Return to the Forest

Sue Buckmaster

Director

Sue is the Artistic Director of Theatre-Rites, a puppetry expert and the fifth generation of theatre practitioners in her family. She is known for her unique puppet whispering technique and her work exploring animism.

In 1996, Sue co-directed the company’s first production Houseworks with founder Penny Bernand. Houseworks was the UK’s first site-specific production created for the under 5s and was named by The Guardian’s Lyn Gardner as one of her desert island theatrical experiences.  Since then, Sue has created over 30 site-specific and theatre productions for Theatre-Rites including the award-winning Mischief, a co-production with Sadler’s Wells and the Dance Touring Partnership and The Welcoming Party a co-production with Manchester International Festival, Z-arts and the Ruhrtriennale Festival.

In 2023 Sue directed an adapted version of Zoe’s Peculiar Journey Through Time (originally a co-production with Burgtheater Vienna) and created Something In The Air, a co-production with Schauspeilhaus Bochum. In 2024, she directed Journey of a Refugee for Croydon Borough of Culture (an adaptation of The Welcoming Party). In 2025, in collaboration with choreographer Miguel Altunaga, Sue directed Eshu at the Crossroads for Theatre-Rites – the company’s first outdoor production, which was supported by Without Walls and co-commissioned by Stockton International Riverside Festival, Birmingham Weekender and Brighton Festival.

Sue has many years of experience as a director, puppetry specialist, dramaturg and teacher. She has worked with a wide variety of companies outside of Theatre-Rites including as Puppetry Director on The Caucasian Chalk Circle (director Simon McBurney, National Theatre), Pinocchio (director Marcello Magni Lyric Hammersmith) and Peter Pan (director Ben Harrison, Three Sixty Entertainment). Sue has provided dramaturgy and mentoring for several artists including the Sonia Sabri Company, Anders Duckworth and Joss Arnott Dance.

In 2015, the Akram Khan Company invited Sue to direct Chotto Desh – an adaptation of DESH for family audiences, which continues to tour and has been AKC’s most successful touring production. In 2019, Sue returned to direct Chotto Xenos, an adaptation for family audiences of Xenos.

Sue has an MA in Contemporary Theatre Practice from the University of Essex, which included a thesis on the Psychoanalytical Study of the Power of the Puppet. In 2018, the University awarded her an honorary doctorate in recognition of her inspiring leadership in theatre direction and puppetry. In 2021, she co-authored the book Theatre-Rites: Animating Puppets, Objects and Sites with Dr Liam Jarvis. She is an Advisor for Sadler’s Wells and Polka Theatre.

Gregory Maqoma

Choreographer

Gregory was born in Soweto. He became interested in dance in the late 1980s as a means to escape the growing political tensions in his place of birth. He started his formal dance training in 1990. Since then, he has established himself as an internationally renowned dancer, choreographer, teacher, director and scriptwriter.

He founded Vuyani Dance Theatre in 1999 while undertaking a scholarship at the Performing Arts Research and Training School in Belgium. He now presents his own work as Gregory Maqoma Industries and his numerous productions have included Broken Chord – co-produced by Festival Grec, Manchester International Festival, Théâtre de la Ville – Paris, Weimar Arts Festival (National Theater), Festpielhaus St Pölten, Torinodanza Festival / Teatro Stabile di Torino – Teatro Nazionale, Festival Aperto / Fondazione I Teatri – Reggio Emilia, Stanford Live at Stanford University and Sadler’s Wells.

Gregory was Associate Artistic Director of MID (2002–2006) and for the FNB Dance Umbrella Festival 2010. He was Artistic Director of the Afro-Vibes Festival in the Netherlands and the UK from 2004 to 2010. He has served on the dance committee of the South African National Arts Festival (2011–2017) and curated the Main Dance Festival Program for 2017. He was founding Chairperson of the Board of Sustaining Theatre and Dance Foundation (STAND) from 2020 to 2022. He has taught at various universities and schools in Africa, USA and Europe.

In 2011, he won the Dance Manyano Choreographer of the Decade Dance Award. In 2012, he received the Tunkie Award for elevating the standard and visibility of dance in South Africa. In 2017, Maqoma was honoured by the French Government with the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Arts & Literature) Award. Recently, Maqoma was awarded the Inaugural Usiba Awards by the South African Department of Arts & Culture for his dedication to dance teaching and development as well as the World Dance Day Author 2020, Simon Nkoli Feather Award 2022 and The Artfluence Human Rights Champion Award in recognition of his remarkable career, courage, and commitment to social justice.

Maqoma has worked with numerous artists including Faustin Linyekula (Tales Off the Mud Wall), William Kentridge (The Head and the Load), Akram Khan (Variations for Vibes, Strings and Pianos), Sue Buckmaster/Theatre-Rites (The Global Playground) for Manchester International Festival, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (Bound), Kwame Kwei-Armah (Tree) for Manchester International Festival and Young Vic, and also with his protégé Musa Motha.

In 2023, Gregory published his memoir My Dance, My Life, My Soul detailing his journey from Soweto to the global stage. In 2024, he published his first children’s book One Step at a Time.

Jean Chan

Set Designer

Jean Chan’s stage designs include Shanghai Dolls (Kiln Theatre); Rise (Bradford City of Culture 2025); Beegu (Unicorn); Lost and Found (Factory International, Manchester); The Meaning of Zong (Barbican and Bristol Old Vic); Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare’s Globe); Pinocchio, Garbage King(Unicorn Theatre); Reason You Should(n’t) Love Me (Kiln Theatre); Wild Goose, Plastic (Theatre Royal Bath); Dick Whittington, Jack and the Beanstalk (Lyric Hammersmith); The Witches, James and the Giant Peach, The BFG (Dundee Rep); Petula, Mother Courage (NTWales); Working, The Hairy Ape, The Irish Giant, The Seagull(Southwark Playhouse); Ticking (Trafalgar Studios, London).

