A space to explore our relationship to tradition through moving, discussion and devising.
This workshop is for BPOC/Global majority artists working with performance.
After a brilliant first gathering in Oct, join us for Part II of Re-making/Breaking Traditions! exploring how rituals of cultural tradition can/not be translated into rituals of performance.
There will be movement discussion and devising facilitated by Annie Pui Ling Lok.
This series of Collabs has been conceived by Artistic Director of New Earth Theatre Ailin Conant and SDS’ Co-artistic director Annie Pui Ling Lok taking as a starting point shared questions around:
- what traditions/rituals sit with me and seep into my practice?
- what can power and agency over cultural heritage look like?
- can respect and irreverence sit side by side?
- how do/can we value the fragmented memories and fractured knowledge of cross-cultural nomads, third-culture kids, 2nd and 3rd generations (etc.)?
Re-making/Breaking Traditions offers space to continue personal journeys: questioning what power and agency we have over our cultural heritage, and how un/consciously ritual, rules and gesture are passed down to us and embodied. Annie will offer simple frames to un-archive gesture, movement, emotion and unearth questions that may have been sitting with each of us for a long time, knowingly or otherwise.
This is a space exclusively for artists of global majority working with performance who are already with their own ideas, questions and existing practices – and feel able to go on an individual exploration in parallel to others. Raw findings, inconclusive answers, undefined questions are all welcome.
We are inviting free participation through a short application form (in either audio or text, max 5 minutes or 500 words) to ensure a generative diversity and positive collision of positions and approaches in the room. In the form please tell us:
- why are you interested in attending?
- what cultural traditions or rituals sit with you and seep into your practice?
- briefly, how would you answer one of the other starting point questions above?
This session is our second attempt of many to gather a group and dive into this conversation. If these questions burn for you like they do for us, keep an eye out for future labs paired with our cultural gatherings.
Directly following on from this session you are warmly invited to join us upstairs for our Lunar New Year Celebrations in the Roof studio for more moving, craft-making and snacks! Click here to sign up.
In the Research Studio
Free to attend via a short application. Please apply by Monday 9th February 2026.
This event is exclusively for BPOC/ Global Majority artists. BPOC stands for Black and People of Colour. Global Majority is a collective term which refers to people who identify as Black, African, Asian, Brown, Arab, Latinx, mixed-heritage, are indigenous to the global south.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Annie Pui Ling Lok
Annie has been a freelance dance artist since 1999 and qualified as a biodynamic craniosacral therapist (BCST) in 2014. She specialises in dance and choreography making live performances in processes that are experimental and collaborative. She has directed over 40 works with professional and non-professional performers in the UK and abroad.
Teaching and facilitation are a key part of her practice, and she has taught choreography and improvisation in numerous community, professional and Higher Education settings where difference of age, experience, ability and artform are welcomed and invited into positive collision. Her approach to facilitation combines her work across artistic, clinical, educational and leadership roles supporting individuals to find agency, power and self-awareness through creative inquiry.
She is Co-Artistic Director of Siobhan Davies Studios job-sharing and in collaboration with independent producer Kat Bridge, both on a part-time basis. She continues to freelance and parent her 6-year-old.
ACCESS AND AMENITIES AT SDS
Siobhan Davies Studios is mostly accessible, with lifts to all floors. There are two accessible parking spaces available on site which can be booked in advance. Blue Badge parking is also available nearby on West Square and Garden Row (for a full map visit the Southwark Council website). Our main door is power assisted.
Amenities include:
- Changing facilities*
- Communal showers*
- Toilets / wheelchair accessible toilets
- Kitchen: tea and coffee making, fridge, and microwave
- Snack Bar: We have a small selection of bars, drinks and food available to buy from the front desk.
- Shops: The closest shop is Superway Supermarket on Garden Row (4 min walk), the closest supermarket is Sainsbury’s on New Kent Road (7 min walk). We also recommend the Art Cafe which serves sandwiches, jacket potatoes and meals (3 min walk).
* Our changing facilities and showers are not fully accessible. Our closest publicly available and fully accessible changing facility is at The Castle Centre, a leisure centre 0.3 miles away from the studios. You can find full details of their features here.