The Artists

Gaia Silvan is a Multidisciplinary Artist, from Kintyre, now based in Glasgow. She is a recent graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Contemporary Performance Practice. As a black-mixed race, neurodiverse, queer woman/person and coming from a rural upbringings, she has always been drawn to exploring the intricacies of her/our identities. What makes us human, and draws us together? Her work has a strong sense of physicality and storytelling and is led by intuition. Combining dance, performance, paintings, and music inspired by the universe around and within, she creates work that explores her relationship to intersectionality. She likes to make work which pours from the soul and  sparks joy.

During their residency they developed their performance titled ‘What Now?’. This project was an exploration of the mental health issues they faced after graduating and a dive into the liminal space. What do we do when one stage ‘ends’ and another ‘begins’?... Depression, Anxiety, anticipation, processing and healing. Processing the past, present and future. Who are they now? What have they been? What will they become? These are all questions that continue to arise on this strange and magical ever-unfolding and never-ending journey…

Salma Faraji  is a dance teacher, lecturer and artist. Originally from Tanzania, Salma has performed, taught and shared joy alongside inspiring choreographers and communities worldwide. Combining movement through British Sign Language, the distinct choreography articulates her story.

“I continue to find narrative in my practice, with a firm belief that shared experiences inspire me as a Teacher and Performer. With the exceptional support and advice from The Workroom and Project X to research, develop and create further work, in honouring Rosina’s incredible legacy, I celebrate the vast experience from my mentor’s past and present.  I am thrilled for the opportunity to explore the links between different Dance forms, exploring languages within culture, collaborating with Artists, dramaturgs, musicians, directors and producers.

This [Rosina Bonsu] bursary offers a fundamental journey to allow the conversation about equality, diversity and inclusion to be further acknowledged, informing  my work. My wider practice is a response to my personal development: Am I too Old, too different, too vulnerable, too honest? ”

Marios Ento-Engkolo is a Glasgow-based dance artist, who is interested in storytelling and emotional expression through movement. Marios is half Greek and Half Cameroonian and he was born and raised in Athens, Greece. His journey with movement started in 2017 and has become the primary medium of expression, connection and release ever since. Marios has worked with many artists and dance-forms ranging from Street Dance, such as Hip-Hop, Afrobeats and Dancehall, to Contemporary and Experimental movement.

During his residency, Marios continued the research and development of his autobiographical work ‘Dualism’. The term ‘dualism’ has a variety of uses in the history of thought, however, mainly is the idea that there are two fundamental polarities in most conditions.  For example, good and evil or soft and hard, are equal forces in the world, which are dependent on each other, even though most of the time they are perceived as conflicted. The project explores this conflict through the lens of my life as a mixed-race, queer man, brought up in his home country, Greece.