Jean is also a celebrated Costume Designer. Her work includes Becoming Nancy (Birmingham Rep Theatre), Miss Saigon (Scenekvelder, Oslo); Legally Blonde (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre) Knights’ Tale (Toho Theatre, Japan); The Grinning Man (Trafalgar Studios/Bristol Old Vic); Aladdin (Lyric Hammersmith); Lionboy (Complicité).

Frank Moon

Co-composer & Sound Designer

Frank Moon has developed a specialism in composing for dance and theatre. His scores include The Metamorphosis (Royal Ballet), The Wind (Royal Ballet), The Great Gatsby (Royal Danish Ballet), Callas La Divina (Ballet de Santiago, Chile), Salome (San Francisco Ballet), Summer, Winter and the Rite of Spring (Ballet Moscow), Dream (Ballet Cymru), Merry Wives of Windsor (Shakespeare’s Globe), Zoe’s Peculiar Journey Through Time (Burgtheater Vienna), The Welcoming Party (Manchester International Festival), A Streetcar Named Desire (Dekkadancers, Prague), The Little Match Girl (Ballo Arthur Pita), The Little Prince(Protein Dance), The Mother (Southbank Centre), Facada (Segerstrom Center, California), Run Mary Run(Sadler’s Wells), The Tenant (Joyce Theatre, New York), The Kingdom of Back (Northern Ballet), Der Wolf(Ballet Graz, Alberta Ballet) and A Hunger Artist (Oxford Kafka Festival).

In 2021, Frank was nominated at the Critics Circle National Dance Awards for Outstanding Creative Contribution to Dance. He has won awards for two short film scores: Curing Albrecht and An Evening with Taglioni. He recently scored the full-length documentary Alma Anciana.

As a multi-instrumentalist performer, Frank has toured widely across the world and has been a regular performer with artists such as The Urban Folk Quartet and Cerys Matthews, as well as performing in his own works for dance.

Domenico Angarano

Co-composer & Sound Designer

After graduating in Jazz at the Naples Conservatory of Music, Domenico Angarano attended various improvisation workshops in Italy, New York and London with artists such as Medeski Martin & Wood, Cyro Baptista, David Fiuczynski.

Since relocating to London, he has moved into the world of contemporary dance, as well as continuing to specialize in arrangement and composition. He has composed and played for Akram Khan, Hofesh Shechter, Hannes Langolf, Becky Namgauds, Jorge Crecis, the Hong Kong Academy of Arts, English National Ballet and for choreographers Riccardo Buscarini, Jean Abreu, Marso Riviere, Hagit Yakira, Lee Brummer, Leila McMillan, Krishna Zivraj, Stefano Rosato, Marie Forbes and Stefan Jovanovic. In 2025, he composed the score for Theatre-Rites and Miguel Altunaga’s Eshu at the Crossroads.

In the last 20 years, Domenico has acquired knowledge of music from southern Italy, West Africa, India, southern Europe, Brazil, Cuba and the Middle East. His creative process explores a new form of western contemporary music infused in these traditions – music that shows how connected human beings are despite a contemporary shift towards more fragmented and individualistic societies.

Domenico’s practice is rooted in the belief that education in different cultures, and consequently in different music styles, can bring diverse audiences together and make music and dance more accessible.

Guy Hoare

Lighting Designer

Guy Hoare designs lighting for dance, theatre and opera. He has been based in London since 1998 as a freelance designer but works throughout the UK and internationally.

His designs for dance include many works for the Mark Bruce Company with whom he has collaborated since 1999. Other works include Chotto Desh and Chotto Xenos for Akram Khan Company, Metamorphosis for Arthur Pita, Overflow for Alexander Whitley, Strange Blooms for Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company, And Who Shall Go to the Ball? for Candoco. He has also designed pieces for The Royal Ballet, Sadler’s Wells, Scottish Dance Theatre, NDCWales, Manchester International Festival, Sydney Dance Company, Skånes Dansteater (Malmö), Hessisches Staatsballett (Wiesbaden), and Maqamat (Beirut). He has worked with Christopher Bruce, New Movement Collective, Theo Clinkard, Seeta Patel and Martin Forsberg amongst many others and has designed a number of interdisciplinary works for Theatre-Rites and Gandini Juggling.

Designs for theatre include Seawall / A Life (Broadway) The Wife of Willesden and A Doll’s House (BAM, New York), The Grapes of Wrath, Julie, The Deep Blue Sea and Here We Go (National Theatre), Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train (Young Vic), Clarence Darrow (Old Vic), Roots (Donmar Warehouse) In Basildon (Royal Court) and Portia Coughlan (Almeida).

Designs for opera include Carmen (Metropolitan Opera, New York), The Firework-Maker’s Daughter (Royal Opera House), Jakob Lenz (English National Opera), Rigoletto (Welsh National Opera), My Fair Lady (Opera North) and American Lulu (Bregenz).

Guy is an Associate Artist at Wilton’s Music Hall.

Kinnetia Isidore

Costume Designer

Kinnetia studied costume at Wimbledon College of Art.

Designs includes The BFG, Pericles (RSC); Nye, Our Generation (National Theatre); Black Superhero (Royal Court); School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, Scandaltown, Aladdin (Lyric Hammersmith); Adult Children (Donmar); Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train (Young Vic); Rock Follies (Chichester); Enter Achilles (Rambert/Sadler’s Wells); and The Night Woman (The Other Palace).

Credits as co-designer include The Wife of Willesden (Kiln).