Founding
Team

Naomi Russell

Founder + Partner

Naomi is a creative producer and strategic advisor who has worked with many of the most influential performing arts institutions and artists in Europe.
LinkedIn Instagram

Catarina Saraiva

Founding Partner (Lisbon)

Catarina is an international curator, producer and researcher, former co-director of Alkantara in Lisbon and Artistic Director of Panorama Festival in Rio de Janeiro.
LinkedIn Instagram

GLOBAL
FACULTY

espaco agora now is artist led and co-designed with our community.

Artists who take a leadership role and form our global artist faculty are:

 

GUSTAVO CIRÍACO

Brazilian performing and contextual artist. He started his career in Political Sciences and then drifted to dance-making and convivial works. He works internationally in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East on projects, artistic collaborations and workshops.

Artist’s Website

OLGA UZIKAEVA

Dancer, actress and choreographer based in Belgrade, whose practice explores the interaction between sound, image and movement using principles of instant composition and improvisation tools. She collaborates with Serbian and international visual artists, musicians, dancers, and directors in Hungary, Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, UK, France, Senegal.

Instagram

MARIA MAGDALENA KOZLOWSKA

Director, singer and performer. She studied philosophy in Warsaw and graduated from DAS Theatre in Amsterdam. Her work explores the connective and revolutionary potential of the human voice and she makes pieces and interventions that bridge the gap between the individual and society, tradition and transition, past, present and future.

Artist’s Website

LEBOGANG MASHIFANE

Also known as Lebo Diverse, is a multidisciplinary creative practitioner based in Cape Town with a zest of pure energy and vibrations. Their focus is inclusivity and access to creative spaces and resources by sharing knowledge and opportunities to creatives in their community/country.

LinkedIn

Alfredo Martins

Theatre maker who seeks to have his artistic work based on his own identity: male, queer, white, Portuguese, middle class, with all the privileges and discrimination that this entails. He is co-founder of Teatro Meia Volta, and has worked as performer and co-creator with several artists such as Vera Mantero, Stefan Kaegi/Rimini Protokoll, Catarina Miranda and Benedetto Sicca.

Artist’s Website

Trish Okenwa

German Nigerian choreographer who danced with Rambert for 12 years and first choreographed for the company in 2016. She is a founding member of New Movement Collective focused on interdisciplinary.

Artist’s Website

Karen Reilly

Singer, visual artist, exhibition designer and co-founder of KlangHaus. The KlangHaus approach blends moving image, light, live music, sound design and staging in iconic buildings creating an intimate, visceral and moving journey in unsung spaces to small audiences.

LinkedIn

Melina Seldes

Choreographer, performer, director, producer and teacher based in Buenos Aires who has been creating in the field of performing arts and culture for more than 20 years and worked in many renowned theaters and institutions in Europe and Latin America.

Artist’s Website

Quito Tembe

Artistic director of the Maputo based performing arts organization Kinani, running creative residencies as well as the biennial of international performing arts, KINANI Festival. He is currently associate curator of the Tanzmesse 2024.

LinkedIn

 

During 2021 and 2022 Patrick Dickie and Margarida Colaço were founding team members. We’re hugely grateful to them for their contribution in the early stages of establishing the project.

If Every Rock is a Hole

2022
Amparo Gonzalez Sola
Photography by Lucila Guichon

Our
Board

Sevdalina Rukanova

(Treasurer)

Sevdalina is Foundations Relations Manager at the World Resources Institute, and has worked in the field of philanthropy for more than 25 years.

LinkedIn

Irene van Affelen

(Secretary)

Irene is a lawyer and Head of Risk Management and Legal at the Dutch Charity Lotteries (Nationale Goede Doelen Loterijen).

LinkedIn

Godelieve van Heteren

Godelieve is an international consultant in health & social systems transformations, policy and governance and works at the interface of social practice, academia and politics contributing to building new formats and improving social conditions.

LinkedIn