Discursive lunch with Anna Maria Nabirye and Darragh O’Leary
Artist duo Darragh O’Leary and Anna Maria Nabirye are creating a new dance and performance work tracing the lines of their personal and collective colonial histories from Uganda & Ireland, to the small English seaside town where they now live. The work unearths a messy, truthful, heartfelt and hopeful exploration of what it is to face colonial ancestry whilst living & thriving in the motherland.
Join Darragh and Anna Maria as they explore ideas around historical truth within the context of this work. Inspired by Audre Lorde’s concept of Biomythography, they will lead a conversation around historical truths, as told by the coloniser, versus other modes of knowledge which are led by the gut, the land, memory and ancestral wisdom.
“I want to be seen in all my dimensions. Can you see me? Can you help me see me? Look harder! I carry the weight of my colonial past with me, every minute of every day, in the visible and the hidden. Take my hand, together we’ll share the load and look backwards to imagine forwards.” Darragh O'Leary - draft reflection of the show we are making, created in dramaturgy Residency at The Grange, Norfolk 2025
Coming off the back of a week long residency at South East Dance we will share a meal, a conversation, and provocations in a playful and care-led, inclusive setting.
All food will be vegetarian and vegan – and If you have any dietary requirements or allergies, please let us know here: [javascript protected email address]
Artist bios
Darragh uses dance and movement to tell stories with and about people. He loves working with a mix of performers including professionals, community participants and young people - anyone willing to move, connect, and be part of something together.
His work spans plays, musicals, large-scale ceremonies, music videos, and movement coaching. His projects often take place beyond traditional stages, in galleries, museums, streets, parks, stadiums, TV sets, and prisons.
Previous working partners include Almeida Theatre, South Bank Centre, Park Theatre, National Theatre, Graeae, Dundee Rep, Sheffield Theatres, Pimlico Opera, Stellar Quines, Grid Iron, Company 3, Home Live Art, Hastings Museum and Art Gallery, Home Live Art, and many more cultural and community groups.
He’s happiest in a room full of collaborators, figuring things out, playing, creating, sometimes with just a bench and two boxes, sometimes with Danny Boyle in an Olympic Stadium.
Anna Maria is an interdisciplinary artist working across performance, visual arts, photography, documentary, theatre, film and social practice.
She has worked extensively as an actor credits include National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, BBC and Film4.
Current interdisciplinary artworks include The Funnest Room In The House (The Whitechapel Gallery, Towner Eastbourne, Albany and S.A.W.N) supported by Cement Fields, Jerwood Arts & Arts Council England, Up In Arms, an Artsadmin project exploring interracial female friendship co-created with Annie Saunders, commissioned by De La Warr Pavilion and in residence at UCross, (USA, 2026).
Anna Maria was awarded the Jerwood Artist Attachment to Whitstable Biennale, the Peter Marlow Foundation Creative Residency Scholarship and Yinka Shonibare’s Guest Projects Africa Residency. Other works include Ruptures (LFF, Home and Delfina Foundation), Everything For Everyone And Nothing For Us (Hayward Gallery), Hold Your Ground (Film and Video Umbrella) in collaboration with Mirza Butler. One Prick At A Time (Kings College London) & Motherhoody (Albany Deptford) with Jess Mabel Jones. As an educator and director Nabirye has worked with Mirza Butler, Home Live Art, Yale School of Drama, National Theatre Institute, Mountview Academy, LAMDA and London Philharmonic Orchestra's Junior Artists.
Anna Maria is Co-Founding Director of Afri-Co-Lab, a creative community dreaming hub in East Sussex.
Without joy there can be no revolution.