2025-26 MOMENTUM ARTISTS
We’re thrilled to be introducing the five incredible artists who are joining Momentum - our brand new artist development programme.
Devaki Rajendran
Dionne Draper
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Devaki Rajendran (she/her) is a multidisciplinary performing artist from Kerala, India, currently based in London. Along with her Bharatanatyam (traditional Indian dance) and Carnatic music (traditional Indian music) training, she is also an actor and theatre maker. Her creative practice explores themes of gender, power and reimagined myth through the interweaving of folk and classical performance traditions from India and theatre. Devaki is interested in creating work that is both personally meaningful and socially relevant through collaboration with artists from various backgrounds and training.
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An accomplished actor, singer, and writer, Dionne Draper is a powerful voice in the arts. She is the founder of Sing With Soul and the driving force behind DAWTA The Podcast, which follows her sell-out, one-woman musical, DAWTA. Dionne’s work is often focused on social and racial justice, leveraging her singing and compositional skills to create empowered music spaces.
A recipient of the Women of The West Award and the Lord Mayors Medal, her professional credits span stage and screen; including roles in C4’s The Cure, Little Shop of Horrors, and Sky 1’s Trollied.
Namoo Chae Lee
Tom Marshman
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Namoo Chae Lee is a UK-based theatre director and maker from Korea. Her work is political and formally experimental, driven by themes of cultural colonialism and liminality. With lived experience of crossing borders twice, she examines how societies govern individual identities and is passionate about connecting these threads — between personal experience and broader political structures. She holds MFAs in writing(NYU Tisch) and Directing(Birkbeck, London) and her work has been presented in the UK, US, Japan and Korea. She is the Origins Director at Headlong Theatre and the founder of Kassna Kollektiv, an interdisciplinary performing arts collective exploring contemporary political questions through an East Asian female lens.
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Tom Marshman has been a practicing artist for 25 years, and produced over 60 projects, across many mediums, including - museum audio-tours, theatre & cabaret. Actively encouraging dialogue with participants, through socially engaged processes such as ‘Tea Parties’, allows him evocative glimpses into everyday life, letting him tell engaging, poetic & unpretentious stories. An overarching theme of Tom's work is that of the outsider & their story, particularly regarding the LGBTQ+ experience, stories that have been omitted through archival silence.
Viv Gordon
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Viv Gordon is a theatre maker, writer, performer, activist and Artistic Director of Viv Gordon Company. Her work centres the othered voices of adult child sexual abuse (CSA) survivors exploring social justice and the politics of survival. Viv enjoys creative risk taking and sees her practice as an act of reclamation - taking back what was stolen in childhood - voice, play, personhood. Her current work includes Restless, a punk gig theatre show in development which draws on coastal imagery to reflect survivor experiences; Cutting Out, a theatre show and participatory campaign about dissociation and resistance.
Over the next 5 months we will be bringing together these artists through 1:1 mentoring with our Co-Artistic Directors Nir Paldi and George Mann, peer support sessions led by our Associate Artist Elisabeth Gunawan, group workshops and conversations with industry leaders.
“This announcement comes after a rigorous application and interview process. We received over 50 outstanding submissions and choosing only five was incredibly challenging. We’re grateful to everyone who applied, and thrilled to introduce our first Momentum cohort.
Each artist brings a unique, provocative, and inspiring perspective, and we’re so excited to begin this collaboration. We hope this journey will be enriching for everyone involved and pave the way for future programmes at Ad Infinitum that champion artists, their practice, and their brilliant work.”
Betty, George & Nir
On Monday 19 January all of the artists will be sharing work-in-progress at a Scratch Night at Bristol Old Vic. This will be an opportunity for the artists to share their ideas with a live audience who will be invited to share feedback and join conversations about the work. Tickets will be on sale very soon!
MORE INFO about momentum
Momentum is our new programme for artists, offering a boost to creative projects in varying stages of development. Across five months we’re bringing together a cohort of 5 theatre makers, creating an artistic community to facilitate peer support, develop devising skills, and foster creative and producing feedback.
Click here to read the full details about the programme, including in BSL.
