Who are Bostin?'
Clare and Emily met working as Freelance Artists for the Birmingham Hippodrome in 2014. Bostin’ was forged in 2018 to celebrate communities, local heritage and to encourage education, collaboration and confidence through artistic expression.
We have been funded by Arts Council England, Heritage Fund UK, Walsall Council, and commissioned by Creative Black Country three times in the last two years. Partners include the Old Rep Theatre, Birmingham Hippodrome, Flatpack Projects, the Birmingham Pen Museum, Advocacy Matters and Birmingham City Council.
We create projects for real people, about real people; past, present and future and produce high quality project models, workshops, short films and pieces of theatre, with heart.
Emily is a Writer, Director, Actor, Theatre Maker and Producer, specialising in devising, comedy, character and verbatim spoken word. She has been performing and producing theatre professionally for the last ten years, with a focus on improvisation, storytelling and musical innovation. Since 2020 there has been a shift in her practise towards filmmaking, which is something Bostin' are now exploring.
Championing the arts for young people and families, she creates scripts, projects and workshop content with accessibility and inclusion in mind.
The arts can dramatically enhance our sense of wellbeing, confidence, self love and collaborative understanding. This is at the heart of everything Em delivers.
Em led on the China Plate Theatre and Warwick Arts Centre Young Producers programme this year, producing a three day multi-arts Festival - VIVACITY! She produced three 2022 Build Your Own Cinema programmes for Flatpack, CINCOV, City of Culture and every October she runs The Howl in Leighton Buzzard - a large Halloween, month long scare event.
But Em's favourite thing to do, away from fast paced festival work and workshop delivery, is listen to people tell their stories and craft those stories into something authentic, resonant and lasting.
Clare is a Freelance Dance Artist, Choreographer, Producer and Co-Director. She has worked within the industry for 20 years across the UK and internationally. She specialises in contemporary, musical theatre and jazz dance.
Over the last 3 years Clare has developed her work to create a new Contemporary Dance syllabus and now delivers teacher training throughout the UK, Ireland and Cyprus. She especially loves working creatively and mentoring young dancers, choreographers and teachers of the future.
Clare believes in using movement and the arts as a tool to encourage physical and mental wellbeing, confidence, creativity and all importantly - individuality. Since becoming a Mother in 2021, Clare's focus and interpretation of this practise and ethos has been channelled into creating programmes to support new Mums and babies to connect through movement and creativity. She is now a qualified Baby Yoga and Baby Massage practitioner. Look out for her wellbeing strand 'Movement and More!'
