About Fierce
For over 20 years, Fierce has been promoting Birmingham and the region across the world as a vibrant, diverse and tolerant place where the incredible happens in unusual places, the outlandish is embraced and celebrated and the new is welcomed with curiosity and kindness. As we look to our future, we want to continue to provide that relevant, fresh and feisty voice for the city. We bring the world to Birmingham, and Birmingham to the world.
Fierce Festival is a youthful and joy-filled festival of international theatre, performance and experiences which takes place in and around Birmingham (UK) every two years.
Fierce transforms the city and the way we feel about it: populating theatres, galleries and hidden, unusual or out-of-the-ordinary spaces like disused warehouses, swimming pools and car park. You might see theatre, dance, performance art, music, installations, activism and parties or a combination of all those things in a programme of memorable experiences and events.
We want everyone to have an optimal experience: from the way we talk about what’s on offer, the experience of sharing in the festival and how we all talk about it afterwards. We want you to feel welcome and be comfortable to express your thoughts and feelings about your experience. We see the festival as a utopian space: a temporary community where new ideas and approaches are played with, tested out and broadcast. It is this space of experimentation which creates surprising, provocative and even primal collective moments.
As an antidote to this digitally saturated age, we bring people together in real life, space and time. Year round we are an active part of the creative landscape in the city – advocating for greater cultural ambition for the city, developing artists through our FWD artist development programme, commissioning and supporting the work of some of the most interesting artists and performers and of course, keeping the Performance, Politics, Parties and Pop alive in Brum with our ever popular Club Fierce late night events.
Our approach is intersectional: reflecting the diversifying society in which we live. In particular we seek to amplify marginalised voices and stories. We disrupt expectations of what art can be, who can make it and where it can happen. The work you see may be outrageous with a punk, camp or trash sensibility – or equally it may be beautiful work with exquisite, sublime or contemplative moments.
Welcome to Fierce – a world of performance and pop, politics and parties, Birmingham and beyond: where everyone (especially you) and everything is allowed.
Fierce Festival is an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation with regular funding confirmed until 2026.
Fierce is a member of Live Art UK, the national network that brings promoters and facilitators together to support and facilitate Live Art infrastructure for artists and audiences.
Vision, Mission & Values
Fierce is Birmingham’s cultivator of artists, audiences and contexts for new intersectional performance, [curating the leading international Live Art Festival], guided by our core values, trust; rigour; disruption and joy.
Our aims
To transform the national performing arts landscape so that:
- Audiences are broader and more confident
- Artists take greater risks and aspire to higher standards of excellence
- Live Art is the life blood of our culture
Our Values
Trust
- We trust our audience to have their own response
- We curate a range of unusual and international experiences offering a variety of ways in which to engage
- We allow audiences to be themselves
- We allow artists to make the work they want to make
- We always say yes until it’s impossible
- We are open and accountable to our values
- We publicly advocate for people to trust their instincts
Disruption
- We ascribe equal value to a party as to a traditionally presented programme
- We put marginalised/ outsider/alternative voices centre stage
- We create a legitimate context for what some might consider to be illegitimate work
- We disrupt expectations of what art can be, who can make it and where it can happen
- We present outrageous work with a punk, camp or trash sensibility
- We have a cheeky and irreverent tone of voice
Joy
- We have fun and we want our audiences and artists to have fun as well
- We disregard genre and art form: we enjoy the work for what it is
- Our relationships are a source of joy for us and our work is a celebration
- We bring people together physically as an antidote to a digitally saturated age
- We present beautiful work with an exquisite, sublime or contemplative sensibility
Rigour
Programme
- We research and travel extensively so that we don’t miss anything
- We do things first because we see things first
- Our programme is directly informed by our research
Artists
- We work holistically with artists
- We do not see the work as a product
- We work with artists who display a similar level of rigour
Audiences
- We communicate the offer with clarity in an accessible, plain English form
- We consider the audience experience in its totality
Partners/ funders
- Our rigour allows partners and funders to take a risk with us
- We seek out funding opportunities with funders where our criteria are aligned
People
We have systems and procedures in place to support individuals
We ascertain the needs of our People and meet them wherever possible
Fierce History
Fierce has been putting Birmingham and beyond on the map since 1998, when its first festival of theatre and performance originally launched as Queerfest. Founded by Mark Ball, who went onto be Artistic Director at LIFT (London International Festival of Theatre) 2009 – 2017, and then joined Manchester International Festival as Creative Director. It was renamed Fierce! Festival in 1999 with the strapline ‘the festival that bites’ – partly in response to a desire to be inclusive to an audience who craved the unusual, the edgy and the spectacular and also to reflect a more intersectional politic (before that word was even trendy!). Over the years, the festival, its audience and its notoriety grew.
Mark Ball, Artistic Director, 1998-2009
Laura McDermott and Harun Morrison, Artistic Directors, 2009-2016
Aaron Wright, Artistic Director, 2016-2023
1998 – 2009
Highlights of the first ten years of Fierce included:
- Benjamin Verdonck’s The Great Swallow presented on the side of the Bullring Rotunda in May 2005 (pictured above), who locally became known as the Birdman of Birmingham.
