Susy Brett, Maya Ross Russell, William De Ritter, Buddleia Maslen, Ellie Warr,
Ella Ingham Roy, Shenine Rajakarunanayake, Beatrice Morris, Jessica Devereaux