Meet Our Associate Artists Of 2020

We're delighted to be introducing the first of our associate artists of 2020 and our first ever artist in residence! Each year we select up to six artists across a variety of artistic disciplines and develop a bespoke package of support which might include training, mentoring, access to rehearsal space and at least one opportunity to present work in our main programme.

Our Live Programme Coordinator Naomi shares her thoughts on the trio of talent that are joining us over the coming months and years.

"We’re incredibly excited to welcome a new cohort of Associate Artists at Exeter Phoenix this year, including the addition of a new Artist in Residence scheme. We will be trialling this with Lucy over the next three years, so they can forge new links with key practitioners in our creative community and develop their creative practice in depth.

This longer term residency is also designed to aid Lucy in their development and growth of Documental Theatre Company, through providing peer support, mentoring and stability, whilst also providing plenty opportunity to workshop news ideas and showcase this to our audience members."

CHARICE BHARDWAJ | Associate Artist

Charice Bhardwaj is an emerging theatre maker, performer and poet based in Exeter. She graduated from the University of Exeter in Drama in 2019, where she discovered an appetite for smashing the daily with the anarchic, and devising work which is playfully political. Charice recently began her MA in Theatre Practice there and she is doing practice-led, interdisciplinary research into spirituality, South Asian performance traditions, physical theatre and comedy.

Charice has had the pleasure of collaborating with Quirk Theatre, Dreadnought South West, community arts group Cafe Theatre Company, and spoken-word platform Spork! which she regularly hosts.

Charice is committed to nurturing the arts in the South West, and she hopes to continue supporting under-represented communities there. She is thrilled to be supported by the Exeter Phoenix as Associate Artist and she looks forward to connecting with more artists in the city.

LUCY BELL | Artist In Residence

Lucy Bell is a Devon-based playwright and theatre maker. She is interested in using humour to dramatise the struggles of life’s caretakers, from parents in recovery (SCORE) and teenage dads (PULLING OUT) to special needs families (LAMINATED).

She co-founded Documental Theatre in 2014 and Lucy/Documental Theatre have won the Ronald Duncan Playwriting Award and Toast of Plymouth Fringe Award, touring work to prisons and universities as well as Battersea Arts Centre and the Southbank Centre.

Lucy is an alumna of Soho Theatre Writers Lab, an attached writer at Bristol Old Vic through the 2018/19 Open Session and has written and/or directed for Theatre West, Villages in Action, Part Exchange Co and Theatre Royal Plymouth. Documental Theatre will be supported by the Northcott Futures Producer Programme in 2020.

KAY CROOK | Associate Artist

/chhayacollective | @chhayacollective

Dance artist, Kay Crook, formed Chhaya Collective in 2013 as a platform for cross-cultural performance projects between South West England and Southern India. Chhaya creates and tours work in the UK and internationally, previously collaborating with artists in Germany, Portugal, North Cyprus and India. Chhaya’s biggest cross-continent collaborative project allowed thirty dance artists in Devon and Bangalore to create, teach and perform together through live streaming technology, in partnership with Shoonya (India) and Exeter Phoenix (UK).

Chhaya Collective's Chhaya Youth Dance Company was established in 2015 and supported by Dance in Devon and Exeter Phoenix. Chhaya Youth is a contemporary dance company for young dancers aged 13-21 years, with weekly training sessions at Exeter Phoenix, professional development opportunities, workshops and performances.

Find out more about our Associate Artist scheme here >>