Fierce Festival

10/04/2026

🍯 Fierce Jams 01 Artist Spotlight: Tammy Woodrow🍯

Tomorrow!! Last chance to grab your tickets. 🎟️

is a multidisciplinary, transcultural artist based in Birmingham and acts as an ACTIVATOR -INITIATOR -INSTIGATOR – INFILTRATOR. Being part of the postfeminist, postpunk protest performance group Bapz on Crack and coordinating an experimental platform for woman artists called Ventilator Gallery (based at the OldPrintWorks, Balsall Heath) are a few strands of her subversive activities. She recently gained her MA Fine Art (School of Art, BCU) and currently explores the relations between performance art and personal social experience. As a mixed heritage woman artist, she uses her own life as inspiration. Tammy creates alternative projects that challenge conceptions about gendered historic heritage. These propositions will ultimately create pockets of  ‘micro-utopias’ through feminist activism and collaborations. Her artworks have been shown nationwide.

📅11 April 2026, 3:30
📍Stechford Leisure Centre

This edition of Fierce Jams is made possible with support from The Saintbury Trust and .dance.

Tickets are £5 - link in bio. E-mail [email protected] if price is a barrier. ❤️❤️❤️

09/04/2026

🍯 Fierce Jams 01 Artist Spotlight: Eric Scutaro 🍯

is a Venezuelan choreographer, dance performer and activist, refugee in the United Kingdom and based in Birmingham. For 16 years, he has been a TrailBlazer in his country in Waacking and Voguing, dance styles belonging to the LGBTIQ+ community since the 70s. And now TrailBlazer in the West Midlands for 5 years. His choreographies, workshops and performances explore hip-hop, Waacking and the Voguing style as a way to advocate for LGBTIQ+ community. His work has also stood out for doing Q***r activism within the hip-hop culture.

📅11 April 2026, 3:30
📍Stechford Leisure Centre

This edition of Fierce Jams is made possible with support from The Saintbury Trust and .dance.

Tickets are £5 - link in bio. E-mail [email protected] if price is a barrier. ❤️❤️❤️

08/04/2026

🍯 Fierce Jams 01 Artist Spotlight: Dana Michel🍯

In advance of the premiere of her latest work YOU CANNOT CAN at Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Montreal-based artist joins us for Fierce Jams 01!

Dana Michel is a live artist. Her works interact with the expanded fields of improvisation, choreography, sculpture, comedy, hip-hop, cinematography, techno, poetry, psychology, dub and social commentary to create a centrifuge of experience. Before graduating from the BFA program in Contemporary Dance at Concordia University in her late twenties, Michel was a marketing executive, and a competitive runner and football player. In 2014, she was awarded the newly created ImPulsTanz Award (Vienna) in recognition for outstanding artistic accomplishments, and was highlighted among notable choreographers of the year by the New York Times. In 2017, Michel was awarded the Silver Lion for Innovation in Dance at the Venice Biennale. In 2018, she became the first ever dance artist in residence at the National Arts Centre, Canada. In 2019, she was awarded the ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art (Kuopio, Finland). In 2022, the Canada Council for The Arts awarded her the Jacqueline-Lemieux prize in recognition of her contribution to dance in Canada. In 2024, she was awarded the Prix de la danse de Montréal, International Distribution Category, presented by CINARS.

📅11 April 2026, 3:30
📍Stechford Leisure Centre

This edition of Fierce Jams is made possible with support from The Saintbury Trust and .dance.

Tickets are £5 - link in bio. E-mail [email protected] if price is a barrier. ❤️❤️❤️

📸: Clara Lacasse

07/04/2026

🍯 Fierce Jams 01 Artist Spotlight: Jessie McLaughlin 🍯

 is an artist/ writer/ researcher from London, now based between London and Birmingham. Jessie likes to read books and poetry, and at the moment is most interested in S*X, PAIN, CLASS and MUSIC.

📅11 April 2026, 3:30
📍Stechford Leisure Centre

This edition of Fierce Jams is made possible with support from The Saintbury Trust and .dance.

Tickets are £5 - link in bio. E-mail [email protected] if price is a barrier. ❤️❤️❤️

06/04/2026

🍯 Fierce Jams 01 Artist Spotlight: Felix King 🍯

The countdown to Fierce Jams 01 is ON. See you on Saturday at Stechford Leisure Centre!

is a live artist hailing from the San Francisco bay area and currently residing in Birmingham, UK. His original context is in theatre and film, moving between acting and costume. His experience in live performance has largely been in collaborative spaces, historically working with the University of Birmingham at The Exchange for events celebrating world refugee day and other times Cultural and Creative Industries. His self-devised performances tend to be based in the body negotiating with material forms. Textile, tactile, and oftentimes strenuous. His work explores themes of queerness and gender, environmentalism and the natural world, and the constant undertow of letting oneself have a vulnerable heart.

📅11 April 2026, 3:30
📍Stechford Leisure Centre

Fierce Jams 01 is made possible with support from The Saintbury Trust and .dance.

Tickets are £5 - link in bio. E-mail [email protected] if price is a barrier. ❤️❤️❤️

19/03/2026

🍯 Fierce Jams 01 🍯

In January, we announced the launch of Fierce Jams: our new, ongoing, and nomadic performance series that indulges in small-scale experiments in contemporary performance and live art.

And we’re thriiillllled to announce the line-up for the inaugural edition will include Birmingham-based artists , , , , and Montreal-based .

