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Episode 081 - Ruptures, healing and reclamation with Pauline Mayers
Hey you, good to see you again.
On this day, our fifth birthday, we are so happy to bring you our final episode of the three we are releasing on 13th July 2025. The final episode before we go off on Summer Hiatus also. Rest is needed. We've been celebrating far too hard!
In this episode, Sheree is in conversation with Pauline Mayers, a multidisciplinary artist based in Leeds.
In this episode, they talk about:
• How Pauline and Sheree first connected
• Creative Methodologies, Cambridge University
• Situating ourselves – living in Leeds, greenest cities in UK
• Looking up is a humbling act
• Ginnels, is a narrow passageway or alleyway, typically between buildings, often used as a shortcut
• In a new season of healing and reclaiming
• A multidisciplinary artist starting from the age of 15
• Ruptures in life
• Leeds is not very kind to black artists
• The ebb and flow of work
• The use and abuse of black artists
• The lack of care and respect for black artists, refusing to be a conduit for this
• Entire rupture of social network, and dad’s passing
• Looking to heal in the NOW
• Having autonomy of our lives
• Walking journey as healing
• Convincing people of our knowledges, abilities and humanity
• Reclaiming the person you are right now
• Touchbase with the self, right now
• Acknowledging our scars
• 9 times out of 10, it’s righteous anger
• Rebuild my relationship with Leeds
• The Nikel Boys film
• Healing walking journey of 2025 – Leeds Country Way
• Being with nature through all the senses
• Come Outside CIC
• The Kettlewell Circular
• Transforming anger into reclaiming peace for the self
• So much more beauty in the world than the ugliness of people
• Taking pictures while out there
• The journey of photography to writing
• Seeking homeness a place of safety
• Ingrid Pollard, Pastroal Interlude
• Being in community with people who look the same, exist and be and safe
• Boundaries teach people how to treat me
• Zine creation for healing and reclamation
• Rupture to rapture
• Railing against everything as production
• We refuse and nature is there to help the process
• Fugitive feminism Akwago Emejulu
• Walking with our ancestors
• The joy of just being in nature and always be in connection with
• Continue to create in community
• The Earth Sea Love Podcast 5th Birthday
Bio:
Pauline is a multidisciplinary theatre-maker, movement director and performer based in the North of England. She creates and curates artistic experiences that opens audiences, artists, and communities to have conversations they wouldn’t usually have.
Beginning as a Rambert trained dancer, Pauline who has appeared in stage and television since the age of 15, began her career as a dancer in repertory dance companies across the UK in a career spanning years, including Janet Smith and Dancers, Diversions Dance (Wales), The Ensemble Group (Scotland), Phoenix Dance Theatre (England) as well as being acting artistic director for Teeside Dance Initiative, leaving dance for theatre in 2010.
Since then, Pauline has amassed a rich background as director, writer, movement director, performer, and facilitator and has collaborated with theatre and live art companies across the UK. Pauline's work as movement director and performer has seen collaborations with Selina Thompson LTD’s Twine (2024), live performance artist Paula Varjack’s Nine Sixteenths (2024), Improbable Theatre on An Improbable Musical (2022), Tell Tale Hearts Children's Theatre on Yummm! (2013), Burmantofts Stories (2013) which featured in the programme for Transform Festival that same year, working with the community of Burmantofts area in Leeds, and Red Ladder’s Promised Land (2012).
In her own work, Pauline explores themes of identity, participation, intimacy, and care. Pauline’s previous work, the critically acclaimed What If I Told You written and performed by Pauline premiered at the Leeds Playhouse (formerly the West Yorkshire Playhouse) in 2016 and toured across the UK. The show was presented at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2017), where she was a shortlisted nominee for the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award. What If I Told You returned for a second successful run at Leeds Playhouse in 2018 and was part of the inaugural programme at Brixton House, London in 2022. Pauline is the artistic director of the Mayers Ensemble, a company formed in 2022 as a vehicle for her work which has been described as ‘shaking up traditional theatre and power structures to put the audience in the picture’ (Lyn Gardner, The Guardian). In 2021, Pauline was a published contributor to the anthology, Weighted Words (Peepal Tree Press) edited by Jacob Ross.
Pauline is also a trustee at Improbable Theatre and is an Open Space facilitator.
Now in a new season of her life as well as continuing to write, Pauline enjoys walking, photography, zine-making.
