PROPEL associates
Meet the exciting artists that are developing new performance work as PROPEL associates!
The PROPEL associate programme is designed to help artists with developing and creating both new work and their practice. Successful applicants become PROPEL associates for 20 months and have access to rehearsal space, mentoring sessions and opportunities to present work. We define artists as individuals or companies that create work for live performance.
We aim to recruit new PROPEL associate artists each year, if you’d like to find out more about the programme and want to keep an eye on when our applications open visit our artist development page
We are delighted to reveal the 2026/2027 group of PROPEL associates: Anne Charbel, Deadman, Filskit Theatre, Olivia Wallis Jackson and Tam Gilbert.
For more information about this year’s talented cohort, see their profiles below!
Anne Charbel
Anne Charbel is a writer, actor, and installation artist based in Bournemouth. She trained at the Identity School of Acting, and has performed with several regional theatre groups.
Anne has also performed her poetry at the Bournemouth Writing Festival and BEAF Arts Festival as part of the global majority poetry collective Kainaat.
She is a founding member of the Dorset-based global majority arts collective BRAC, with two of her works featured in BRAC’s 2025 exhibition at Lighthouse Poole.
Deadman
Deadman is a precarious working class-led creative arts company dedicated to pioneering pathways for new work and new talent, inspired by their home on the Isle of Wight.
Their first production The Freshwater Five began in 2021 on the Isle of Wight, and has enjoyed three performance runs, touring to coastal communities and sold-out venues across the country.
Their next production, Damien Nettles, is a thematic follow-up to The Freshwater Five, and continues their work exposing the darker underbelly of coastal communities.
Filskit Theatre
Filskit Theatre is an award-winning theatre company committed to creating exciting and challenging work for young audiences.
Filskit Theatre’s mission is to create high quality theatrical experiences, designed specifically for the youngest audiences. Through their playful, highly visual style they aim to engage and inspire audiences aged 0-7, and their families.
Over the past 15 years they have toured nationally and internationally, offering thousands of children their first ever theatre experience and introducing them to the power of creativity.
Olivia Wallis Jackson
Olivia Wallis Jackson is a British-German contemporary dancer, choreographer, photographer, teacher and rehearsal director, currently based in Hampshire and working across the South and in London.
Her company Premier Dance Theatre, launched in 2024, strives to make works that can be situated in multiple environments, allowing outstanding dance-theatre work to be accessible to communities across the UK and internationally.
Tam Gilbert
Tam Gilbert is a Bounemouth-based writer, theatre-maker, and Audio Description Consultant.
She is Co-Director of Millstream Theatre, a community company of learning-disabled and neurodivergent actors based at the Museum of East Dorset, and Trainee Director at Extant – the UK’s leading professional performing arts company for visually impaired artists.
Tam enjoys making hard-hitting, persuasive and historical theatre, which embeds creative audio description as an intrinsic invisible thread, challenging audiences’ perceptions.