Still of Kathy Acker in conversation with Angela McRobbie at the ICA, 1987; modified by The Wooster Group. Copyright ICA, London

The Wooster Group is a New York-based ensemble who create and perform original works for theatre, dance, film and media. Founded in 1975, the group has remained at the forefront of experimental theatre under the direction of Elizabeth LeCompte. As one of the ensemble’s original members, Kate Valk has performed in all of the group’s works since 1979. In 1997, Valk co-founded The Wooster Group’s free Summer Institute for state secondary school students. In 2012, she was Associate Director to Elizabeth LeCompte for the group’s collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company on Troilus and Cressida. In 2014, Valk directed Early Shaker Spirituals: A Record Album Interpretation followed by THE B-SIDE: ‘Negro Folklore from Texas State Prisons’: A Record Album Interpretation in 2017. Among other honours, Valk has received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts artist award, and served as a mentor in the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.

Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley is an artist working predominantly in performance, animation and sound, combining the three to communicate their experience and survival as a Black Trans person. Brathwaite-Shirley uses sound to communicate intense expression as they digitally construct a world that centres Black Trans experience. Wanting to restore Black Trans existence, they explore the desire to meet buried bodies like theirs, dreaming of a Trans archive where Black Trans people could share their buried experiences. They are currently making a video game to achieve this. Brathwaite-Shirley has presented their work at Tate Britain, Barbican Centre, Auto Italia, and Mimosa House, and at Brighton Festival. They have recently compiled sound design for shows at the Wellcome Collection and The Yard. They have been invited to talk at a variety of institutions including The Photographers Gallery and Royal Academy Schools.

Erica Scourti is an artist and writer, born in Athens and now based mostly in London. Embracing contingency, humour and lo-fi media, her work explores autobiographical writing and bodily inscription in the performance and representation of subjectivity. Solo shows include Chief Complaint at Almanac, London and Spill Sections at StudioRCA, London (both 2018). Group shows include the High Line, New York; Wellcome Collection, London; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; Hayward Gallery, London; and The National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST), Athens. Her writing has been published in Spells (Ignota Press, 2018) and Fiction as Method (Sternberg, 2017) and she is guest editor of The Happy Hypocrite (2019). She is currently undertaking an AHRC-funded PhD in Goldsmiths’ Art Department.

Soraya Jane Nabipour is a Sheffield-based theatre maker. She is researching the work of New York City Players for her practice-based PhD at the University of Sheffield. Nabipour also works for experimental theatre company Forced Entertainment as a workshop facilitator on their education programme Art Breakers.