Best Makeshift Company Podcasts (2024)

1
Ballet Macabre - Duality 1:30:37

10M ago1:30:37

1:30:37

Our ballet horror movie mash up podcast, continues with BLACK SWAN (2010) and US (2019). In this final instalment of Ballet Macabre we're looking at Duality. To start off, host Emma Lister and guests Amber Hunt and Rose Martin give their insights as professional dancers on what is likely the best known film in this mini genre, Darren Aronofsky’s Bl…

1
Ballet Macabre - Innocence 44:55

10M ago44:55

44:55

This one is hot off the presses! Just as I was about to release the final episode in our mini series, Lucile Hadžihalilović 's award winning INNOCENCE (2004) was made available to stream. I had trouble tracking it down in my early research, and when I finally watched it I knew I had to include it. Its oblique plot follows a year at a mysterious all…

1
Ballet Macabre - Pain 1:29:57

10M ago1:29:57

1:29:57

BALLET MACABRE continues with SUSPIRIA (1977) and AUDITION (1999) as Emma Lister, long time film lover, podcast host and ballet dancer guides us down the dark hallway that is the use of ballet in horror movies. In this, the second episode in our mini series, we have the theme of pain linking our film pairing: Guests Richard Bermange and Nandita Sha…

1
Ballet Macabre - The Chosen One 1:27:34

10M ago1:27:34

1:27:34

We start our mini series with THE RED SHOES (1948) and SUSPIRIA (2018) as Emma Lister, long time film lover, podcast host and ballet dancer guides us down the dark hallway that is the use of ballet in horror movies. Guests Zoe Ashe-Browne and Diarmaid O'Meara join to give their insights as professional dancers and amateur cineasts on perhaps the fo…

1
Roopa Mahadevan | Vocalist/Composer 43:48

11M ago43:48

43:48

Hailed a “stirring voice” by the New York Times, Roopa Mahadevan is a leading second-generation Indian classical and crossover vocalist in the American diaspora known for her collaborative spirit. She leads the crossover ensemble Roopa in Flux, where she works with musicians in jazz, soul/R&B, and various global traditions, directs the innovative c…

1
Gavin Sutherland | Conductor 41:51

11M ago41:51

41:51

Gavin Sutherland is a conductor, composer and orchestrator who specials in dance—he’s conducted for Northern Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Royal New Zealand Ballet, Norwegian and Finnish National Ballet as well as English National Ballet where he is principal guest conductor. He and Emma discuss his career as a conductor that starting aged 18, h…

1
Charlotte Maclet | First Violinist 40:23

11M ago40:23

40:23

Charlotte Maclet is an award winning violinist who first performed a Mendelssohn concerto at age nine! She has performed as a soloist in her native France and abroad. She led the acclaimed quartet Camerata Alma Viva and is now first violinist for Zaïde Quartet. She and Emma discuss her recent recording with Zaïde, Invisible, which places the music …

1
Andrew Mellor | Music Critic 45:13

11M ago45:13

45:13

Andrew Mellor is a journalist and critic. He has written about music, architecture, design, and cultural politics for publications around the world and is a critic for Gramophone and the Financial Times. He and Emma chat about his new book The Northern Silence, why it might be too late for meaningful access to classical music in Britain--especially…

1
Ballet Taboo - Pregnancy & Parenthood 1:19:00

1+ y ago1:19:00

1:19:00

In this, the last episode of our miniseries, Emma Lister and Amy Drew are joined by choreographer Morgann Runacre-Temple and dancer/teacher Senri Kou to discuss how being pregnant and having a child fits (or doesn’t fit) into the dance sector. We talk morning sickness during a show of Sleeping Beauty, the physical and hormonal changes of pregnancy,…

1
Ballet Taboo - Cancel Culture Part II 1:07:44

1+ y ago1:07:44

1:07:44

This week hosts Emma Lister, Amy Drew and Matthew Paluch continue their discussion of the phenomenon of “cancel culture” in the ballet and dance world. Please do listen to Part I first if you haven't! Where does the term 'cancel culture' come from, what are the mechanisms at work? How does it apply to ballet? What about calls to reclaim it as 'acco…

1
Ballet Taboo - Cancel Culture Part I 59:22

1+ y ago59:22

59:22

This week, in part I, host Emma Lister and Matthew Paluch discuss the phenomenon of 'cancel culture' in the ballet and dance world. Where does this term come from and what are the mechanisms at work? How does it apply to ballet? What about calls to reclaim it as 'accountability culture'? We will be discussing the recent instances of 'cancelling' Th…

