Yasmin Gurreeboo is a theatre director, facilitator and creative producer living and working on Kaurna Country, South Australia. Early on in her career, Yasmin laid the foundations of a creative practice in the UK and since then has worked in various capacities within the arts and cultural domain over the last two decades. She is currently Co-CEO and Artistic Director of ActNow Theatre, a South Australian theatre company working with marginalised communities to create socially conscious performance projects.
In this Colour Box Studio interview, Yasmin explores the complexities of growing up in the UK as part of a minority group; how her religious and cultural heritage has informed her creative practice; and she shares stories of navigating a career pathway aiming to empower underrepresented voices through theatre and collaboration with an intention to offer audiences new perspectives and create positive change.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.
(laughs) So I’m a theatre director, I think that’s my predominant arts practice. I am a facilitator, a community arts practitioner and a mother — a single mother to an 11-year old boy.
I think I’ve always been passionate about amplifying voices that we just don’t hear, and representation. Growing up in the UK, it was really clear to me that there were just none of the stories that I connected to being presented on TV. I think a big thing was assimilation for me, like I’m stepping more and more into myself, and being proud of my culture and kind of the different cultures that I am connected to now. But I think most of my life has been trying to hide from it and have different lives, like two different lives. Yea, two different personalities almost — the one that is out in the arts world, and then the one that is at home, and they’re very very different in terms of who I am in those spaces. There’s still an element of that to a certain extent, but I feel like they’re kinda more rounded as one now as opposed to split selves.
I was raised poor, working class. I had to fight to be in the arts. A lot of my journey has been to try and find ways to make it acceptable for my family, and their religious and cultural beliefs around the world of the arts. So it’s always been finding ways to make it work that wouldn’t bring — I know it sounds really cliched from a cultural perspective — shame or embarrassment to the family. Plus, there’s always the element of, you know, the family wanting me to do better than they did or have better opportunities. My pathway was meant to be like the lawyer-doctor kinda thing, and at one point I actually did decide that it was going to be law, and I chose loads of subjects so I could do law. But, I had a really bad year when I did that in my first year of A-Levels (Year 12). I was at the lowest point ever in my life, doing subjects that I didn’t want to do. It was really dark. I ended up dropping out, and coming back and actually studying subjects that I wanted to.
I culturally identify as Mauritian Muslim, and Scottish. And Mauritian Muslim is different, because my family came over as indentured labourers to Mauritius, from India initially, and there are so many different cultures and religions in Mauritius. In Mauritius, being a Muslim is part of the minority. So I was always part of the minority, never part of the majority. I wanna be part of the majority sometimes, that would be nice!
How did you start your creative practice and why?
When I was really little, I had no interest in the arts during primary school in England. We had primary school and then middle school but it’s changed now. I was such an introvert who didn’t want to be in front of anyone. And then, during middle school, I saw shows, Christmas shows, and thought, “Oh my god, amazing!” and I wanted to do it after that. When I did it, I realised that I kinda went into a weird flow mode. It was escapism, like real escapism, being able to be someone else, someone that wasn’t brown. Most of the characters I played were like the characters I saw on TV, and it was always characters I could never actually be. But the big thing was around like escapism, that I would actually do things and then people afterwards would congratulate me on performances and stuff, and I wouldn’t even actually remember what I did. I did really well academically and in sports and I excelled across areas which I think can also be the result of my culture with regards to how much effort and stuff you put in. But I remember it being really clear, like the approval that came in. Not from my family, but from externally around when I performed. People commented on my abilities as an actor and some of it did get back to my mum, in particular.
When I did A-Level Theatre Studies, I got really political, and I didn’t even realise because at the time, I was pretty much always the only person of colour. Occasionally, there might have been another person of colour but very, very rarely, and most of the time we were so assimilated, we couldn’t even think in those spaces. We just knew things were wrong. I remember being at university, one of the teachers asked me to speak about something and I was like (bang on table), “I can’t speak about that!”. Like I actually thought, why would you ask me? Why am I meant to be speaking about it? I can’t quite remember what community it was about, but being the only POC, they made the assumption that I would be able to speak about it.
