Announcing the winner of the Romilly Walton Masters Award for Experimental Performance

We are delighted to announce that the recipient of the 2021 Romilly Walton Masters Award for Experimental Performance, supported by Centre Culturel Irlandais and Dublin Fringe Festival is Osaro Azams.

This award, established in 2016 in memory of the late director, producer, scriptwriter and friend of the CCI, Romilly Walton Masters, supports the making of bold, innovative, experimental performance work in the fields of theatre, music, dance, film or visual art to be experienced by audiences in France and Ireland. The award is intended to enable experimental theatre and performance makers in their early careers.

Osaro Azams is an up-and-coming Nigerian artist based in Ireland who created her award-winning music night 'Black Jam' with Fried Plantain Collective at the Abbey Theatre in 2018 for Dublin Fringe Festival. Fried Plantain Collective presented SLAY WEREWOLF SLAY! at our 2020 festival edition. She recently performed for Museum of Literature Ireland in work marking St Brigid's Day as well as for the Franco-Irish Literary Festival 2021. 

During a residency at CCI, Osaro will have the opportunity to develop a brand new performance that combines West African and Irish music with traditional storytelling and themes of migration present in both cultures' mythology. She will be able to show the embryonic performance piece as a work-in-progress, before showcasing the final work in Paris and in Ireland as part of Dublin Fringe Festival 2022.