Transform Announces Collaborations For Next Wave Of 21-22 Festival

Transform, Leeds' international performance festival has tonight announced at the festival's launch event at the Tetley, the next wave of projects and artists for Transform 21-22, a reimagined festival for our times.

Amy Letman, Creative Director of Transform says: 'Experimenting with pace, duration and new models of collaboration and co-creation, Transform 21-22 is an experiment to imagine what an international festival might look like and feel like in the future. We are now thrilled to announce the next phase of bold and vivid programming as part of Transform 21-22. Created through a transatlantic remote collaboration, The Ofrenda by The Grief Series and Zion Studio will be an extraordinary, ever-evolving and cathartic installation that will underpin the duration of Transform 21-22 and invite people across the city to share their memories and stories. At the same time, we are introducing six collaborators from across the UK, Brazil and USA who will kickstart new projects and undertake hyper-local residencies as part of the festival, some of which will culminate this Spring, and others in our future festival Transform 23. We are also introducing a new strand 'the collective', further opening up the festival to the voices of 16-21's who will commission and co-curate elements of Transform 21-22. Transform 21-22 is an opportunity to think differently about what a festival can be in the future, and we are now thrilled to be opening up that invitation to communities and artists across the city and the globe to be part of the adventure.'

Spanning six months, from October 21 through to April 22 Transform will explore what an international festival can look like and represent now and in the future. Responding to the last 18 months, Transform 21-22 is an invitation to artists and communities to join in forging an extended festival that is more embedded, more sustainable and care-led.

Launching on 18 November and running through until 19 March, artist Ellie Harrison from Leeds based company The Grief Series will collaborate with Mexico's Zion Studio to create The Ofrenda - a vast ever-evolving public artwork that will underpin Transform's extended festival and form a reflective and commemorative gift to the city. Built in celebration of Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), Ofrendas (Spanish for 'offerings') are constructed in remembrance of friends, family and people of significance who have been lost. Often brightly coloured and ranging in scale, these offerings take the form of displays with treasured photographs, flowers, candles, food and significant objects. Encompassing the breadth of the exterior of CLAY: Centre for Live Art Yorkshire The Ofrenda will form an extraordinary collection of memories and photographs from around the world commemorating and celebrating lost loved ones. The Ofrenda will be unveiled on Thursday 18 November at which point people from across Leeds and beyond will be invited to share a photo or memory immortalising their own loved ones within this cathartic and poignant installation.

Transform 21-22 will continue to build momentum throughout Winter 21 and into Spring 22, with a series of collaborations with extraordinary collaborators from the UK, Brazil and the USA. From international and embedded residencies working with local communities on hyper-local projects, to transatlantic exchanges and the creation of bold, uncompromising productions, Transform will join forces with exceptional local, national and International Artists to conjure up a different kind of festival over the next six months. These collaborations will bring audiences and communities into the creation of new works, some of which will culminate in productions in Spring 22, and others which will be later realised as part of Transform 23 (planned for October 2023).

The artists include:

Jamal Gerald (Idol Transform 19) a Leeds based artist who aims to take up space as a Black queer person with work that is conversational, unapologetic and provocative. Moving away from presenting autobiographical shows, Jamal will challenge himself by exploring ideas that don't rely heavily on his own stories. Exploring the traditional dance of Montserrat through a queer lens, he will evolve a new production Jumbie, creating an experience that is part ritual, part party, part sex dungeon.

Lowri Eans and Martha Kiss Perrone (coleticA's When It Breaks It Burns Transform 19) return to Leeds in 2022 to work with older women based in the city and ask: what can you teach us? Summoning the power and experience of old age, Lowri and Martha will place these voices at the heart of a brand-new narrative. Lowri and Martha's work is known for its collision of artforms, curiosity and fearlessness, which starts with the body and culminates in text, movement, image and collective experience.

In 2022 multi-award winning writer and performer Rachel Mars will come to Leeds to develop Forgery. Over three days, out of 60 kilos of mild steel, audiences will be invited to watch Rachel create an exact replica of the Dachau gates - the 'welcome' gate stolen from the Dachau concentration camp in 2014, which was remade and reinstalled by a local blacksmith. Part of a larger-scale body of work called Forge, Forgery will engage people across Leeds in a conversation examining how objects become contaminated by history, and how we can balance living with a traumatic past with a responsibility to the present.

US based choreographer and performer jumatatu m. poe's work strives to engage in and further dialogues with Black queer communities, creating lovingly agitating performance work that recognises History as only one option for the contextualisation of the present. Within the framework of Transform 21-22, jumatatu will undertake a residency in Leeds, exploring and considering landscape, the environment and indigenous dance practises and connecting with the city's various ecologies.

Bradford based multidisciplinary artist and performer Lua Bairstow will embark upon a residency supported by Transform and Bradford Producing Hub to develop their practise and evolve The Sound Grief Project. Lua will collaborate with a composer, turntablists and a harpist to create an intimate, liminal sound world which will punctuate Transform 21-22 with deep listening parties and moments for reflection and contemplation.

Sable Radio, an online radio station and creative media platform made in Leeds and enjoyed worldwide, will collaborate with Transform to develop a programme of parties for the festival, with a focus centreing on themes of alternative club culture, intimacy, collective action, collaboration, ritual and healing. Working with artists at the intersection of performance and club culture that challenge traditional club spaces, Sable will shape a vibrant and inclusive live club space for Transform 21-22.

As part of Transform's commitment to nurturing bold new performance and reimagining what a festival can look like and do, over the coming years Transform will invite young people across the Leeds City Region to collaborate and co-create. Ensuring decision-making power shifts in relation to what Transform festivals look like and represent, elements of the Transform festivals will be curated and commissioned by 16-21 year-olds. To kick-start this exciting venture, six young curators will be collaborating with Transform over the coming months to shape aspects of Transform 21-22. Collaborating with artists from across the world and the Transform team, these curators will vision and shape adventurous new projects engaging other young people across the city.

Further details of these upcoming collaborations will be announced in the coming months alongside new UK and World Premieres to complete the Transform 21-22 programme.

Transform is trialling a 'Pay What You Can' ticket model that invites audiences to select the pricing level that best applies to them. Ticket options will range from £2-£25 with the aim of allowing more people to access festival events whatever their circumstances.

As part of the Transform 21-22 process, Transform and collaborators will document the development of projects and collaborations as part of a new 'Thinking' section of the website. Forming an evolving anthology, contributions will be collated on culmination of the extended festival as part of a limited edition print anthology.

The festival opens this weekend, on 23 October, with the World Premiere of Quarantine's 12 Last Songs at Leeds Playhouse.

Transform 21-22 is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, and supported by Leeds 2023. Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. Produced in partnership with Leeds Playhouse.

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