MY WHY
I was lucky enough to join an awesome online performance course called Sunday Skool over the summer of 2021.
One Sunday, after being directed to go on a mindful walk, a peer shared their reflection. They read out several statements, realisations one of which was "I am afraid of people". This statement hung on to some part of me.
Over time, I glimpsed at it and realised that it hung to me because it is also a truth. Something in my mind rejects the word afraid, but I am [...] of people, and long to feel close, this want for closeness and connection is what drives my work.
Lydia Newman is a multi-disciplinary artist with a directing and creative facilitation background. In 2021, Lydia graduated with first-class honors from Goldsmiths with an MA in Performance Making. Her thirst for knowledge led her to participate in Martin O’Brien’s Sunday Skool and PeARL Laboratory Moscow - London from 2020 to 2021, further enhancing her skills and knowledge.
Lydia's practice encompasses visual art, installation, soundscaping, and movement. At the heart of her expression is the use of personal narratives, which allows her to connect with herself and her viewers authentically, gently, and vulnerably. Lydia's work reflects her extensive experience in creative facilitation, which has kept her firmly rooted in the charity sector. Presently, Lydia works with London Youth to develop a Mental Health Toolkit for youth workers to support their work with inner-city Black Girls, Lewisham Youth Theatre, where she writes and delivers a program to train young POC facilitators with lived experience of Mental Health, and Quality Control for Young Urban Arts Foundation.
Lydia's creative talent is evident in several projects, including her co-direction of Extremism as part of NT Connects in 2017, performed in Jacksons Lane, The Soho Theatre, and The National. She also co-directed Van Goth on the Beach, which performed in the Cockpit Theatre as part of the Camden Fringe Festival of August 2018. She was recently invited to Vietnam (2022) to sit on the judging panel for the 5th International Experimental Theatre Festival!
Lydia's exceptional creative vision led to her being commissioned by the musician and producer Labrinth in 2019-2020 to lend her artistic direction to his animated film, Imagination and The Misfit Kid. In January 2021, Lydia was then commissioned by Collage Arts to create a ten-minute artistic response to the title of A Primal Scream. The televisual performance was used as a stimulus to initiate cross-cultural conversations between POC women in The Gambia, the UK, and Brazil. A Primal Scream was also invited to feature in an online exhibition: The Body is My First Mother, hosted by the online platform Black Discourse.
P.S.... If your thinking that it sound's like someone else wrote this, that's because they did... thanks you, AI Bot!