I remember in secondary school (high school), we were doing The Crucible, and (laughs) the drama teacher wanted me to play Tituba, which is a black character, and I said no. I knew — even though I couldn’t put words to it. I couldn’t actually articulate why it was wrong, but I knew it was wrong. I was like, “No, I’m not!”. Just because I was the only brown person, no! And I actually ended up getting a part in the play, I ended up getting Mary Warren. But yeah, that happened. Most of this stuff, like when I was starting up with acting, it was always like ethnic characters that you would go for, you know what I mean? That was when I knew I would get seen. But there were a couple of times when I would do physical theatre work, it was always in the physical theatre work, when it didn’t really matter, because you are playing multiple roles and swapping, and it didn’t matter that I was brown.
Where did you grow up and has it influenced what you create?
The fact that representation was non-existent and not heard of, that made a massive difference in the work that I make. Even in the UK, I made a work around Muslim women and did all these consultations with community groups, and made a show about that. And from that very early on, going, “What do you want? What does this community want to say, to talk about?”, and it was really interesting. I feel like it has always been inherent in me — community consultation and representation — and it was because I come from a place where my story wasn’t told, and there weren’t people that looked like me. I still feel like that with my skin colour, I’m never identified. Me and my sister, we also identify differently. My sister is white passing but I never in my whole life saw myself as white, like I was in the bath trying to scrub my skin as a kid, so that I could be white due to the name calling I experienced in middle school. I also do know my privilege, with regards to the way I look, like I could be many different things and it’s really hard to place me. I’ve also been exoticised with the sense of the male gaze and the attraction around me, and that’s meant a different pathway has been a little bit easier than it could’ve been in certain areas purely because of that. That’s really problematic as well, and I am aware of that.
Tell us about your past creative projects. What has been a highlight so far?
I really like how bold I was when I did Macbeth, with an all-female identifying version and an all-male identifying version. I like the politics around it and what I was trying to do. I always make work that is generally questioning and looking at something, you know, it’s connected to my politics.
Eurydice was part of a triptych of work that I was looking at. What I did love about that was the simplicity of it and the space it was made in, and how we were really consciously environmentally aware of the impact that we had. Everyone had carbon diaries and rode to the space, we didn’t print out scripts and it was just done beautifully and simple. I love that work actually, I think it’s the most beautiful show that I’ve made.
I also really like Like Me, Like You as well because of the impact it has. Like Me, Like You is ActNow Theatre’s primary school show about anti-racism, that looks at kinda fairness in the way we treat people as well as celebration of diversity, and it has music and songs and puppetry in it. A lot of our work is really hard-hitting at ActNow, and I love it. With that work, you can just see the goodness of young people and children. It shines through when they engage with that work and it is a nice contradiction to all the other work that we do and we see that.
My proudest work I would probably say is And No More Shall We Part by Tom Holloway that I did at the Bakehouse, because it was half filmed, half live, and I really love that I went for it. It was an epic undertaking — recording and filming 30 minutes of content for a play, as well as rehearsing full-time. I think it worked really well. What was interesting about that was when I made that show, I was actually just focusing on that show, I wasn’t focusing on like millions of other things. Since then, I’ve been focused on millions of other things at the same time whilst directing a show, so that felt like my best work because I was purely focused on it.
Tell us about your current project.
For ActNow, it is a work entitled Rough-House. The title will change, but it’s a show looking at domestic violence. The stats are pretty shocking across the world and in Australia, and it is looking at the tools we need to arm our young people with, so we can change that. The piece won’t directly be about domestic violence, but indirectly it will be. We are looking at body consent, respectful relationships, gender stereotyping and all that kinda stuff that’s set up, because it is about giving a little bit of slack around things, and being able to think about things slightly differently and normalising the feelings and sensations that we might go through. I’m really excited about the work because it is done with a lot of important stakeholders like White Ribbon, Zahra Foundation, Relationship SA, Port Adelaide Football Club’s Outreach Arm. We also have stakeholder groups of children, schools, and lived experience members so it’s really exciting. I don’t know what the work will be yet, but It’s been something I’ve wanted to do for years, and it’s only this year that we got the funding to be able to actually do it.