1
Ballet Taboo - Periods 1:12:55

1+ y ago1:12:55

1:12:55

Welcome to our new mini series! We’re talking about things that historically have been taboo to discuss in ballet. In episode one, host Emma Lister is joined by series co-host Amy Drew, they dissect what’s taboo about menstrual cycles in the context of ballet and get great advice and information from Dr Nicky Keay, Dr Stephanie Potreck and Julianne…

1
Jessica Hung Han Yun | Lighting Designer 43:08

2y ago43:08

43:08

Lighting designer Jessica Hung Han Yun won a Knight of Illumination Award for Equus at Stratford East when she was just 24. She’s since worked at the National Theatre, Donmar Warehouse, Rambert2, The Royal Court, and she has also designed lights for the revered theatre company Complicité and director Nicholas Hytner. Her upcoming work on RSC's My N…

1
Anders Duckworth | Choreographer 40:25

2y ago40:25

40:25

Anders Duckworth is a British/Swedish choreographer. With training in both design and dance, their work blurs movement, fashion and visual arts. Constantly seeking new collaborations, they have choreographed for short film, installations, and theatrical pieces. Anders was selected as a Work Place Artist at The Place in London until 2026. In this in…

1
Nicholas Thayer | Composer 45:25

2y ago45:25

45:25

Nicholas Thayer is a London-born, Netherlands-based composer, producer and inter-disciplinary artist. His electronic and new classical work has been composed for dance pieces, gallery installations and site specific work. He and Emma discuss Entropy, a lockdown collaboration for Ballet Zurich that has finally been performed live on stage and the al…

1
Yann Seabra | Stage Designer 43:16

2y ago43:16

43:16

Yann Seabra is a stage designer whose work has been sought after by companies such as The Royal Opera House, San Francisco Ballet, Circa, Ballet Black and Protein Dance company. He and Emma discuss the tutu he designed with 5000 Swarovski crystals on it for Cira Robinson, why he loves a 70s silhouette, his long time collaboration with choreographer…

1
Alesandra Seutin | Choreographer 33:53

2y ago33:53

33:53

Alesandra Seutin is an award-winning multidisciplinary performance artist and choreographer who works internationally between Senegal, Belgium and the UK. She leads two international touring dance performance companies: Vocab Dance which she founded 2007 and she is also Co-Artistic Director of the famed École des Sables. Alesandra is an artistic ad…

1
Irish Women Making Dance - The Roundtable Pt 2 1:05:46

2+ y ago1:05:46

1:05:46

Last week’s episode circled around the taboo of motherhood in the dance world, the lack of a full time company in Ireland and the question of why there is comparatively so many women making dance work in Ireland. We’ll be following up and expanding on all these topics in this week’s episode. In this series we’ll be interviewing Irish women making d…

1
Irish Women Making Dance - The Roundtable Pt 1 1:09:09

2+ y ago1:09:09

1:09:09

What do you think of when you think of Ireland? The Emerald Isle, Guinness, Oscar Wilde and Riverdance? What about women making dance? Because this tiny island turns out loads of them--just over 80% of recent dance bursary awardees were for women making work. In a time when the dance world is confronting the predominance of men in roles of leadersh…

1
Irish Women Making Dance - The Introduction 25:57

2+ y ago25:57

25:57

Ahead of our first roundtable discussion with six women making dance in Ireland, Emma Lister and cohost Zoë Ashe-Browne give a (tiny) bit of Irish history and pose the driving question of this new mini series: In a time when the conversation in dance often turns to the predominance of men in roles of leadership, why are there so many women choreogr…

1
Dolly Brown⎪Photographer 42:01

3y ago42:01

42:01

Dolly Brown is a photographer who specialises in documenting art and artists. She may be best known as her Instagram alterego: @londonlivingdoll. She's worked with The Royal Ballet, Barbican, Tate Modern, Trisha Brown Dance Company, BalletBoyz, Mark Morris Dance Group among many others and has exhibited in the London galleries such as Mother, Plint…

1
Kalle Nio ⎪Magician/Visual Artist 45:59

3y ago45:59

45:59

Kalle Nio is a magician and visual artist based in Finland. He is co-drector/founder of the theatre company WHS and the recipient of numerous awards including the Finnish state prize for Multidisciplinary Art and the Helsinki Cultural Prize. In this episode he and host Emma Lister discuss Lähtö (Départ), a beautiful, uncategorizable theatre piece w…

1
Dance in the Time of Corona - Dancers in the Balance 1:02:01

3y ago1:02:01

1:02:01

In the final episode of our three part miniseries, we zoom in to meet three dancers. They are all at different stages of their careers and their lives have been affected in different ways by the pandemic: GEAROID: 18 months into his professional career he is leaving his company job in Zurich. But, with the pandemic looming it is not the ideal time …