- ‘Play Me, I’m Yours’ by Luke Jerram was commissioned by Fierce in 2008. The project place pianos on streets, in public parks, markets and train stations bearing the simple instruction to ‘Play Me, I’m Yours’. With 15 pianos located across Birmingham for three weeks it is estimated that over 140,000 people played or listened to music from the pianos. Since then more than 1900 street pianos have been placed in 60 cities, which have been played and listened to by more than 10 million people worldwide. Each new city that commissions the artwork becomes part of this growing international legacy.
- Fierce! Festival’s tenth anniversary celebrations reached their climax with Revisions Of Excess. A reappraisal of the acclaimed Visions Of Excess event in 2003. Revisions Of Excess was co-curated by Ron Athey and Lee Adams. Taking place at the Pink Flamingo lap dancing club, Revisions Of Excess took the form of a series of works from a selecton of international artists inspired by the nihilistic writings of Jean Genet and George Bataille. Hosted by the inimitable David Hoyle, the line up of performers included, Kira O’Reilly, Veenus Vortex, Empress Stah, Valentina Violette of The Velvet Hammer Burlesque, Dominic Johnson, Ashley Ryder, Lazlo Pearlaman, Mouse & many more. Music by David TG (Torture Garden) & Kaos DJ’s Dr Mu & Bradley Kaos plus visuals from Black Sun Productions, Suka Off & VJ Osku.
- Name in Lights was a national competition by artist Joshua Sofaer with a glittering prize: the name of your choice spelt out in a giant illuminated sign in the centre of Birmingham (on top of the former Birmingham Library). In a format familiar from TV talent shows, thousands of nominations were submitted from up and down the country and judged by a panel of experts. These experts all depend on celebrity for their livelihoods, so they were well poised to pick a new one: Una White.
- Jon Fawcett’s Arc – a unique and whimsical moment in the lives of hundreds of office workers in the heat of a June afternoon as a cake was ceremoniously and unexpectedly delivered to them marking their place on an “Arc” through the city.
- Nicole Blackman’s BELOVED invited audience members to travel alone through Compton Verney on a journey which, through a series of encounters, stimulated personal memories of acts of kindness, both given and received, through the participant’s lifetime.
- Famously, ‘My Fierce Festival’ in 2008 let the audience curate the festival programme through an online vote!
2009 – 2016
In 2009 Mark left the festival and Laura McDermott and Harun Morrison took over as joint festival directors. The duo introduced a ‘slow burn’ programming model centred around developing and commissioning new works specific to the city, alongside national and international touring works reworked for Birmingham. They produced five editions of Fierce Festival as joint artistic directors between 2009 and 2015. Laura now works as Director of the Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts and Harun works with Helen Walker, as part of the collective practice THEY ARE HERE.
Highlights from their programmes included:
- Tania El Khoury’s Gardens Speak is an interactive sound installation containing the oral histories of ten ordinary people who were buried in Syrian gardens. Each narrative has been carefully constructed with the friends and family members of the deceased to retell their stories as they themselves may have recounted it. They are compiled with found audio that evidences their final moments. The piece was commissioned by Fierce and has toured to over 18 countries worldwide.
- Dachshund UN by Bennett Miller: A scale replica of the former U.N. office in Geneva, Switzerland, erected outside Ikon Gallery host to a unique meeting of the U.N.’s Commission on Human Rights, at which all 47 of the international delegates are live dachshunds, or ‘sausage dogs’. Dachshunds are the only type of dog to have a ‘racial variety’ within the breed – there are smooth, long haired and wire haired dachshunds in all sorts of different colours. Dachshund U.N. is a playful and chaotic experiment; a meditation on the utopian aspirations of the Commission on Human Rights, and our capacity as humans to imagine and achieve a universal system of justice.
- Graeme Miller’s Track was an environmental work and moveable participatory installation that throws landscape through 90 degrees and sets it in motion. Situated under the iconic Spaghetti Junction, face-up and camera-style, the viewer is smoothly trundled by their individual ‘grip’ on a slow journey along a 100 metre length of dolly track and invited to gaze upwards. For the participant, the work creates a total shift in relationship with whichever environment it is installed, whether built or natural, indoor or outdoor. For the onlooker, that space is transformed by the vanishing tracks and the continuous, hypnotic motion of the viewers and the people pushing them.
- Lundahl & Seitl’s Symphony of a Missing Room was a guided museum tour of Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery where the visitors depart on both a collective and an extremely personal journey. Via wireless headphones, a voice takes visitors, led by performers, on an itinerary that traverses layers of physical and imaginary architecture of the museum and its curatorial space.
2016 – 2023
In 2016, Aaron Wright became Artistic Director and the first festival under his leadership took place in 2017. He produced three editions of Fierce Festival as artistic director between 2017 and 2023, as well as Key to the City and Healing Gardens of Bab – both of which took place as part of Birmingham 2022 Festival. Aaron now works at London’s Southbank Centre as Head of Performance and Dance.
