Who we are
We work with a range of creatives, performers and organisers to make our shows.
The core company is Abbi Greenland, Becky Wilkie and Helen Goalen. We are performers, musicians and makers.
Abbi Greenland
I am a theatre maker and performer. For me, theatre making combines activism with making art. Making a RashDash show means choosing or being chosen by a particular subject or problem that is political, social, cultural and then researching it - thinking and feeling my way in - to as deep a level as possible in the time we’ve given ourselves. During the process I write, devise, choreograph, improvise, facilitate, sing, listen, watch, PLAY.
As a performer I like to work really hard - I want to lose myself inside the physicality and musicality of the characters / ideas.
I am led by my instincts.
I am interested in form and challenging narrative conventions.
I want our work to be affecting and engaging, often entertaining, always complex and funny. I think art should be funny when it can be.
Our shows are best when they come about by accident in a playful and collaborative room full of creative people and costumes to play with.
I try try try to take my ego out if it as much as possible, and I like to work with other people who do the same.
I am very lucky to work with Helen and Becky who are wonderful and talented people.
Becky Wilkie
I am a musician, maker and performer. I played the piano as a kid, did the grades, and was fortunate enough to inherit a musical ear from my Pa. I had a band as a teenager and was a piano teacher before I went to university to do a ‘proper’ degree in English Literature. I learnt that I didn’t want to be an academic. I wanted to be making music with friends.
I worked with Abbi and Helen on their first show as a company. I played the piano and stood silently in the back corner. We went to the Edinburgh Festival. The following year they asked if I wanted to do it again. I did. This time I narrated the show from the front and talked directly to the audience. Every RashDash show I have been a part of has marked a step up in involvement - in process, in performance, in politics. I am constantly challenged and continuously supported by these wonderful women.
I have been a comedian, I have been a mover, I have been a pig, I have been a writer, I have been exhausted, I have been a drummer, I have been a snow angel, I have been a guitarist, I have been a deviser, I have been aware of being a woman in this world, I have been elated, I have been in a cold car park for a week, I have been naked, I have been a one-woman band, I have been a collaborator, I have been a goddess.
I am all these things and I will be many more. I am excited.
Helen Goalen
I am a theatre maker and performer. Making and performing a RashDash show is hard, fun and a bit terrifying. I am challenged by every stage of it. Our work is becoming more and more political and we put ourselves on the line with everything we make.
I want our work to move people emotionally and viscerally, to be non elitist and promote activist thought, conversation and action.
I used to think I hated improvising but it’s now my favourite way of making work, both as a facilitator and performer. Being surprised by the movement/images/meanings that arrive in a show is one of the most joyful things.
I like theatre that moves an audience through theatricality, rather than plot. I am interested in finding new ways of challenging the conventions of story.
I love the bit when a show is just coming together and we don’t fully know what it is but the edges of a shape is emerging…
I love being part of a team with a shared mission and ethos. I am hugely inspired by all of the brilliant people I work with, most of all Abbi and Becky, and the lengths that everyone will go to to make a thing happen.