Jones Collective

Lead artists: The Jones Collective – Buddug Jones and Jesse Briton

Venue partner: The Welfare, Ystradgynlais

Buddug Jones is a theatre and festival designer working across the UK. Buddug is originally from West Wales, and works in both English and Welsh. Her work is seen internationally in New York (The Good Earth by Motherlode), Australia (Bound by Bear Trap Theatre Company), New Zealand (Hiraeth by The Jones Collective) and Spain (Invisible City by Nova), and has collaborated with the Dutch theatre group, PeerGroup. She graduated with a first-class honour degree in Design for Performance at Wimbledon College of Art, University of the Arts London in 2011. Her work is often surreal, colourful, modern, bold and industrial, working in harmony with the performers on stage. Buddug runs her theatre company The Jones Collective with award winning writer and director, Jesse Briton. Co-artistic director Jesse was a Leverhulme Arts Scholar at the egg theatre last year where he developed a new production for 8-12 year olds about the life of African-American entertainer and activist Josephine Baker.

Based in Wales, The Jones Collective work across art forms using real life stories, events and people to explore contemporary social issues. Their work draws inspiration from people and communities they meet, with an interest in working rurally to draw inspiration from the landscape and its people. The Jones Collective create work in Wales, based on real people in Wales.

Syrian Twmpath

The Jones Collective worked with a Syrian family to develop and explore a new theatre show for families, and  conducted a series of interviews with their teenage daughter.

To celebrate the end of the first stage of Research and Development, the local community were invited to an evening of dancing and eating at The Welfare, Ystradgynlais.  

The  family friendly evening included a Twmpath (similar to a Scottish Ceilidh) and an opportunity to learn traditional Syrian dancing accompanied by live music.