Meet the Re-Live team
Karin Diamond
Artistic Director
Email: karin@re-live.org.uk
Karin’s love of the arts has seen her work in theatre, film and television for over 20 years, gaining a wealth of experience in performing, writing, producing and directing original work.
Karin trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, and returned years later to lay the foundations of their outreach drama department, using drama to support self-expression, confidence and interpersonal skills.
She has designed and facilitated numerous communication skills programmes for Healthcare Inspectorate Wales, Social Services and General Practice in Wales, always using the arts as a base for training and development.
She is a Winston Churchill Fellow 2010, researching ‘Creativity in Dementia Care’ with Dr Yukimi Uchide in Ofunato, Japan. This research continues to influence and inspire Re-Live’s creative and training work in the field of dementia today.
In 2016, Karin wrote Belonging/Perthyn, a bilingual play that explores the world of dementia, inspired by the stories from Re-Live's Memoria group for people living with dementia and their family/carers. Belonging/Perthyn toured to theatres across Wales and connected health and social care professionals and theatre audiences with the experiences of people living with dementia. The play received an outstanding response from audiences and theatre critics, winning two Theatre in Wales Awards (2017).
2019-2020 Karin became an Atlantic Fellow at the Global Brain Health Institute, University of California, San Francisco, specialising in how research can be applied alongside Arts in Health practice.
At the end of 2020, Karin produced and co-directed Re-Live’s latest creative ageing theatre show, Secret Country, devised and performed by older people about their experiences of Covid-19.
Alison O’Connor
Co-Founder/Supervisor
Along with Artistic Director Karin Diamond, Alison co-founded Re-Live in 2005. She co-directed many of Re-Live’s early creative aging theatre shows, including Re-Live, City Stories, Abandoned Brothers and Stories to Leave. Alison was instrumental in developing our work with people with dementia, and our veterans work. Along with Karin, Alison developed the Re-Live Life Story methodology and co-devised many of our training sessions, including Experiencing Dementia and Compassionate Communication. She is currently Re-Live’s professional supervisor.
Soon after graduating in Drama and English from Bristol University and beginning to navigate the world of theatre making, Alison realised that her passion lay in theatre's transformative potential. She worked for several years with Geese Theatre Company, international leaders of arts in the criminal justice system, and here gained an insight into the therapeutic potential of theatre and its power as a tool for change. She became fascinated by what the telling and enactment of a story can do for performers, participants, institutions, staff members and audiences and went on to create theatre work in prisons, psychiatric hospitals, schools, care settings and with survivors of domestic abuse across the UK and in Romania, Azerbaijan and Bulgaria.
Alison received a Creative Wales Award from The Arts Council of Wales (2013) to explore “Transformation in Arts and Health: Stories that Change” which enabled her to connect with international experts including Teya Sepunick, Theatre of Witness and Michael Balfour, Griffith University, Australia. Alison’s writing on Life Story Theatre with veterans and families has been published in the international journal, Arts in Health (2015).
Alison is a lecturer in Counselling and Therapeutic Practice at University of South Wales and works as a therapist in private practice. She is a Churchill Fellow, 2016 and is currently writing about trauma and moral injury in veterans and NHS frontline staff. She recently completed a Masters in Consultative Supervision, conducting a piece of qualitative research, The Work Hurts, exploring the role of supervision in supporting the emotional wellbeing of Arts and Health practitioners.
Pauline Down
Veterans Choir lead
Pauline has been leading our Coming Home choir for veterans and community members since 2016. She is a singer, choir leader, composer and champion of participatory arts. She has many years experience of delivering workshops for people of all ages in day centres, hospitals, care homes and schools; often working with people who have complex mental health challenges such as PTSD or dementia. She led an introductory Arts in Health training programme for 15 years in North Wales and has mentored other arts practitioners through various arts in heath and wellbeing projects.
