Aleksandra Nikolajev Jones
is Choreographer, Dancer, Director and Producer.
Aleksandra produced for theatre, television, and film. Working with new talents, mentoring, and coaching she is also working with international and local choreographers, directors, writers, filmmakers, dancers, and companies.
She is a founder and co-director of Wales International Documentary Festival and a member of the International Dance Council-CID recognised by UNESCO.
Aleksandra is working with professionals, communities, minorities and vulnerable groups to deliver projects that empowered through participative art.
Aleksandra is the author of the Women In Pregnancy, born out of a 2010. pilot project funded by the Arts Council of Wales. The piece offers a new way of looking at the effect pregnancy has on movement, gravity, and even a woman’s career and creativity.
Carrie Westwater
Carrie (also known as Caz) draws on twenty years experience as a site responsive performance artist, creative professional, writer and academic.
Carrie is a maker of theatre, film and creative site responsive storytelling, using multi-platform methods. Since moving to South Wales in 2013 to complete her PhD ( awarded, 2021) in arts
and heritage participation she has been working on various projects with a Cardiff companies.
Notwithstanding her work as co-director of The Gravida Collective she has been creative consultant for National Museum Wales (Museum Lates: SPACE), creative researcher for Creative Cardiff (Festival of Voice), a Clwstwr funded artist ( Heriatge Walkers) and co-curator/
producer and performer with tactileBosch (Garden of Earthly Delights, 2016; Lost Vegas Hotel 2017; Basement Borsht, 2018; Jubilee, 2018), and Magpies Immersive Events (Midsummer
Nights Dream, 2018; Hub Festival Cabaret Caravan, 2018).
Her work predominantly has a human rights participatory or interactive focus. She uses participatory approaches in how she positions the audience, facilitates community arts and
curates events that highlight matters around equality and diversity. At the beginning of her career she adapted Classic, Central and East European texts for performance in contemporary multicultural Britain.
Continuing in this manner she has directed several plays (in translation) and worked for the Scottish Refugee Council on a number of performance projects highlighting the experiences of
asylum seekers and refugees (Antigone in New York ( 2008), The Inquisitor ( 2009), The Umbilical Cord ( 2010) and A View from Here ( 2013). Her other intercultural work can be found in her being commissioned by University of Glasgow to create a performance based interactive training session based on Shaun Tan’s The Arrival that addressed power dynamics in translator settings and co-creating the CurioUS learning programme with Glasgow Museums.
Carrie graduated drama school in 2001 before completing an MA Honours in Comparative Literature and Slavonic Studies; an MLITT in Film Journalism and as discussed, a Doctorate
(PhD) in the practical application of arts and heritage participatory methods based in theatre for greater transparency and socially just co-creation/ curation.
She currently holds a lectureship at Cardiff University in the school of Journalism, Media and Culture. In this role, she leads on Creative and Cultural Industries modules at undergraduate and postgraduate level.
Jelena Vuksanovic
has worked as a writer, theatre practitioner and facilitator, artistic director, and screenwriter. She has an MA in dramaturgy, and with a classical education, she was always drawn to knowledge and practice about contemporary and experimental theatre, therefore she participated in various trainings, workshops and other activities of non-formal education connected with contemporary and applied educational theatre techniques. She has worked with POD Theatre for over 13 years and worked on various International projects that were supported by Youth in Action, UNICEF, Share See, Red Cross, local municipalities, ministries, embassies etc.
Since 2004. until 2018. Collaborated with The Republic of the Imagination, UK, developing innovative theatre forms and ways of expression, specifically the form of immersive theatre like Sensory Labyrinth and Sensory Portal. Besides numerous theatre performances, educational projects, in 2015. Her debut movie «Panama” premiered during the Cannes film festival. In 2018. she had a premiere of her first contemporary opera “In… Se… -dawning-” in Bali, composed by Andys Skordis. In the same team they created their second opera, “Light Blue Day”, a contemporary, experimental opera based on the story by Ferdinand von Schirach, as part of the Berlin Opernpreis, which premiered and won the competition in Berlin in June 2022.