RISE Festival 2023

Rise, Inspire, Share, and Elevate.

The RISE programme offered 12 talented under-represented young artists an opportunity to unleash their creativity and create brand-new, authentic and bold creative experiences for audiences. After 3 months of meeting industry specialists, developing creative skills and harnessing their ideas, they produced 9 new pieces.

The RISE festival took place on October 6th and 7th, 2023, welcoming over 220 people to be the first to see the new RISE shows.

Chickenshed buzzed all weekend with new theatrical experiences, from the dance studio to the Rayne Theatre and the Studio Theatre. We even had to add extra performances because people were queuing out of the door to catch the new work! Every show was different in style and tone, yet they all shared the same energy and excitement of something new and bold.

The 9 shows that showcased at RISE festival were:

• Demises Query (Sebastian Ross)
• Ride or Die (Demar Lambert)
• Blue Note (Cara McInanny)
• Happy Hour (Shiloh Maersk)
• When They Ran (Bethany Hamlin, Michael Bossisse)
• Cogg's Spin (Maya Nielsen, Tom Langton)
• Playworker Amber (Amber Ogunsanya-William)
• Music Mind and Soul (Jimmy Adamou, Alex Buga)
• I AM (Harvey Thompson)

The digital program below is an excellent resource for seeing how the festival unfolded over the weekend, what was featured, and who participated.

We aspire to secure funding to continue the RISE festival year after year, providing underrepresented artists with the opportunity to form their own creative companies, develop their ideas, and fund projects beyond the walls of Chickenshed. 

Each year, we will extend invitations to past participants to return to the festival and industry sharing events, creating a network of RISE creatives who support each other's work.

RISE 2023 was made possible through the generous support of The Foyle Foundation and Cockayne. 

We thank them for joining us in empowering young artists and providing them with a platform to share their work with audiences.