There’s also the show I am directing at the State Theatre Company next year. It’s really great for me to make a work where I can also look at my patterns and material around it. The work that I am directing for them is about a child who had a parent with mental health issues, and I grew up with a parent with mental health issues. So I’m really looking forward to exploring what healing I do through that process for myself, and that journey that I go through looking at that and thinking about it, because I totally connect with a lot of the stuff in the work. Some of my deepest fears are also in that play. I’m really looking forward to tackling that and looking at that.
There’s my own piece, which is called Inadequate Girl, that I really wanna develop further. I think it’s going to be a novel, but I hope I get more time to look at it, and that will be my auto-biography.
Who or what inspires your practice?
That’s a really hard one.
Collaborators that I work with. When I come across collaborators and artists who are able to express vulnerability, authenticity, and be brave. That inspires my practice, because I try to do it myself. I am not a big fan of replicating something, even if it was an homage, or you’re mimicking it because of how much you love it. That doesn’t do anything for me at all.
I haven’t seen a lot of their recent work, but I used to really like Back To Back. What I liked about them was how their work kinda slaps you in the face. I find that quite inspiring and the trick is not being scared of what it is we need to say and to not be PC around it, conveying that this is what it is.
Where do you feel most creative and why?
I feel most creative when I am leading a physical theatre workshop, because I go into ‘flow state’. I went to Jacques Lecoq Theatre School and my base language of theatre is physical theatre, so when I go into that space, there’s so much ease to it. When I am in that world, I come up with new games and new variations of everything, and there’s just a flow of ideas and I feel like I can tap into things. That’s the easiest way for me to do it, when I’m thinking about it from a physical theatre perspective. But unfortunately, I don’t get to do that very much because a lot of the language of the people I work with in Adelaide is not physical theatre. It’s cerebral, your Stanislavski kinda stuff. So, I don’t get to do it very much, but when I do work with actors, I’m like (makes a happy reaction).
What do you hope audiences take from your work?
I wanna change the world! I want them to reassess the way they view the world, reassess the way they think, reassess how they judge other people, be good bystanders, be able to step in for people, be able to respect each other and just be a better fucking human being (laughs). I wanna change the world, that’s why I do it! I wouldn’t do it otherwise. I am so passionate about that, all the work we do is actually trying to change the world, and how we treat each other. That’s what I hope the work does, that it has an impact on the way we treat each other.
What future projects are you looking forward to?
It’s really early days, but I’m looking forward to creating more international work through ActNow. I am looking forward to some of our international projects, some of which have not even been scoped out yet, but there have been initial conversations so I’m excited about. I’m really excited for our Drama Box collaboration, whatever that will be.
I’m also doing some stuff with Martha Lott. We made a show together for the Fringe a couple years ago called That Boy, which was a new work focusing on looking at parenting a child through difficulties, and it won a couple of awards. I’m looking forward to creating more work with her, our new work will be called Eileen Gray which we start work on at the end of the year.
I really want Manal Younus’ show, Bilal, to get up. I don’t know what it’s going to be yet because she is writing a new draft, which might be really different, but previously I could see it really clearly in my head. I really want to direct that show.
Whose work are you digging at the moment?
I really liked Sunshine Super Girl by Andrea James. I really enjoyed the physical elements and I liked the storytelling of it, so that was good.
I’ve always liked Ivan van Hove. I love (Romeo) Castelluci’s work, some of his older stuff though that I really like, like Purgatorio is my favourite piece of theatre of all time and that was about, trigger warning, child abuse, but it was an incredible show. But that’s when you have millions of dollars for set design in budget, and can do whatever the fuck you want. Wouldn’t that be amazing, to be able to do whatever the fuck you want? That’s what I hope one day. One day, I’ll work on a project where I’ll actually have money to do what the fuck I want. So if I want a spinning globe that comes down from the ceiling and people can stand on it and spin around, if we can do it, that’d be amazing.
Where can we find and follow you online?
I’m not a big social media person, I’m actually really crap, like I’ve tried Instagram so many times, like my team members at ActNow have tried to help me set up a profile that I am engaging and using and is current and live, but nah, can’t do it. So in regards to following online, it’s really ActNow’s Facebook, Instagram and our other social platforms. Other than that, everything else I do is really private.