Our practice

19 years of theatre

Here at Terra Nova, we’ve spent 19 years learning from trial-and-error and building our practice as people from around the globe. We don’t say it’s the best practice, just our best, based on Terra Nova’s experience.

We look at ways to be creative, to create a safe fair room, to manage who has power so that we are equitable, and we share our lived experience of all the unspoken ways in which different cultures express the big things we all care about: honesty, happiness, respect, kindness, excellence, growth.

Our way of doing things, of bringing people together evolved in Northern Ireland, which is a post-conflict society. It is influenced by our founder and Artistic Director who grew up as a third culture individual. We offer our ideas and system of exercises and games when we work in other places around the globe, underpinned by our ethics and adapt to suit the context we find ourselves in.

Across many countries

You can peek into ‘the room where it happens’ with this video of our professional team exploring with community members in rural Northern Ireland on A Midsummer Night’s Dream or watching past and present participant and supporters’ testimonials.

We haven’t been alone in this journey. We’ve run projects in many languages, and co-created with colleagues in Hong-Kong, Macau, Greenland, Iran, Egypt, Canada.

Our methodologies have featured in a range of academic articles, as well as books on intercultural performing arts from the University of Galway and the University of Melbourne. In 2015 Belfast City Council chose us as the subject of their presentation on innovative practice in Belfast, at that year’s Eurocities conference in Slovenia. Through 2007, 2008 and 2009 we correlated Young Creative Voices in Macau. In 2009 we shared our experience with young Iranian theatre makers at the Fajr Festival in partnership with Visiting Arts. 2013 saw us working with the National Theatre of Greenland and the Gateway Theatre in Vancouver. In 2018 we shared our methodology at a research intensive organised at the University of Galway by Academic Charlotte McIvor. 2019 took us across the Arab world building a partnership with colleagues in Egypt, and in 2023 we did the same in Zwickau, in 2024 in Valenciennes.

What Sets Us Apart

Intercultural

We’ve run projects in many languages, and co-created with colleagues in India, Hong-Kong, Macau, Greenland, Iran, Egypt, Canada, France, Germany and Serbia

Awards

We have been shortlisted for the excellence of our community engagement at the 2017 National Diversity Awards, and the 2020 National Campaign for the Arts’ Heart of the Arts Awards.