Jain Boon
Veterans Drama Lead
Jain leads Re-Live’s Coming Home To The Arts drama practice for veterans. She is a theatre director and creative practitioner. She has worked with many companies including National Theatre Wales, National Youth Theatre of Wales, Hijinx Theatre, Gwent Theatre and more recently directed for University of Wales Trinity Saint David. Jain originally trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama. She is a creative activist and dedicated to empowering young people to create a better world through the arts. In 2011/12 Jain won a highly prestigious Arts Council of Wales Creative Wales Award, in which she spent time in Romania and Germany. Jain is an Arts Council of Wales National Adviser and Creative Agent for the Lead Creative School Scheme. Jain is currently developing a model of trauma informed theatre practice.
Neil White
Associate Artist
Neil has worked with Re-Live since 2012, composing music for shows such as Abandoned Brothers and Stories To Leave. He is a musician, composer and Life Story practitioner, working with both our Coming Home To The Arts projects and our Memoria group for people living with dementia and families. Neil uses music as a vehicle to connect and engage with people either in a one to one or group setting; enabling self-expression, improving self-confidence and strengthening a sense of self-worth. Neil has worked with a highly diverse range of community groups, including children in educational referral units, young offenders, adolescents with mental health issues in NHS units, adults in Drug and Alcohol rehabilitation centers, adults with dementia in sheltered housing and care homes, adults with learning disabilities and/or physical disabilities, asylum seekers in resource centers, people in prisons, ex-military personnel with PTSD and their family members, travelers in residential sites, and homeless people.
Robyn Herfellow
Associate Artist
Robyn Herfellow has been the composer and musical director on numerous Re-Live theatre performances, including Age, Belonging/Perthyn, Memoria, and The Return. They co-directed our creative aging Covid-19 theatre show Secret Country. They are a multi-disciplinary artist working in music and performance. They graduated from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in 2015 with a BMus in Jazz as a pianist, accordionist and composer. Since then they studied MA Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts as a performer, broadening their practice to encompass movement, comedy and participatory performance. Robyn’s work now takes place in theatres, galleries, cabaret bars, care homes, and currently, of course, at home.
Garry Bartlett
Associate Designer
Garry is a designer illustrator who works on a variety of projects from Illustration and graphic design for print or animation and VFX for film and TV, to set and costume design for theatre. Along with his own design practice Garry also works at the University of Wales Trinity St David as a Senior Research Associate in the faculty of Art and Design.
Board of Trustees
Sarah Belson (Chair)
Sarah has over twenty years’ experience of working in international development, focusing on a range of sectors including peace building, health and community engagement. She has worked for organisations including Save the Children, CAFOD and Toybox. She brings her experience of strategic thinking and programme management alongside a passion for collaboration and connection - particularly across borders! Sarah currently works for an international health organization and leads on ensuring the meaningful involvement of people with lived experience and the development of a global network of community organizations.
She brings experience of institutional strengthening and capacity building to the Re-Live Board, focusing on financial management, accountability, programme management and monitoring and evaluation.
mark jones
I first encountered Re-Live back in 2014 when I signed up for an experiential training session focused upon what it might be like to live with dementia. The nature of the session was necessarily radical and challenging and quickly snapped me out of any preconceived notion I was harbouring of what to expect from 'another training course'. I have never forgotten the session and it left a deep impression, giving me a window into the unique work of Re-Live and a recognition that this was no ordinary organisation.
I was intrigued and wanted to know more. Shortly after I was honoured to be invited to join the Board of Trustees.
My professional background is in Social Work, and for the last decade I've worked within the Younger Onset Dementia Service (Cardiff and Vale University Health Board) where I now act as Team Lead. Through my professional experience of working with stigmatised groups of people I have become acutely aware of how the voices of the marginalised go unheard. Re-Live through harnessing the communicative power of theatre and public performance provides a unique platform for those voices to be heard, leading to greater empathic understanding, bringing us to vitally question accepted wisdoms, expose stigma and change perceptions.
