Washington, D.C. — July 29, 2024 — The Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics (The Lab) is thrilled to announce the newest cohort of their Global Fellows program. Funded by The Mellon Foundation, this 18-month global residency is now in its fourth round, connecting and supporting exceptionally promising artists and change-makers from around the world who embody the Lab’s mission of “harnessing the power of performance to humanize global politics.” The Lab, founded in 2012, is an increasingly essential hub and resource center for building and supporting an international community of artists and activists working at the intersection of performance and politics. The organization provides innovative artistic and curricular strategies and techniques to a wide range of programs and initiatives in areas including global health, racial justice, environment and climate crisis, migration and refugee studies, authoritarianism, and more.

The Global Fellows program is at the heart of The Lab’s work and an essential part of its ongoing engagement with critical issues such as polarization, the legacy of slavery and systemic injustice, migration and immigration, colonial occupation, and climate crises. Since the start of the program in 2017, there have been several hundred high-quality applicants from across the globe- politically engaged artists isolated in their local communities and seeking artistic and professional allies around the world.

The ten new Fellows, selected from a diverse and expansive pool of applicants from 44 countries, 12 distinct regions, and 6 continents, use performance to address the most pressing issues of their lives and in the world. They are unearthing ancient traditions and buried histories, innovating on and imagining new ones, subverting oppressive tactics and defying censorship through creative means. Some have returned to their homelands after or amidst hardship, some are lifelong locals, while others are living as refugees. Their work is not only a means to address polarization, genocide, or corruption, it is a way forward- for themselves, their people, their audiences. They teach, write, dance, sing, and make community in their places of birth, refuge, and work in Armenia, China, Colombia, India, Japan, Kenya, Palestine, Russia, Switzerland, Tanzania, United States, Zimbabwe and beyond.

The ten new participants in The Lab’s Global Fellows Program are: Yide Cai (China/US), Yuta Hagiwara (Japan), Tanvi Hegade (India), Riham Isaac (Palestine/UK), Elina Kulikova (Russia/Switzerland), Teddy Mangawa (Zimbabwe), Wanjiku Mwawuganga (Kenya), Samwel Japhet (Tanzania), Yura Sapi (Nuquí, Chocó, Colombia) Sona Tatoyan (Armenia, Syria, US). see full biographies below).

“We are deeply moved and inspired to welcome this courageous and visionary group of Fellows, all of whom have been making their work amidst intense challenges and upheaval.” says Lab co-Founding Artistic & Executive Director Derek Goldman. “Their work – as performers, writers, directors, producers, scholars, change-makers and leaders – serves as a hopeful antidote for so much that our world is facing. They are the visionary leaders and voices of our future, and increasingly of our present.”

Key to the program is its impact both globally and locally. Each Fellow continues to work within their own community, as they learn in conversation with each other and with mentors from The Lab’s Creative Core, through monthly virtual meetings and in-person convenings, including a residency this year in partnership with LaMaMa Umbria in Italy. By supporting the local work of each Fellow over a long period of time, the program supports not only the individual participants but, through them, their local networks of collaborators, students, and communities across the globe.

“The Global Fellows are the beating heart of The Lab. They challenge the status quo, and foster positive socio-political change through their performance work,” commented Lab Co-Founding Director, Ambassador Cynthia Schneider. “The newest cohort, hailing from East Asia to the east coast, will expand not only The Lab’s geographic reach, but also our understanding of the intersection of politics and performance.”

The newest cohort does indeed expand on the reach of the program, bringing transformative  new connections into the thriving community of existing Global Fellows. Lab Associate Director Emma Jaster notes that “with Fellows from Russia working with Fellows from Palestine and Fellows from China or Armenia working with collaborators in the U.S., this fourth cohort is actively engaging geo-political tensions in creative, critical and profound new ways, using their artistic resources to transform entrenched conflicts.”

The Lab strives to foster a sense of continuity and relationship between Fellows, in order to more effectively expand their network of global peers, and members of the previous three cohorts continue to be active participants in The Lab’s community. Global Fellow Adam Ashraf ElSayigh from the 2nd cohort shares “Welcoming this new cohort is a testament to The Lab’s ongoing commitment to fostering diverse voices and perspectives. I am enthusiastic about the rich, collaborative opportunities that lie ahead, the community we will foster and the work we will create together across cohorts.”

Taken together, the four cohorts of Fellows that the Mellon Foundation has supported represent a profoundly inspiring rising generation of global leaders in the field, each of them deeply committed to collaborating across borders and boundaries, and immeasurably strengthened by the collaborative relationships they build with one another. The Lab’s impressive track record of supporting long-lasting social, professional, and artistic bonds among artists at the forefront of re-imagining theater, global politics, and how they intersect, is evidenced in this visionary and expanding ecosystem of Global Fellows.