Screen and Theatre

Yesmien studied under Patrick Dowman, educational drama consultant in Vienna. She has performed on stage herself. She is an expert facilitator, running residentials on team building and cultural diversity workshops for children and adults. Her speciality, as always, is using drama and role-play techniques to empower women, develop positive attitudes among clients from diverse backgrounds, and connect disparate communities.

In 2014, Yesmien was part of a team that devised and toured a theatrical piece which examined women and their labels, in particular the problems of cultural expectations. This was presented to conferences at Northampton Chester University and St Ethelburgas, London.

Yesmien rediscovered a talent for performing, latent since her schooldays, and went on to perform her own solo piece on the impact of forced marriage and abuse. This was performed at locations across the country, empowering and inspiring many silent women to open up and share their own negative experiences. In 2015, Yesmien was invited as a delegate to the UN conference on forced marriage in New York.

A Ragged Edge production: ‘The Chef Show’; a fusion of drama and cookery demonstration was something else Yesmien was involved in where, as the chef, she was on-stage live cooking. This was performed at venues in the North.

Yesmien has also written extensively and has produced a film script based on the lives of Asian women struggling against cultural expectations.

In the course of her various activities, she has met with family and community disapproval, but rather than be deterred by criticism, she has turned her experiences into creative initiatives and become a confident and articulate spokesperson in the fight against cultural limitations in a climate of racism.

In 2022, Yesmien was selected among South Asian women writers Nationally. She developed a short script that was performed at Leeds Playhouse, as part of the Discovery programme in collaboration with Kali Theatre.

Contact Yesmien for further details.