Simeilia Hodge-Dallaway
As I sit at my laptop to write a blog in celebration of Ardent’s 10th anniversary, I wonder what the next ten years will bring for you, for the arts, and for the world. If history has taught us anything, it would be innovation, evolution and greatness can derive from the bleakest moments and even the world’s greatest atrocities. I look back at the last ten years and silently think that we were all consciously or unconsciously preparing for some type of seismic change – we just could have never predicted that it would come at the same time as the coronavirus pandemic and the height of the Black Lives Matter Movement.
Ironically, ten years ago, my first monologue anthology for black actors was published by Oberon Books (The Oberon Book of Monologues for Black Actors: Classical and Contemporary Speeches from Black British Plays) which inspired the workshop that I facilitated for Ardent in 2016, and now as I sit looking at my bookshelf, my eyes are drawn to one of the two books that I co-edited during the pandemic: ‘Beyond The Canon’s Plays for Young Activists: Three Plays by Women from the Global Majority’ – I contemplate if my Beyond The Canon producer, Sarudzayi Marufu and I would have ever written a book calling on young British activists, pre-pandemic? Maybe? Maybe not? But what I do know, is the book was inspired by the gumption, boldness and fearlessness of the many young actors who were challenging the status quo both onstage and offstage in ways that was daring and unapologetic. I loved reading the 99-page anti-racism action plan written by a group of actors who used their agency and voice to call out the racism that was taking place in drama schools across the UK. I equally loved discovering that in America, a new collective of theatre-makers formed together to write the manifesto titled ‘We See You White American Theatre’ to provide the industry with principles for building anti-racist theatre systems.
“WHAT DO WE WANT, CHANGE, WHEN DO WE WANT IT, NOW!” With Artists fighting back in record breaking numbers across the globe, racism and inequality no longer have a hiding place in the arts industry. Over the last ten years we have witnessed the world shift into a more transparent, accessible, equitable and politically conscious place.
But the work is far from over.
So, what does the next ten years look like?
As Nelson Mandela says “It’s in your hands”.
Simeilia Hodge-Dallaway
Award-winning Arts Leader and Director
Founder & CEO, Beyond The Canon Ltd
Founder & Former CEO, Artistic Directors of the Future
Co-Founder & Former Executive/Creative Producer, Black Lives Black Words International Project
Listed in Who's Who Publication: The standard, up-to-date source book of information on people of influence and interest in all fields.
Listed in The Stage Newspaper Top 100 Power List, 2017-present.
Winner of The Stage: Innovation Award 2020 for designing and producing ADF's board diversity initiatives.
Named TED and GOGGLE: Emerging Innovator 2019.
Listed in the London Evening Standard The Progress 1000: London's most influential people 2018 - Performance: Theatre.
Recent film project(s): Award-winning Feature Film: Ride Share by Reginald Edmund, Directed and Executive Produced by Simeilia Hodge-Dallaway, in partnership with Black Lives Black Words and Writers Theatre