Here are our 6 Lead Artists and Assistant Facilitators guiding the Yard Young Artists program for 2024. Germma, Mais, Pavlos, Princess, Abi, and Dan are all professional artists working with young people aged 9-21 in our local community.

Our Lead Artists and Facilitators work with young people from East London to explore the possibilities of theatre through free workshops that prioritise playful experimentation and partnerships with professional artists. We call this programme Yard Young Artists.

Germma Orleans-Thompson (she/her) is a London-based theatremaker and facilitator.

Germma enjoys exploring themes the young people are interested in and creating fun and exciting work. She loves the unpredictability of young people: going from talking about climate change to suddenly laughing about a young person's top tips on making money (have a million friends and get them all to give you a pound).

Mais Robinson (they/them) is a theatremaker and facilitator.

Mais has been excited to work on theatre skills with young people, finding ways to support their creativity and ideas while forging solid acting skills and creating theatre pieces that exhibit their interests and abilities.

They love working with young people as they learn so much from their playfulness. Mais especially loves finding ways to facilitate their increased autonomy in the room and learning about them as individuals to ensure their voices are heard.

Pavlos Christodoulou (he/him) makes live art and interactive performances, creating intimate encounters between audience members through sound and performance.

Pav has been bringing the young artists' stories to life this year. Lily has been talking about aliens with flat heads. Elianna has brought up a girl (in real life) who was a child YouTube star, and together, they've been getting these ideas into the room and bouncing them around!

Pav's favourite thing about working with young people is their creativity as artists. They're able to bring to life whole worlds, and they often are less concerned with reproducing theatrical conventions so we can invent new processes and stories.

Princess Bestman (they/she) is a multidisciplinary practitioner, a performer-maker, facilitator, and access assistant.

Princess has been exploring how to tell a story and combining all the skills the young artists have learned throughout the year.

Their favourite thing about young artists is their imagination and ability to think beyond boundaries.

Abi Falase (they/them) is a writer and director whose work is rooted in creating productions that are what Abi calls "Feel Good Social Realism". This year, Abi has been most excited to explore our current political landscape through the lens of young people.

Abi's favourite thing about working with young people is the endless possibilities of what we can make. The bigger the cast, the better. There are so many varying thoughts and opinions in the room.

Dan de la Motte (he/him) is a performer and creative practitioner, specialising in queer heritage pieces and working with/for younger people.

So far, Dan and the young artists have been exploring what it means to be 'political' outside of Westminster-based ideas of politics. How can we create networks and communities and (rightfully) take up space in conventional and unconventional ways to shout and share ideas about what we want to see in the world, both locally and globally? How can performance (in whatever form or style) be a platform for this?

Dan's favourite thing about working with younger people is that they are not jaded by years of butting up against the system! This gives them fresh perspectives; they are not prepared to accept the status quo just because others say to do so, and they are generous with sharing this different way of seeing, making, doing, and acting with those around them. There is hope, joy, and optimism within this, which is energising and nurturing.