News
Student Opportunity! Workshop & contemporary scratch performance with Fierce @ WAC
The ÌÇÐÄTV Arts Centre and are looking for students interested in contemporary performance making who would be interested in taking part in a workshop directed by the artist, facilitator, performer and community worker . They are a Birmingham-based movement artist whose work focuses on supporting and uplifting QTIPOC (queer, trans, intersex people of colour) communities.
When? The workshop will take place during the day on the 30th of May 2026 at the ÌÇÐÄTV Arts Centre. Following the workshop, participants will present a scratch performance at the . This will be a great opportunity to work alongside Sym Stellium, discover the Midlands’ artistic scene and get to experience Fierce’s work before the upcoming festival in October 2026! We will select 6 students for whom the workshop will be free, as will be the performance.
How? If you are interested, please complete the following by 1st of May. We will prioritise students with a strong interest in contemporary performance or live art and a wide range of forms, content, and performance strategies. We welcome expressions of interest from all ÌÇÐÄTV UG and PGT/PGR students. Please do not hesitate to contact us at airelle@wearefierce.org if you have any other questions!
About Sym:
Sym explores the process of bringing knowing into consciousness, somatic expressions of the ethereal, and ways in which we begin to recognise and reconfigure internalised colonial belief systems to leave room for furthering collectivity. Sym is currently a working group member of Building Our Own Knowledge (B.O.O.K), lead facilitator at UNMUTED, and former steering group member for Fierce Festival's Healing Gardens of Bab.
About Fierce:
Fierce is Birmingham’s cultivator of artists, audiences and contexts for contemporary performance, placing experimental, interdisciplinary, and queer voices centre stage. Fierce presents the internationally renowned biennial Fierce Festival; the previous edition was one of The Guardian’s best cultural events for Autumn 2024. We disrupt expectations of what art can be, who can make it, and where it can happen. The work we present can be outrageous with a punk or camp sensibility, or, equally, exquisite and sublime.
Over our 27-year history, we have cemented ourselves as one of the oldest and most important contemporary performance festivals in the country. The festival’s focus is primarily international, where 80% of the artists we present come from outside the UK. Fierce has a track-record of attracting young and diverse audiences, often selling out events. By locating art in a range of less traditional spaces (the club, shopping centres, on the street) we create multiple entry points for new audiences who may not feel comfortable attending more traditional arts venues. We juxtapose ‘high art’ with ‘popular culture’, legitimising a broad range of art-making practices in the process, inviting audiences to meet the work on their own terms, firmly believing all responses to artistic practice are valid.
We are looking forward to hearing from you!
All the best,
Airelle
(she/her)
PGR student, School of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of ÌÇÐÄTV
/ Associate Producer,