Highlights from Aaron’s programmes include:
Lord of the Flies (Coronation), Preach R Sun: US based performance artist-come-activist, Preach, presented a 12-hour duration performance which involved him lying in a clear coffin
before dragging it through the streets of Birmingham to the steps of the city museum. Incorporating a million flies, a Perspex coffin and rotting fruit, this work was one of Fierce’s most political and impactful performance art presentations.
The Making of Pinocchio by Cade and MacAskill: Commissioned by Fierce, Kampnagel, Tramway & Vooruit with support from Attenborough Centre of the Arts, Battersea Arts Centre and LIFT, Produced by Arts Admin, is a true tale of love and transition told through the story of Pinocchio. Set in a fictional film studio, audiences are invited to go behind the scenes of Cade & MacAskill’s creative process and their relationship, and question what it takes to tell your truth. It continues to tour extensively internationally.
Club Fierce: The Ho Down: a barn dance cum country fete, and Fierce’s biggest party ever. Tokyo fetish legend Saeborg’s performance Pig Pen took centre stage on the dancefloor, featuring a giant latex momma pig and her newly birthed humanoid piglets mingling with club-goers. The lineup also included performances by Zurich’s Soya the Cow (as seen on Germany’s The Voice); Margate’s queer country icons Pink Suits; London-based drag artist Dairy King; and Montreal’s Dulce Villano on the pole, complemented by local artist side-shows!
Healing Gardens of Bab: Princess, Picnic, Promenade: Presented in collaboration with Duckie, Princess, Picnic, Promenade was a highlight event of Healing Gardens of Bab – a 3 week programme of events which unfolded across the city during summer 2022. Featuring a mix of international and local artists – including Ginny Lemon, George Chakravarthi, Jaivant Patel, Bird la Bird, Krishna Istha, Kieron Jina, Francesca Millican-Slater, Ange Loft, Alaska B, EJ Scott and crazinisT artisT – this sell out 2 night takeover of the magical Botanical Gardens will go down in history as the best anti-Empire pikanik ever!
Key to the City: Paul Ramírez Jonas’s public realm project gave everyone the chance to award the Freedom of the City to whoever they wanted to. For 10 weeks this city-wide project gave away 15,000 keys unlocking 21 private and intriguing places and spaces that participants might not have seen before – bringing a new perspective to the city.
Ghost Writer and the Broken Hand Break, Miet Warlop: One of the sellout shows of our 2019 Festival, this astounding work saw 3 performers spin in circles for 45 minutes, making music live as they spun. This experiment in perception nearly broke the speakers, creating a communal dizzy feeling and offering a reflection on the spirit of our time.
The Team
Ethan Hudson
(he/they)
Executive Director
Ethan is a production manager, change-maker and consultant.
With 15 years of experience in theatre, dance and live art, he has delivered projects and festivals across the UK, Europe, Australia and Asia. These include memorable international works in Birmingham (BE Festival, On The Edge) and acclaimed international tours (ECHO by Nassim Soleimanpour, Of Riders and Running Horses by Dan Canham). As a consultant, Ethan has worked with venues, artists and organisations on large-scale funded projects including capital works, multi-year tour planning, and staff development programmes. He previously worked with Fierce as Production Manager on the UK tour of Paul Ramírez Jonas’ Public Trust. He is a proud Brummie, and is a part of the city’s growing co-operative movement.
Clayton Lee
(he/him)
Artistic Director
Clayton Lee is a Canadian curator, producer, and performance artist.
Clayton was the Director of the Rhubarb Festival – Canada’s longest-running festival of new and experimental performance – at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre from 2019 to 2023. Clayton was also the Curatorial Associate at the Luminato Festival and the Managing Producer of CanadaHub at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. His performance projects have been presented in venues across Canada, the United States, the UK, and New Zealand. He was one of the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Artists-in-Residence in 2023. As part of the Living Room Collective, he represented Canada at the 2025 Venice Biennale of Architecture.
Festival Team
Dan Brown
(he/him)
Fierce Festival Hub Producer
Daniel Brown is an award-winning event manager, producer, and programmer with over 10 years’ experience delivering large-scale events across the commercial, charitable, and creative sectors. Working with international, national and local artists, they are a passionate advocate for queer culture and community-led programming. Named one of IQ Magazine’s Top 25 Queer Live Music Pioneers and a recipient of an Outstanding Contribution to the LGBTQ+ Community award, they bring vision and innovation to every project.
Ruby Glaskin
(she/her)
Fierce Festival Producer
Ruby Glaskin is an independent producer specialising in queer performance, artist development & international exchange. She currently works as a consultant for Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council, leading their Swiss Connection UK programme designed to connect Swiss artists to the UK arts scene. Alongside this she produces London based artist Krishna Istha’s M:OTHERHOOD trilogy, which includes First Trimester (Battersea Arts Centre, Auckland Pride, IPAF Copenhagen, Project Arts & Dublin Fringe, Auawirleben Festival, Arts House & Melbourne Fringe) Second Trimester (BAC’s Making Waves Major Commision). Previously Ruby was co-founder & Executive Producer of Milk Presents, one of the UK’s leading queer performance companies. With Milk Presents, Ruby produced numerous national & international tours of award-winning queer theatre, artist development programmes, podcasts, club nights and advocacy & training. She also led In Good Company, the East Midlands flagship development programme, for four years and has previously produced for Annie Siddons, Offstage Theatre, Punchdrunk, Reed Woolley, Escalator East, Raze Collective, Scottee & Friends, London Artist Projects & The Living Theatre.