Val Hill
As the daughter of an actress and musical director who met while touring with different shows, it is no surprise that Val has spent her working life in the arts and entertainment industry. She had a brief spell working in libraries before moving into the world of rock 'n roll providing back-stage catering to bands on tour, including Kate Bush and The Jam. By this time she and her husband were living off-grid in a very isolated cottage on Llanllwni Mountain raising their two daughters. In addition to catering they built stages for both mega bands and small local bands, from The Rolling Stones to Field Marshall Slug. They also provided lighting design and equipment for local bands.
1990 saw a move to Cardiff and a full-time job with Hijinx Theatre. She stayed with Hijinx for the next 23 years, seeing the company through much growth, many changes and challenges, eventually retiring as Executive Director in May 2013.
She has been on the Board of Re-Live since it was registered as a COI in 2015 and is immensely proud of their achievements to date. She remains committed to their ethos and vision and she has great confidence in and is excited by plans for the future.
Nick Andrews
Nick is currently working as a Research and Practice Development Officer at Swansea University, where he co-ordinates the Developing Evidence Enriched Practice (DEEP) programme. DEEP is an appreciative, storytelling and dialogue-based approach to using diverse evidence in learning and development within social care services.
Nick is a graduate of Durham University and completed his PGCE in Liverpool University. He has since worked in a range of education and community-based services within local authorities and the third sector organisations, with a focus on both children and older people. In 2002 he completed his MSc (Econ) in Applied Social Studies at Swansea University, when he also qualified as a Social Worker. His particular areas of interest include participative approaches to research, learning and development and personal outcome-focused, relationship-centred practice in social work and social care services. He has a passion for challenging excessive bureaucracy and makes a plea for us all to put humanity and kindness first!
Ruba Sivagnanam
Over many years, Ruba developed skills and passions in such diverse environments as the Old Bailey where she defended the accused as a criminal barrister; in thehalls of Westminster where she lobbied on behalf of the excluded, and now in the constituency Office of Stephen Doughty MP where she works for the people of the Cardiff. She believes strongly in justice and equality and these have been the bedrock on which she has built and developed her work.
Because of these beliefs she relishes the opportunity to be a board member of Re-Live which she sees as a pioneer in empowering the disempowered to tell their own stories in their own way.
Cai Tomas
Associate Artist
Cai has worked with Re-Live as a dance and movement practitioner, choreographing the movement in veterans theatre show The Return, and runs movement sessions for our Memoria group for people with dementia and families. His work is influenced by his preoccupation with the psychological and psychosocial aspects related to dance and dancing. His interest lies in a fluidity of working with both professionals and ‘non-professionals’. Much of his work is based on offering the stage to bodies that don’t often get seen in dance and in theatre, and for those who have never performed, challenging the aesthetics what constitutes dance, and uncovering peoples own movement styles are part of his preoccupations. He works in participatory arts within various contexts offering workshops in dance for those in hospitals, mental health settings, those with addiction, older people, as well as professional actors and dancers in the UK and Europe. He is currently an associate artist of Galeri Arts Centre in North Wales where he facilitates movement for wellbeing sessions for elders, and a performance company for the over 60s. Cai has an MA qualification in integrative Arts Psychotherapy, and is currently in the process of training in Somatic experiencing as a trauma therapist.
Advisory Panel
Dorothy James, Arts Advisor
Dorothy James is a Cardiff-based Consultant with over thirty five years experience of working in the Arts. Her professional career has ranged from youth theatre leadership through administration for small/middle scale touring theatre companies to senior management in a conservatoire. She now works freelance as a Consultant, Project Manager and Trainer, specialising in strategic planning, governance and recruitment. Previous clients include Arts Council England, National Skills Academy, National Theatre Wales, Sherman Cymru, Pentabus, National Association of Youth Theatres, Making Music Changing Lives and Taking Flight. She is a licensed Mind-Mapping instructor and trained mediator.