Links
Links: www.paulinemayers.com
Social media: @emergentp.bsky.social
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By Sheree Mack
5
66 ratings
Hey you, good to see you again.
On this day, our fifth birthday, we are so happy to bring you our final episode of the three we are releasing on 13th July 2025. The final episode before we go off on Summer Hiatus also. Rest is needed. We've been celebrating far too hard!
In this episode, Sheree is in conversation with Pauline Mayers, a multidisciplinary artist based in Leeds.
In this episode, they talk about:
• How Pauline and Sheree first connected
• Creative Methodologies, Cambridge University
• Situating ourselves – living in Leeds, greenest cities in UK
• Looking up is a humbling act
• Ginnels, is a narrow passageway or alleyway, typically between buildings, often used as a shortcut
• In a new season of healing and reclaiming
• A multidisciplinary artist starting from the age of 15
• Ruptures in life
• Leeds is not very kind to black artists
• The ebb and flow of work
• The use and abuse of black artists
• The lack of care and respect for black artists, refusing to be a conduit for this
• Entire rupture of social network, and dad’s passing
• Looking to heal in the NOW
• Having autonomy of our lives
• Walking journey as healing
• Convincing people of our knowledges, abilities and humanity
• Reclaiming the person you are right now
• Touchbase with the self, right now
• Acknowledging our scars
• 9 times out of 10, it’s righteous anger
• Rebuild my relationship with Leeds
• The Nikel Boys film
• Healing walking journey of 2025 – Leeds Country Way
• Being with nature through all the senses
• Come Outside CIC
• The Kettlewell Circular
• Transforming anger into reclaiming peace for the self
• So much more beauty in the world than the ugliness of people
• Taking pictures while out there
• The journey of photography to writing
• Seeking homeness a place of safety
• Ingrid Pollard, Pastroal Interlude
• Being in community with people who look the same, exist and be and safe
• Boundaries teach people how to treat me
• Zine creation for healing and reclamation
• Rupture to rapture
• Railing against everything as production
• We refuse and nature is there to help the process
• Fugitive feminism Akwago Emejulu
• Walking with our ancestors
• The joy of just being in nature and always be in connection with
• Continue to create in community
• The Earth Sea Love Podcast 5th Birthday
Bio:
Pauline is a multidisciplinary theatre-maker, movement director and performer based in the North of England. She creates and curates artistic experiences that opens audiences, artists, and communities to have conversations they wouldn’t usually have.
Beginning as a Rambert trained dancer, Pauline who has appeared in stage and television since the age of 15, began her career as a dancer in repertory dance companies across the UK in a career spanning years, including Janet Smith and Dancers, Diversions Dance (Wales), The Ensemble Group (Scotland), Phoenix Dance Theatre (England) as well as being acting artistic director for Teeside Dance Initiative, leaving dance for theatre in 2010.
Since then, Pauline has amassed a rich background as director, writer, movement director, performer, and facilitator and has collaborated with theatre and live art companies across the UK. Pauline's work as movement director and performer has seen collaborations with Selina Thompson LTD’s Twine (2024), live performance artist Paula Varjack’s Nine Sixteenths (2024), Improbable Theatre on An Improbable Musical (2022), Tell Tale Hearts Children's Theatre on Yummm! (2013), Burmantofts Stories (2013) which featured in the programme for Transform Festival that same year, working with the community of Burmantofts area in Leeds, and Red Ladder’s Promised Land (2012).
In her own work, Pauline explores themes of identity, participation, intimacy, and care. Pauline’s previous work, the critically acclaimed What If I Told You written and performed by Pauline premiered at the Leeds Playhouse (formerly the West Yorkshire Playhouse) in 2016 and toured across the UK. The show was presented at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2017), where she was a shortlisted nominee for the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award. What If I Told You returned for a second successful run at Leeds Playhouse in 2018 and was part of the inaugural programme at Brixton House, London in 2022. Pauline is the artistic director of the Mayers Ensemble, a company formed in 2022 as a vehicle for her work which has been described as ‘shaking up traditional theatre and power structures to put the audience in the picture’ (Lyn Gardner, The Guardian). In 2021, Pauline was a published contributor to the anthology, Weighted Words (Peepal Tree Press) edited by Jacob Ross.
Pauline is also a trustee at Improbable Theatre and is an Open Space facilitator.
Now in a new season of her life as well as continuing to write, Pauline enjoys walking, photography, zine-making.
Links
Links: www.paulinemayers.com
Social media: @emergentp.bsky.social