Former Fierce Team Members
Fierce was founded in 1997 and over the years we’ve had some brilliant team members come and go through our doors. Here’s a list of who worked on previous editions of the festival.
Fierce Festival 2024
Rachel Baker – Front of House (Softly/Tenderly), Joseph French – Production Manager, Pippa Frith – Director (Producing), Catherine Groom – Director (Operations), Clayton Lee – Director (Artistic), Poonam Maher – Volunteer Coordinator, Francesca Millican-Slater – Access Assistant, Demi Nandhra – Access Assistant, Rosa Simmonet – Front of House (Manual), Rebecca Welsh – Marketing & Ticketing Coordinator, Becky Woodcock – Event Producer, Leigh Wishart – Front of House (Twine). Documentors: Rachel Bunce & Manuel Vason. Design: Monnet Design & Jane Anderson. Video Trailer Production: Nicole Eveleigh.
Fierce Festival 2022
Mojere Ajayi – Assistant Curator, Will Amott – Artist Liaison, Dan Brown – Access Assistant, Katie Burchett – Production Coordinator, Robb Cartin – Production Manager, Pippa Frith – Executive Producer, Catherine Groom – General Manager, Rebecca Welsh – Marketing & Ticketing Coordinator, Tinisha Williams – Volunteer Coordinator, Aaron Wright – Artistic Director. Documentors: Rachel Bunce & Manuel Vason. Design: Kerry Leslie. Video Trailer Production: Nicole Eveleigh.
Healing Gardens of Bab 2022
Mojere Ajayi – Assistant Curator, Will Amott – Assistant Producer, Rachel Baker – Access Assistant, Nyasha Daley – Production Coordinator, Joseph French – Production Manager, Pippa Frith – Executive Producer, Catherine Groom – General Manager, Richard Hawley – Senior Producer, Hassan Hussain – Steering Group Member, Sym Mendez – Steering Group Member, Demi Nandhra – Access Assistant, Eric Scutaro – Steering Group Member, Bethany Steventon-Crinks – Steering Group Member, Patrick Vernon – Steering Group Member, Rebecca Welsh – Marketing & Ticketing Coordinator, Tinisha Williams – Assistant Producer, Aaron Wright – Artistic Director. Documentors: Ryan Charles, Shaun Evans, Kate Green, Trevor Price. Design: Kerry Leslie.
Key to the City 2022
Roisin Caffrey – Producer, Catriona Cork – Volunteer Coordinator, Touwa Craig-Dunn – Front of House, Jack Davies – Front of House, Pippa Frith – Executive Producer, Catherine Groom – General Manager, Kristina Hall – Assistant Producer, Richard Hawley – Project Manager, Lacey McFadyen – Front of House, Paul RamÍrez Jonas – Lead Artist, Rebecca Welsh – Marketing & Ticketing Coordinator, Tinisha Williams – Assistant Producer, Aaron Wright – Artistic Director. Documentors: Rachel Bunce, Hank and Margot. Design: An Endless Supply.
Fierce Festival 2019
Suriya Aisha – Fierce Lab Facilitator, Robb Cartin – Production Manager, Pippa Frith – Executive Producer, Catherine Groom – General Manager, Colleen Kleshie-Martin – Volunteer Coordinator, Harriet Maguire-Smith – Marketing & Ticketing Officer, Lucy Price – Artist Liaison, Becky Woodcock – Production Coordinator, Aaron Wright – Artistic Director. Documentors: Rachel Bunce & Manuel Vason. Design: An Endless Supply.
Fierce Festival 2017
Katy Baird – Volunteer Coordinator, Robb Cartin – Production Manager, Inès Elsa Dalal – Marketing Assistant, Pippa Frith – Producer, Catherine Groom – General Manager, Toni Lewis – Artist Liaison, Shekayla Maragh – Marketing Officer, Aaron Wright – Artistic Director. Documentors: Rachel Bunce & Manuel Vason. Design: An Endless Supply.
Fierce Festival 2015
Bek Berger – Assistant Producer, Ria Jones – Volunteer Coordinator, Julie Kim – Graphic Design and Brand Development, Toni Lewis – Producer & Communications Assistant, Laura McDermott – Joint Artistic Director, Harun Morrison – Joint Artistic Director, Joe Welden – Production Manager. Documentors: Meg Lavender & Kate Rowles.
Fierce Festival 2014
Kate Andrews – Marketing Coordinator, Sarah Hamilton-Baker – Volunteer Coordinator, Liz Howell – Projects Assistant, Julie Kim – Graphic Design and Brand Development, Laura McDermott – Joint Artistic Director, Harun Morrison – Joint Artistic Director, Joe Welden – Production Coordinator. Documentors: James Allen & Kate Rowles.