1
Dance in the Time of Corona - Dancers' Mental Health During the Pandemic 1:03:09

3y ago1:03:09

1:03:09

The last 18 months have been a trying time for everyone’s mental health. But how have dancers been uniquely affected? A group of artists whose lives and identities are notoriously tied up in training and career—what happened when the theatres went dark and the studios fell silent? Through interviews with a range of dancers, host Emma Lister explore…

1
Dance in the Time of Corona - Pay Your Dancers 1:03:39

3y ago1:03:39

1:03:39

In this, the first episode of our mini-series Dance in the Time of Corona, Emma Lister is joined by cohosts Zoë Ashe-Browne and Shelby Williams. They reveal the results of a survey they conducted after the controversial Venice Biennale College Danza audition call and the ensuing movement: #payyourdancers. The survey was open to ALL professional dan…

1
Adrian Berry⎪Artistic Director of Jacksons Lane 34:32

3y ago34:32

34:32

Adrian Berry is Artistic Director of the UK's leading circus and arts centre, Jacksons Lane. He is also a producer, writer and director and wrote and directed the successful stage play From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads, which toured the UK racking up 143 shows and has recently been released as a spoken word album on iTunes. He spoke to Emma from a N…

1
Stina Quagebeur ⎪ Associate Choreographer, English National Ballet 35:31

3y ago35:31

35:31

Stina Quagebeur is the associate choreographer and a first artist at English National Ballet. Nora, her first mainstage choreographic work for ENB, was based on Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House and premiered at Sadler's Wells in 2019. Since then she has been choreographing steadily for the company; most recently the duet Hollow and the raucous Take Fi…

1
Manjinder Virk⎪Actor/Director 39:55

3y ago39:55

39:55

Manjinder Virk is an actor, writer and director. As an actor she can currently be seen on The Beast Must Die with Jared Harris and Cush Jumbo on Britbox, and is shooting Jed Mercurio’s Trigger Point for ITV. On film she stars in the documentary The Arbor, for which she received acting nominations from the BFI and British Independent Film Awards. As…

1
MOVERS SHAKERS MAKERS Season 3 Trailer 1:00

3y ago1:00

1:00

Season 3 of MOVERS SHAKERS MAKERS is out now! Featuring a new set of interviews with fascinating artists and the mini-series: DANCE IN THE TIME OF CORONA. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen... www.makeshiftcompany.comBy Makeshift Company

1
Alice Williamson ⎪Artist 36:11

3+ y ago36:11

36:11

In the last episode of series 2, Emma talks to Alice Williamson--a difficult artist to categorise. Essentially, she works with movement and design, be it making costumes or dancewear for her label Designed by Alice, her photography and illustrative work, toy design, research on 'skin hunger' or her collaboration with Dr. Merrit Moore combining robo…

1
Sean Gandini ⎢ Juggler 41:14

3+ y ago41:14

41:14

Juggler Sean Gandini and his partner Kati Ylä-Hokkala have built one of the UK’s most successful contemporary circus companies: Gandini Juggling. Gandini has directed multiple full length circus pieces: Spring, 4x4: Ephemeral Architectures, Sigma and of course Smashed, their Pina Bausch inspired mega-hit that has toured the world. He also has the O…

1
Ballet for the 21st Century - Boys Dance Too 1:04:25

3+ y ago1:04:25

1:04:25

Why is the bullying of boys who want to take ballet so persistent? Emma Lister seeks to answer this question and why their love of dance is often defended with the usual football comparison/"real men lift women" trope. In the final episode of of our mini-series, Ballet for the Twenty-first Century, we'll open up topics such as: body image, casting,…

1
Ballet for the 21st Century - Orientalism and Ballet 45:28

3+ y ago45:28

45:28

In this episode of MOVERS SHAKERS MAKERS mini-series, Ballet for the Twenty-first Century, Emma Lister and guest Phil Chan discuss his first book Final Bow for Yellowface: Dancing Between Intention and Impact, and his upcoming work, Shades of the Orient, in which Chan supports his claim that Orientalism is one of the major pillars of classical ball…

1
Ballet for the 21st Century - Ballet and Mental Health - The Survey Pt II 42:02

3+ y ago42:02

42:02

In part II of our episode on mental health and the classically trained ballet dancer, Emma Lister talks to counsellor (and ex-dancer) Terry Hyde. They discuss the symptoms and triggers of panic attacks and depression, the loss of identity that plagues dancers when they leave the profession and the danger of pushing your feelings away. Terry also sp…

1
Ballet for the 21st Century - Ballet and Mental Health - The Survey Pt I 1:00:08

3+ y ago1:00:08

1:00:08

Emma Lister and cohost Zoë Ashe-Browne released a 30 question survey about ballet dancers' mental health. They never expected the response it got--hundreds of classically trained dancers filled it out. This is obviously a topic we need to talk about! In this, the first episode of MOVERS SHAKERS MAKERS ballet mini-series, they reveal some of the sta…

