Kunle Animashaun - Theatre Artist in Residence 2023

Draíocht is delighted to announce Dr. Kunle Animashaun as a 2023 Theatre Artist in Residence.

Animashaun has more than twenty years of experience in the Irish Theatre landscape and has resided in the Dublin 15 area for that time. He is a theatre director, dramaturg, workshop facilitator and researcher. As part of his Draíocht Residency, Animashaun will engage with groups/organisations in Dublin 15 to explore ideas about intercultural awareness and understanding, diversity, inclusion and cultural competency within the community.

If your group or organisation is located in Dublin 15 and interested in hearing more about this Residency with a view to taking part, please contact Emer McGowan on emer@draiocht.ie or on phone number 8098027.

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Dr Kunle Animashaun has a first-class Master’s Degree from University College Dublin. He obtained his doctorate in drama at Trinity College, Dublin where he currently lectures on an adjunct basis. He is the Artistic Director of Camino Productions, an Irish/African Theatre Company based in Dublin. Animashaun and Camino’s work includes creating devised work and staging plays by African playwrights. Devised work includes Fragments (Rua Red Theatre, Tallaght, 2014), a verbatim documentary theatre piece created with participants from the Intercultural Drop-in Centre in Tallaght. He’s also written a number of new plays such as Pitfalls (2008), and Drumbeats (2012). Directing work includes plays such as Zulu Sofola’s Wedlock of the Gods (Project Cube, 2007) - a postcolonial play by one of Nigeria’s most influential playwrights.

In 2013, Animashaun was awarded the Samuel Beckett studentship award by Jimmy Deenihan, TD Minister for Arts, Heritage & Gaeltacht. He was Artist in Residence at Tallaght Community Arts in 2014. He is the author of ‘Stand-up comedy in a multicultural setting: Between a raw nerve and a funny bone’ edited by Eric Weitz in 2014 and published in 'For the sake of sanity : doing things with humour in Irish performance' by Eric Weitz. Animashaun’s work is collaborative in nature and has been described as interculturalism-from-below in terms of its’ potential to engender intercultural dialogue and enrich socio-cultural discourse.

Kunle Animashaun is also an essayist and theatre academic, with a number of published articles to his name on intercultural theatre.

Kunle Animashaun’s Theatre Artist Residency in Draíocht is supported by The Arts Council, with additional funding provided by Fingal County Council and Draíocht.