Fierce Festival 2013
Annabel Clarke – Marketing, Alastair Flindall – Production Assistant, Liz Howell – Production Assistant, Julie Kim – Graphic Design and Brand Development, Sadie Newman – Festival Coordinator, Laura McDermott – Joint Artistic Director, Anna Morris – Production Assistant, Harun Morrison – Joint Artistic Director, Nicole Shuchardt – Associate Festival Producer. Documentors: Kate Rowles & Katja Ogrin.
Fierce Festival 2012
Laura Coult – Festival Coordinator, Matthew Higginbottom – Production Manager, Julie Kim – Graphic Design and Brand Development, Nicola Lowery – Participation Coordinator, Amy Martin – Project Manager (Press Gang), Laura McDermott – Joint Artistic Director, Matthew Moore – Production Assistant, Harun Morrison – Joint Artistic Director, Lisa Newman – Project Manager (Gifts of the Spirit). Documentors: Kate Rowles & Jaskirt Dhaliwal.
Fierce Festival 2011
Angie Bual – Associate Producer, Julie Kim – Graphic Design and Brand Development, Nicola Lowery – Production Assistant, Simon McColl – Production Manager (EXYST), Laura McDermott – Joint Artistic Director, Anna Morris – Communications Assistant, Harun Morrison – Joint Artistic Director, Jigisha Patel – Associate Producer, Gareth Sumnall – Production Manager, Gemma Thomas – Trainee Producer
Fierce Team Members 1997 – 2009
Mark Ball, Helga Henry, Andrew Tims, Sindy Campbell, Anna Cook, Pippa Frith, Kevin Isaacs, Chris Keenan, Simon MacColl, Deborah Kermode, Anne-Maire Pope, Hildergarde Derby, Simon Pickthorne, José Forrest.
Work Placements
Fierce understands the importance of work experience to young people with ambitions to work in the arts and aims to provide placement opportunities that will support and develop the next generation of arts professionals.
In fitting with the ethos and vision of Fierce, we aim for all placements to be non-exploitative and open to young people from a range of backgrounds.
You can read blog posts here from James Deaville and Maud Haddon who were previously on placement at Fierce.
Click below to read our work placements policy.
Our Board
We are currently recruiting new members to our Board of Trustees, click to find out more.
Nolly Bouameur
(she/her)
Nolly Aicha Bouameur is a Marketing and Audience Manager at Factory International and has worked on marketing and audience development campaigns across Manchester International Festival and Factory International’s digital, engagement, training and employment programmes. In 2019 she played a key role in the festival campaign winning Best Tourism and Leisure at the Northern Marketing Awards. She has a strong interest in harnessing the power of data to drive strategic decisions across Audience Development and Marketing planning. She also is a graduate fellow of the Arts Marketing Association’s Audience Diversity Academy.
Paul Burns
(he/him)
Paul Burns is the Director of Arts at Creative Scotland. Paul has a broad range of experience in the UK arts sector having previously worked in arts policy, youth arts and in the hip-hop and grime music sectors. For the last 15 years he has worked in dance, initially as an independent producer before going onto lead the programming, producing and artist development activity of DanceXchange and International Dance Festival Birmingham for seven years. He has worked in senior leadership roles at a number of other UK dance organisations including Dance4, Greenwich Dance, The Place and Yorkshire Dance, and delivered his own projects as a freelance coach, mentor and dramaturg before joining Creative Scotland in 2018.
Becki Haines
(she/her)
Becki is COO with 59 Studio, a globally recognised story driven design company working across stage, stadiums, installation, exhibitions and public space. She has a track record working as an Executive Producer and arts finance specialist collaborating with artists to develop ambitious new ideas, pioneering creative programmes and creating resilient business and finance models for their work. She’s largely worked in installation, placemaking, performance in public space, and interaction design and many of her partnerships have been cross-sector and placing art in other industries. Alongside her work Becki is a Co-Director of the Total Theatre Network building advocacy and recognition for the independent performance sector and has co-run and chaired discussion for the Total Theatre Awards, a peer to peer awards process with over 50 people discussing 500 pieces of work at the Edinburgh Fringe, since 2012. Alongside her board role with Fierce Becki is a Trustee for MAYK and on the advisory board for Bert & Nasi. She is a fellow of the RSA.
Dr Hassan Hussain
(he/him)
Hassan is a writer, researcher, and facilitator. Having recently completed a PhD investigating the de/construction of gay men in contemporary British theatre, his practice explores the transformative effects of queer histories and lived experiences on present and future iterations of queer identities,
communities, and (sub)cultures.
As a proud Birmingham Bab, Hassan is particularly invested in situating his work within the city and has secured development funding from Arts Council England to redress the underrepresentation of queer South Asian voices in British playwriting. Moreover, his involvement in coordinating and producing a diverse array of research panels, festivals, and live-art events – primarily within Birmingham – further enriches his practice.
Mary Osborn
(she/her)
Over the past decade, Mary Osborn has built a reputation for bold international projects and programmes, supporting artists with trust, care, and dedication, and advocating for a more courageous contemporary performance sector. As Senior Creative Development Producer at Battersea Arts Centre, she shapes BAC’s Creative Development, overseeing commissions, productions, and artist development, including flagship initiatives like New Dimensions, Scene Change, and Bloom.