1
Piers Harrison-Reid ⎪Performance Poet 42:10

3+ y ago42:10

42:10

Performance poet, Piers Harrison-Reid rose to national visibility with a poem that bridged two of the UK’s greatest institutions: The National Health Services and the BBC. The poem Love is for the Brave, an ode to the NHS was commissioned by the BBC and has garnered a million views and counting across various platforms. With roots in hip hop, dub a…

1
Monique Jonas ⎢ Dancer/Choreographer 36:55

3+ y ago36:55

36:55

Monique Jonas is still only at the beginning of her dance career and she’s already worked with Rambert Dance, Kim Brandstrup, New Adventures and Richard Alston Dance Company. Not only that, but she’s also started her own company-- Jona Dance Company . She talks to Emma Lister about how aged 6 a twist of fate introduced her to dance, the frustration…

1
Kellie Shirley⎪Actor 36:30

3+ y ago36:30

36:30

Kellie Shirley knows about the highs and lows of being an actor in Britain. She chats to Emma Lister about resisting early pressure to shed her accent, her big break in a film that no one saw and how she "went back to square one" before landing a dream job. Fame came knocking in the 00's with a reoccurring role on Britain's beloved soap, Eastenders…

1
MOVERS SHAKERS MAKERS Season 2 Trailer 0:56

3+ y ago0:56

0:56

We're back for a second season with more fascinating chats with artists! Mid-season we also have our first mini-series: Ballet for the Twenty First Century. We'll be doing a deep dive on three issues in ballet that need updating. This season of MOVERS SHAKERS MAKERS has been made possible by grants from the Norfolk Arts Project Fund and using publi…

1
Rhoda Ofori-Attah ⎢ Actor 32:07

4y ago32:07

32:07

In the last episode of our inaugural season Emma Lister speaks to actor Rhoda Ofori-Attah. Born in Ghana but raised in the UK, Rhoda trained at the Oxford School of Drama. Some of her credits include: The Bill (ITV), Coronation Street (ITV), Silent Witness (BBC), Cold Feet (ITV) and Informer (BBC) among many others. She plays Miss Griffiths in the …

1
Sakari Männistö ⎢ Circus Artist 32:58

4y ago32:58

32:58

Finnish circus artist Sakari Männistö is a performer recognised for his innovative, technical juggling. In this week’s podcast, he and Emma Lister discuss the solitary nature of juggling practice, his most memorable performance and what he did when he lost all the footage during the making of his cult video Juggle Doll (with no back up)! They also …

1
Gabriela Muñoz ⎢ Chula the Clown 35:02

4y ago35:02

35:02

As ‘Chula the Clown’, Gabriela Muñoz has performed all over the world with her hit show Perhaps, Perhaps, Quizas. She discusses it and why ten years on she felt ready to make her newest show, DIRT! She also discusses her work with charitable organisations that bring laughter and clown workshops to areas of conflict, and how her interactions with th…

1
Guy Hoare ⎢ Lighting Designer 35:29

4y ago35:29

35:29

Emma speaks to Guy Hoare, the British lighting designer whose striking work has appeared at the Royal Opera House, Sadler’s Wells, The Old Vic, Donmar Warehouse and many other world-famous stages. They discuss how he sees lighting as an extension of dramaturgy, the creativity of science and how he shaped the light for Arthur Pita’s The Metamorphosi…

1
Seeta Patel ⎢ Bharatanatyam dancer/choreographer 35:04

4y ago35:04

35:04

Seeta Patel talks to Emma Lister about her new Bharatanatyam Rite of Spring, and why she can be nervous when starting a new project. The classical Indian dancer is not one to shy away from tough topics; in the wake of George Floyd's death she discusses the duty of the artist to react to world events. Seeta's Website: www.seetapatel.co.uk Seeta's Tw…

1
Zoë Ashe-Browne ⎢ Choreographer 29:07

4y ago29:07

29:07

In the first episode of series one host Emma Lister talks to classically trained dancer Zoë Ashe-Browne, currently an artist at the Royal Ballet of Flanders. They discuss her choreography for that company and The National Ballet of Ireland, the possible limitations of classical companies for the creative individual and the flaws of hiring ballet st…

1
MOVERS SHAKERS MAKERS Trailer 0:52

4y ago0:52

0:52

MOVERS SHAKERS MAKERS is the podcast all about the creative mind and what makes it tick. In this first season, host Emma Lister talks to performers, choreographers and designers about how they started their careers, what inspires them and how they hone that inspiration--as well as some current issues: politics, culture, history you name it!…

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