Originally from Singapore and having made London her home, Varshini is an Applied Theatre Practitioner, actor and spoken word performer. She has a ravenous passion for words and stories, believes that play is essential to our wellbeing and that creativity is our birthright. She is passionate about using theatre as a platform to address social issues through a reflective practice of hope and play. She is currently one of the lead practitioners on the Alive, Build, Create project at Kiln Theatre, facilitating EAL drama workshops for newly arrived youths to the UK, the Open Space and Community Participation producer at Improbable and a visiting lecturer with the Central School of Speech and Drama. She recently finished working with Phosphoros Theatre’s Young Company as Director/Facilitator over a 6 month period, which culminated in a show “The World in Our Hands”, that the refugee young people triumphantly collaborated and performed in, telling their stories about the good, the bad and ugly side of social media.
Varshini has been a featured poet at events such as ‘You’re Hysterical, Poetry Nights’ and the Pan Asian Women’s Association (PAWA) fundraising Arts Jam as well as the ‘Bunkers without Borders’ Festival. She was also in a one woman show, ‘The Cardboard Kitchen Project’ at the Camden Fringe (Good show rating) and was recently a voice artist on the ‘Hear Myself Think 2’, a mental health podcast series, as well as ‘Temporal’, a science-fiction drama on Audible.
Varshini’s work can also be found in the poetry anthology, Words: Lost and Found (Coffee Stained Press).
I’ve been working with Eastside since 2019! That’s amazing. My first project was World Culture week where I did a workshop based around a Balinese folktale, it was super fun! Since then I have done other projects with Eastside such as Verse vs Verse (including being a feature spoken word poet at one of the marketing events), various Drama /Storytelling workshops based off stories like Moana, Where the Wild Things are, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, Southwark Creative Schools Project (Spoken Word), World Book Day, West London Zone Project, Artist In Residence and Spoken Word Power where I’ve both delivered workshops and developed the Drama curriculum. On top of these, I’ve done some CPD and artist training as well as SWP Livestream filming as well!
Varshini’s Eastside Highlight:
This is difficult as there have been so many wonderful highlights over the years!
My favourite highlights tend to be the moments when students I work with discover their own creative power and witness others celebrating them; there’s just something so magical about those moments where people realise they had that creative spark all along, they just needed to find ways to unlock it.
One highlight that comes to mind was when I was working on Spoken Word Power earlier this year, with primary school class where one of the students had been deemed as being selectively mute / unwilling to speak up. We were doing small group presentations and with the support of his group, who gave him one line to say, if he wanted, he managed to say that line! Much to the surprise of the students and teachers who were absolutely delighted. You could tell he felt proud of himself too.
Varshini’s Goal for the Future:
To continue working on more creative projects with Eastside and spreading the love of drama and spoken word poetry across the ages; to continue committing to holding spaces for young people to play and discover the power of their voices.
Where to find Varshini:
Instagram: @varshvictoria
Facebook: @varshiniacts