As a Creative Producer, Mary has collaborated closely with artists on significant projects such as the extensive four-year development of ‘The Making of Pinocchio’ with Rosana Cade and Ivor MacAskill, Ama Josephine Budge’s ‘The Apocalypse Reading Room’, and the vacuum cleaner’s ‘Art of a Culture of Hope’ and ‘Madlove Takeover’ as well as many others in her producing role at Artsadmin and independently. Her time
at Artsadmin also saw her developing artist support and the Toynbee Studios public programmes including ‘What Shall We Build Here’ festival of art, climate and community.
For many years, Mary co-led D.I.Y. radical performance platform Steakhouse Live, organising festivals and events including Tender Loin and the Slow Sunday festival of durational performance. Mary’s partnership with Danish curator Emma Møller has resulted in international programs for Wellcome Collection, Copenhagen Stages, and Warehouse9, including their own festival, ‘Bodies Beyond Borders’; and three years as Curators-in-Residence with City of Women festival in Ljubljana.
Former Fierce Board Members
Matthew Austin, Maria Balshaw, Tim Burley, Sindy Campbell, Geraldine Collinge, Christie Cremin, John Diviney, Helen Dyke, Elieen Evans, Stuart Griffiths, Tim Hodgson, Jamila Johnson-Small, Harpreet Kaur, Deborah Kermode, Dr Cath Lambert, Brian Lobel, Richard Moulton, Marianne Mulvey, Alan Rivett, Antonio Roberts, Sally Pennington, Alexandra Tomkinson, Sam Trotman, Jess Wolinski, Aaron Wright
Curatorial Policy
Fierce is a curated festival, which means there isn’t an open call for proposals. Programming decisions are led by Artistic Director Clayton Lee.
Fierce receives requests from artists all over the world for their work to be programmed at Fierce Festival. Being a biennial festival, Fierce has limited programming slots and so we’ve written this curatorial policy to help us define what it is we’re interested in, and hopefully make our curatorial process more transparent for artists and audiences.
If you are interested in performing at Fierce, please email clayton@wearefierce.org and include a description of your work and practice, along with video and images of your work.
Accountability
Accountability & Transparency at Fierce
This page was last revised 19/03/2025
Since its inception in 1997 Fierce has always been a fiercely political organisation. The first edition of Fierce was called Queerfest, but changed name in 1998 to better reflect its wider intersectional interests. Fierce has a history of championing a wide range of voices through its programme and its team. Notably, all four artistic directors in Fierce’s history were aged between 27 and 31 when starting the job and the senior management has always reflected a wide breadth of protected characteristics.
We value deep conversations, with artists, with audiences, with partners, with friends and with each other about things we really believe matter. We hope that Fierce can act as a space where we can all dream up potential new futures together.
We first published this page in 2020, a year which exposed huge levels of inequity in our society and saw numerous struggles for liberation reach mainstream conversation all whilst capitalism desperately clung onto its desire to maintain the white supremacist, patriarchal and able-bodied status quo. Our thinking here was informed by numerous different discourses and events and this list continues to grow:
- COVID-19, the inequality it has exposed and the damage it has done to the arts & cultural sector
- The 2020 Black Lives Matters uprising (and from this deeply embedded institutional racism across much of the arts)
- The current trans and non-binary revolution and unrelenting attempts to derail this.
- The disability rights movement, including the We Shall Not Be Removed principles from the UK Disability Arts Alliance, as well as our own thoughts and experiences around access, and how we can make things better for others
- Decolonisation, denial of Britain’s history and the necessity to decolonise our society, our institutions and our curating practices.
- Equity, Advantage and class privilege – our relationship and feelings about this
- The work of First Nations and Indigenous artists and land acknowledgement (particularly in light of the Mayflower anniversary)
- Ongoing internal conversations about our own working culture and a desire to develop structures that work better for us as a team
- In 2022, when we worked with more freelancers than ever before, listening to the voices of those freelancers and reacting to their concerns around freelance rights and rates
- Working with a Steering Group on the Healing Gardens of Bab, bringing different perspectives into the organisation and devolving programming power
- Explorations into horizontal and collaborative leadership models which has led us to develop a model with three Co-Directors
- Calls for a universal basic income
- Widespread calls for greater transparency and accountability across the arts and culture sector
- Updating our recruitment processes
- Fierce turning 25 – acknowledging our status as an institution and celebrating/sharing Fierce’s history
- The election of far-right leaders internationally and the impact of this on marginalised peoples
- Witnessing global violence and acknowledging the impact of trauma this has
We continue to engage in wider dialogue on all of these topics.
We acknowledge that there will always be more to do, and want to ensure 2020 was a catalyst for permanent change. We want to be the best version of Fierce possible, and ensure our own integrity. We’re not looking for a way to ‘complete’ this work (we don’t really think anyone can), but we want to get better at sharing the work we’re doing, and be more public about it, so people can dig into it, ask us questions, offer ideas, raise challenges and have conversations. We hope there’s a value to this being in the public domain and welcome conversation and questions on these thoughts. The Fierce team can be reached via email. We will update this page every six months.
