OPPORTUNITIES | House of Deviant

COSTUME DESIGNER/MAKER

As part of the House of Deviant's Ffyrnig/Ffierce project (supported by Arts Council Wales, Wales Millennium Centre and Riverfront Theatre), we are looking for an experienced costume designer to work alongside our Queens to create fierce new looks.

The right person will:

- Have experience and skill in designing and making quality costumes (not necessarily drag costumes but a knowledge of these would be beneficial).

- Be prepared to work co-productively with our Queens to design and explore costume and character. We have some ideas how this might work but are also open to hearing your thoughts!

- Have the skills and resources needed to construct a number of costumes using a variety of materials and techniques.

When

We are looking for design workshops to be around September/October time and costumes should be completed by the beginning of December ready to debut in our Christmas show.

Fee

We have a designer/maker fee of £2500 plus an additional materials and resources budget. There could be additional money to lead some making workshops alongside this too.

To Apply:

Please send a cover letter, CV and link to your portfolio to iheartfflamingo@gmail.com with the subject heading 'Costume Designer' no later than Sunday 30th July 5pm.

For more information or to request an informal online meeting please email Gareth at iheartfflamingo@gmail.com

Ffyrnig/Ffierce

Freelance Creative Practitioner

We have recently been awarded funding from Arts Council of Wales for a Professional Development project that seeks to upskill and develop our Queens with the skills they need to be professional drag performers. ‘Ffyrnig/Ffierce’ is an inclusive and collaborative project exploring how drag performance can support people with a learning disability and/or autism to gain self-confidence and develop their own voice and sense of self.

We follow a fully collaborative coproduction model where every voice has an opportunity to be heard, listened to, and acted upon. Starting fundamentally with our participants, our collaborators, and our partners. We want everyone to take ownership of the project, and believe that by doing so, a rich and diverse culture of exchange will provide a great opportunity for something magical to grow.

We have a range of opportunities over the coming 12 months, and we’d love to hear from lots of creative professionals.

Creative Practitioners (£250 per day - over 4-6 once a week sessions)

We are currently looking for a range of freelance professional creative practitioners to work with us over the course of the project to collaborate and help us explore a range of skills that will build on the confidence and abilities of our queens. Whilst we are a drag troupe, there are many aspects of performance that will build the skills needed. If you have something you think you could offer us, we would love to hear from you.

Dance/Movement
Performance skills - including clowning, theatre, improvisation, character work, stand up comedy etc
Singers and Vocal Coaches
Musicians, composers and song writers
Make up artists

We are particularly interested in hearing from people from protected characteristic groups.

The Role:

We are looking for individuals who can bring a range of professional creative skills to our project. You will be working with us to coproduce a fabulous, exciting and dynamic project exploring drag performance and personal transformation.

You will be expected to deliver a series of workshops exploring how your area of expertise can build our skills in drag performance, as well as developing and building on general performance skills (It's worth noting here that direct experience in drag performance is not essential, it is the skill set that we are interested in).

You will be provided with time to talk to us, observe, plan, and deliver a series of sessions that will challenge and develop our skillset, knowledge and confidence.

You do not need to have experience working with adults with a learning disability and/or autism, but you should be willing to learn and develop with us.

For each day’s allocation your time will be allocated as follows (We are flexible around these hours, with the exception of the Tuesday evenings):

2 hour workshop on Tuesday evenings (6-8pm at WMC)
1 hour downtime with the Queens (5-6pm at WMC on Tuesdays)
1.5 hour reflective thinking time (supervision)
1.5 hour planning
1 hour admin (recording onto our project documentation)

Fee = £250 per day (over 4-6 once a week sessions)

Application Process:

Our project members have asked that anyone wishing to apply to work with us should submit a video application of no longer than 5 minutes in length.

You should tell us:

Who you are - we are interested in people as individuals as well as professional experience
What skills you could bring to the project and how you think these skills could fit into drag performance
What you'd hope to gain from working on this project
A 4-6 week work outline - what would you want to achieve in a 4-6 week period

You could pitch a small project with our Queens – for example, 2 general dance workshops, and 2 choreography workshops building a dance routine. We feel this sort of thing would work well as not only is it skill-building but also helps to apply learning in a real life context. But we will also consider stand alone sessions and workshops.

Applications should be sent to iheartfflamingo@gmail.com with subject line 'Creative Practitioner'.

The initial submission deadline has now passed but we are keen to keep this opportunity open to explore and connect with artists for future works.

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