📅11 April 2026, 3:30
📍Stechford Leisure Centre (Swimming not required... you can leave your 👙🩲🩳🩱 at home.)

This edition of Fierce Jams is made possible with support from The Saintbury Trust and .dance.

Tickets are £5 - link in bio. E-mail [email protected] if price is a barrier. ❤️❤️❤️

 📸 Clara Lacasse

06/02/2026

🛹 JOIN OUR BOARD!

We’re looking for up to three new Trustees - who complement the skills and experience of our current Board - to help us steer the organisation into the future.

Do you enjoy working as part of a supportive, but rigorous team? Are you passionate about the arts and the power they have to change lives?

FOR FULL INFO AND DETAILS ON HOW TO APPLY SEE LINK IN BIO

📸: , - Untitled (Nostalgia, Act 3) at Fierce Festival 2024

21/01/2026

👀 Fierce would like to meet… a Festival Producer! 

Interested in helping us produce and deliver an extraordinary programme of local and international performance in Birmingham in October 2026?  The successful candidate will work with the festival Co-Directors, the Production Manager, and wider team to collectively create a festival which embeds our values of Trust, Rigour, Disruption, and Joy.

Location: Birmingham
Fee: 75 days @ £200 = £15,000
Deadline to apply: 9am Monday 23rd February 2026

📸: Nick Hynan

FOR FULL INFO AND DETAILS ON HOW TO APPLY SEE LINK IN BIO

28/08/2025

📢 BIG NEWS!

We are thrilled to be welcoming new Executive Director Ethan Hudson (he/him) to the team! Beginning in September 2025, Ethan will join Artistic Director Clayton Lee as co-director of Fierce.

💬 Ethan says: "I am thrilled to be joining Fierce Festival as Executive Director at this momentous time for the organisation. As we approach Clayton Lee's second festival as Artistic Director next year, and Fierce's 30th anniversary in 2028, we have an opportunity to demonstrate the power and relevance of live performance in Birmingham today. In these times of rapid change, I look forward to building a solid foundation for the next 30 years of Fierce, alongside Clayton and the communities of Birmingham. I cannot wait to get started on this next great chapter for Fierce, and to witness the incredible work I know will come out of, and into, Birmingham over the coming years."

📸: Mustard Yellow Photography

🔗 Read the full announcement over on our blog:

After a comprehensive recruitment process, Fierce are thrilled to be welcoming new Executive Director Ethan Hudson to the team beginning in September 2025. Ethan joins after Director (Operations) Catherine Groom and Director (Producing) Pippa Frith left earlier this summer to take on the roles of Ge...

21/05/2025

Fierce would like to meet... an Executive Director

We are very excited to begin the search for our Executive Director. This is an incredible role for a passionate arts leader to steer the organisation and collaborate with the Artistic Director to realise the Festival programme, to care for the artists and audiences we work with and continue to hold and embody Fierce’s values of Trust, Rigour, Disruption and Joy.

“We thought a lot about that title ‘Executive Director’. For the past couple of years we’ve had quite an unusual structure at Fierce with three co-directors – one responsible for operations, one producing and one the artistic programme. In reality though everyone at Fierce has always done a bit of everything – we are a values-led organisation and collaboration is at the heart of everything we do – which is what led to this structure. We also try to constantly reflect on how we do what we do and why. So, when two of the three directors happened to get new jobs within a week of each other, we looked again at the structure and considered how it might best suit the current nature of Fierce’s work, the political climate and the opportunities that might appear over the next few years. What we ended up settling on is this post, which we considered a variety of titles for – collaborator, co-conspirator, executive producer – before settling on Executive Director. Arguably the most boring option, but perhaps one that is most understood in terms of the sort of things we want this person to hold and care for at Fierce. All of this is a slightly long-winded way of saying that we’re pretty open to who might do this role and how. Historically Fierce has adapted to the people leading the organisation and we will continue to do this.”
Paul Burns, Fierce Board Chair

Location: Birmingham

Salary: £39,713 pro rata, 4 days a week

Deadline to apply: 9am, Monday 7th July 2025

FOR FULL INFO AND DETAILS OF HOW TO APPLY PLEASE SEE LINK IN BIO 📝💪🏼✨

16/05/2025

All Change

The magic of Fierce has always been in its agile nature. Being small, fleet of foot and flexible has always meant we can work reflexively and responsively to the ever-changing sector we sit within, allowing us to embrace change.

So it is with this spirit we celebrate 2 of the Fierce leadership team, Catherine Groom and Pippa Frith, stepping down from their roles together this summer, after 8 brilliant years at the helm of the organisation. Having worked with the previous Director Aaron Wright to deliver 3 festivals and 2 major Commonwealth Games projects, they collaborated with Clayton to deliver his first iteration of the festival last year. Catherine and Pippa will both now go on to their next adventure, taking up positions with organisations well within the Fierce orbit. Catherine will become the new General Manager for Artsadmin and Pippa will become the new Executive Producer for Selina Thompson Limited, alongside a little bit of freelancing and a bit of (hopefully) slowing down.

Alongside their departure, our wonderful Marketing Coordinator Bec Welsh will also stand-down, going on to co-lead a new organisation Open Futures Studio alongside her thriving PT business (we’d plug it here, but honestly she’s overflowing with clients as it is). Bec was only ever supposed to be with us for 9 months, but we have clung onto her for 3+ years, so it feels only fair we finally let her make a graceful exit.

Read the full announcement at the link in our bio, and a note from Pippa, Catherine and Bec in the comments below…