Fierce Representational Statistics
In response to calls for organisations to publish information about their staff and programme makeup we hesitantly publish the following statistics. Hesitantly, because we are wary of reducing people to a series of tick boxes – no one is a tick box, but we think there is some value in doing this. The statistics have been gathered from anonymous staff monitoring forms and gathered from self published artist information in the public domain.
These figures include the core team (currently 4 people) and freelancers working across all our projects who are under contract at the time of publishing updates. This includes in 2022 Key to the City and the Healing Gardens of Bab as well as the festivals in 2022, 2019 and 2017. Future recruitment will focus on building a team that better embodies the disparate population of Birmingham and the communities we represent through our programming.
Fierce Festival Staff Team
| Protected Characteristic | Representation Percentage 2024 | Representation Percentage Autumn 2023 | Representation Percentage Spring 2023 | Representation Percentage 2022 | Representation Percentage 2021 | Representation Percentage 2019 | Representation Percentage 2017 |
| Women Team Members | 75% | 75% | 80% | 75% | 80% | 78% | 78% |
| Team Members who are ethnically and culturally diverse, and who experience racism in our society | 37.5% | 25% | 20% | 25% | 40% | 22% | 22% |
| Disabled Team Members | 25% | 25% | 20% | 25% | 60% | 33% | 33% |
| Queer Team Members | 50% | 75% | 80% | 50% | 80% | 44% | 44% |
| Trans Team Members | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
Fierce programmed artists
| Protected Characteristic | Representation Percentage 2024 | Representation Percentage 2022 | Representation Percentage 2019 | Representation Percentage 2017 |
| Women Artists | 55% | 44% | 52% | 46% |
| Artists who are ethnically and culturally diverse, and who experience racism in our society | 57% | 53% | 30% | 26% |
| Disabled Artists | 15% | 18% | 12% | 9% |
| Queer Artists | 64% | 77% | 49% | 56% |
| Trans Artists | 13% | 14% | 11% | 16% |
Artists on Fierce development programmes
| Protected Characteristic | Fierce LAB 2022 & 2024* | Fierce LAB 2019 | Fierce FWD 2019 |
| Women Artists | – | 67% | 71% |
| Artists who are ethnically and culturally diverse, and who experience racism in our society | 100% | 100% | 43% |
| Disabled Artists | – | 33% | 29% |
| Queer Artists | – | 50% | 57% |
| Trans Artists | – | 17% | 14% |
Current Action Points
We have generated this list of short, mid and long term aims regarding our work in this area with the intention of holding ourselves accountable ensuring necessary changes do happen. The final section includes things we have already actioned so you can see the work we have already done.
Short-term
- Interrogate our current commitment and track record of representation within our programme in relation to the make-up of the geographic location we live and work in, and make changes where required
This is an ongoing action: as of 2021, the population of Birmingham who are ethnically and culturally diverse and who experience racism in our society is 51%; from 2019 – 2022 we increased the representation of artists defining this way from 30% – 53% to reflect this. We have also increased the representation of artists with disabilities, however nationally this is 22% of the population so arguably, this needs to increase further.
- A continued commitment to open listening / making ourselves available – so people feel able to challenge us easily, always.
This is an ongoing action: the emails for every member of the team are available on the website and when we have opportunities including recruitment and artist open calls, we offer informal conversations and provide specific contact details for these. The Director (Artistic) offered local people the opportunity to meet with him as part of his work to get acquainted with the city and its people.
Mid-term
- Embed anti-racist approaches throughout, taking the approach of Accomplices:
- Working behind the scenes to create change
- Treating this work as a state of being, acting and practicing
- Keep our focus on the goal we’re working towards
- Finding ways to relinquish power
This is an ongoing action.
- Work with our partners and stakeholders to challenge them and have difficult and courageous conversations where we think they’re needed
This is an ongoing action.
- All Fierce team members to explore our own unconscious bias and whether training in this area could be useful.
- Continue to work with service providers/suppliers for Fierce contracts that are either Black, of African or Caribbean heritage, or Asian led OR can evidence strong anti-racist policy/thinking.
During 2022 we successfully made new relationships with more ethnically diverse providers and suppliers, notably documentors and designers and gave work to people we will work with again.
- Explore becoming a Disability Confident organisation and work to achieve this.
Fierce has registered for the Disability Confident Committed tier of this scheme which requires us to review recruitment practices and offer student placements to support disabled people wanting to work in the sector. We will continue to review our practices and explore steps to reaching the next tier of this scheme.
- Explore more ethical options for banking to move away from the ‘Big Five’.
Following extensive research into different banking options, we will be moving to a new bank that is better suited to our needs and values.
- Explore ways of measuring and sharing our environmental impact to increase our accountability for this, potentially by benchmarking and sharing best practice with similar organisations.
Long-term
- Develop leadership succession plans and (public) timelines that help ensure those that come after us bring different and diverse voices to our own, continuing Fierce’s history of evolving staff representation.
