Pictured: Maryam Madani at the Disabled Artists Scratch Night. Image by Szymon Lazewski.
Disabled Artists Scratch Night
On the 25th of June 2026, Project presented its first Disabled Artists Scratch Night, a curated evening of new ideas and works-in-progress.
Following an open call which took place in May, four disabled artists were selected by a panel to present their works–in-progress to an audience.
We were absolutely thrilled to host artists Niamh McPhillips, Maryam Madani, the Lunatraktors and Erin McNamara.
This initiative was produced by Project Arts Centre through Europe Beyond Access, co-funded by the European Union.
More about the artists
Niamh McPhillips
Niamh McPhillips is a neurodivergent movement practitioner, performer, teacher, and intimacy director working across interdisciplinary performance with a consent-led ethos. She holds a BA (Hons) in Drama (Performance) from TU Dublin Conservatoire of Music and Drama and an MA in Movement: Directing and Teaching from Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, and in 2026 completed a Certificate in Intimacy Choreography for Live Performance with the Intimacy Professionals Association. Her practice centres movement, storytelling, and embodied communication, and she currently works as Lead Drama Facilitator at An Grianán Youth Theatre, supporting young people through creative practice.
Maryam Madani
Maryam Madani is a performing artist, activist, writer and wheelchair dancer. She is a member of Kate Wilson’s Undercurrent Dance Company based in Sligo/Leitrim and the Founder of Disability Power Ireland, a grassroots disabled persons’ organisation for whom she organised Ireland’s first parade and festival for Disability Pride Month in July 2022-2024. She has a BA in English Studies from Trinity College Dublin and an MA in Journalism from TUD.
She was a participant in the Europe Beyond Access Labs in 2025 and Kampnagel Centre for Finer Arts’ BIPOC Disabled Artists Lab in Hamburg. She was an awardee of the Irish Writers Centre and Breaking Ground Ireland Foundation Programme 2022.
She is a practitioner of Authentic Movement, a therapeutic form of improvised dance which underpins the work of Undercurrent, and emphasises movement which arises spontaneously from internal impulses and emotions, rather than trying to force the body to align with choreography not designed for disabled bodies.
Lunatraktors
‘A clap of thunder over the lukewarm waters of contemporary folk.’ (Télérama, France). Lunatraktors are choreographer and percussionist Carli Jefferson (she/her), and visually impaired vocalist and researcher Clair Le Couteur (they/them). Beginning from the bare bones of vocal harmony and percussive dance, Lunatraktors rework Anglo-Celtic traditional music from the 1500s to the present. The duo approach folk music as performance art. They are known for their primal, ritualistic sound, expanding into weird, playful spaces with acoustic beats, analogue synth basslines, whistles and bass accordion. Ancient and contemporary, mournful and joyously deranged, Lunatraktors are ‘simply different’ (RTÉ Lyric FM, Ireland).
https://vimeo.com/