- Explore implementing fixed term contracts on certain Fierce staff positions so more voices get to take on leadership roles.
Completed
- Add full workforce history of Fierce to the website, allowing people to understand the full life and journey of the company, the people and voices who have shaped us over the years, and the careers we have contributed to and ensuring everyone is credited for their work
Details about the current team and lists of former team members can be found on our website here.
- Publish stats about the make-up of our workforce and artists we work with in relation to protected characteristic
This information is published on the Accountability page of our website and will be updated at relevant moments to encompass changes and programmes.
- Interrogate and improve our recruitment process to ensure it is as accessible as it can be, this is likely to include (but not be limited to):
- Applications in a range of formats (Audio, film, writing)
- Offering meetings with senior team to potential applicants who want toknow more about our position on specific issues (i.e. Black LivesMatters, Trans Rights) before applying
- Remove higher education qualifying criteria
- Send interview questions to applicants in advance
- Remove educational questions from the process
- Actively encouraging access documents / statements at the point ofadvertising
- Research relevant unions for Fierce, and encourage all staff to join
As recipients of a Weston Jerwood Creative Bursary, the Fierce team took part in a programme of organisational development that allowed us the time and space to interrogate our recruitment practices and enact changes that have improved accessibility. Feedback from two recent rounds of recruitment, including for this Bursary position, has been overwhelmingly positive thanks to these changes. You can read our Recruitment Policy here and our Working Culture statement here.
- Explore publishing team salaries on our website so the public can understand percentages of public money spent on team salaries
In response to the Pull Up or Shut Up campaign, the team discussed publishing our salaries on the website, but decided that, as no one at Fierce earns over £40,000 per year, there is not a concern that public money is being wasted or misspent in terms of salaries. We work with our Board to explore salary bandings and ensure that everyone at Fierce is paid fairly with salaries benchmarked against similar roles in the region.
- Publish the story of Fierce, how it began life as Queerfest, how it led notions of intersectional programming before intersectional was a word, how it has a history of exploring ideas of community / audience led programme ahead of its time (e.g. My Fierce Festival)
The story of Fierce can be found on our website, here.
- Improve our complaints procedures / policy – ensure equality measures and routes to challenge are embedded throughout all policy work
Our Complaints Policy and Procedure and our Grievance Policy and Procedure have both been updated to reflect our work on anti-racism and equality; we continue to take this into account as we review, renew and (re)write policies.
- Eliminate the use of abbreviations like BAME within the organisation
As we have renewed our policies and procedures, we have considered our language carefully and ensured that abbreviations like BAME have been removed. These terms are not used in any of our comms, either internal or external or when talking about our work or the organisations to funders, including Arts Council England.
Develop policies around staff mental health and well-being.
Fierce Policies
As part of this work, we have (re)developed several policies, many of which are internal but many of which are relevant to people who interact with Fierce as audiences, artists, and potential employees and partners. We share these policies below, acknowledging that this is not a complete list and that we review policies regularly with input from the whole team.
Together with our friends and colleagues at Geese Theatre Company, MAIA, Open Theatre, Ort Gallery and Talking Birds (all small – and brilliant – arts organisations in the Midlands), we’ve created a Toolkit for Ethical Fundraising through a series of frank, and sometimes uncomfortable, conversations over a number of months.
This toolkit is our attempt to make decisions about whether or not to apply for or accept funding easier for ourselves and others in the future, and it is available for free for anyone to download and use.
Fierce and Birmingham 2022 Festival
In 2022 Birmingham hosted the Commonwealth Games. This was one of the largest events ever to have taken place in Birmingham. Alongside the games was a programme of culture under the banner of the Birmingham 2022 Festival. As Fierce produced a number of projects within the context of Birmingham 2022 Festival we wanted to make clear that we understand the ethics of working within this context is difficult, at best.
Commonwealth is inherently bound up with Britain’s colonial past and present. Commonwealth is a tangible, official legacy of colonialism. Countless violent and abhorrent acts were committed in its name. Therefore we had to pause and reflect deeply before working with the Birmingham 2022 Festival. In engaging with the Birmingham 2022 Festival we do so from a place of criticality. We understand the wide range of opinions on whether to engage with this artistic context and think it is important that people adopt numerous different positions and approaches to dealing with this legacy. We have supported friends, colleagues, artists and audiences taking different critical positions and approaches.
We encourage people to read about Commonwealth’s history. We welcome debate and disagreement with our position and are happy to have conversations about this. If you would like to speak to Fierce about any of these issues the team can be reached via their contact emails on the ‘About Us’ section of the website.
Matthew Austin, Maria Balshaw, Tim Burley, Sindy Campbell, Geraldine Collinge, Christie Cremin, John Diviney, Helen Dyke, Elieen Evans, Stuart Griffiths, Tim Hodgson, Jamila Johnson-Small, Harpreet Kaur, Deborah Kermode, Dr Cath Lambert, Brian Lobel, Richard Moulton, Marianne Mulvey, Alan Rivett, Antonio Roberts, Sally Pennington, Alexandra Tomkinson, Sam Trotman, Jess Wolinski, Aaron Wright