Tomislav Afiyan-English

Tomislav Afiyan-English (MSc, BA (Hons)) is an actor, movement director and movement specialist. He trained at The Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance and London Contemporary Dance School, graduating with a first class Bachelor of Art degree in Contemporary Dance and at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Dance and Music, achieving a Master of Science degree with outstanding distinction in Dance Science. He trained as an actor at the prestigious Oxford School of Drama. After initially graduating from LCDS he performed extensively with UK immersive theatre giants Punchdrunk in the multi-award winning productions 'The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable' in London (playing the role of Andy) and 'Sleep No More' in Shanghai (Playing the role of Macbeth) directed by Felix Barrett and Maxine Doyle, and with legendary Flemish director Wim Vandekeybus and his company Ultima Vez for the creation and world tour of 'Speak Low, if you Speak Love' (2015), 'Spiritual Unity' (2016) and in a special revival of the acclaimed 'In Spite of Wishing and Wanting' (2016), in addition to lending his voice to Vandekeybus' 2015 feature film 'Galloping Mind'. He worked extensively with virtual and augmented reality pioneers AE (Aoi Nakamura & Esteban Fourmi) on projects including 'Whist' (2017), 'Kai' (2015), 'The Waldorf Project' (2015) and research and development at Chaillot Theatre National de la Dance in Paris (2020). Tomislav also performed in productions with English National Ballet, The National Theatre London and Luca Silvestrini's Protein. In 2015 Tomislav was cast in Joe Wright's 'PAN', a live action adaptation of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan, working closely with Hugh Jackman, Jack Charles, Rooney Mara and movement director Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, and later was brought in as a movement coach working with the cast of Tom Hooper's 2019 big-screen adaptation of 'CATS'. Tomislav played a substantial role in the devising and performance of the BAFTA nominated 'The Third Day: Autumn', featuring alongside Jude Law and Katherine Waterstone in a 12 hour live-to-air theatrical performance produced by Sky, HBO and Punchdrunk, directed by Felix Barrett and Mark Munden. When reflecting upon the work Law said, "Those guys were phenomenal... So impressive in their control of how they physically manoeuvred me. Often, when you're not in control and someone else is doing the physical stuff you can get injured. They were so safe, so trustworthy." Tomislav later worked as a movement specialist on James Wan's 'Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom' (2022) under the movement direction of Alexandra Reynolds, before continuing his ongoing collaboration with Punchdrunk working as a creative on a collaboration with the world-leading augmented-reality gaming company Niantic. In 2015 Tomislav founded Ferus Animi // Terra Nova, a movement research collective that works in movement direction, education and coaching extensively across film, theatre and dance, with members of the collective going on to work on projects such as Scott Derrickson's 'Doctor Strange' (2016), Patty Jenkins' 'Wonderwoman' (2017), Paul Thomas Anderson and Tom Yorke's 'ANIMA' (2019), Sam Raimi's 'Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness' (2022) and Nia Dacosta's 'The Marvels' (2022). Tomislav joined the movement faculty at Oxford School of Drama in 2020 and worked as a guest lecturer at institutions including the UK Dance and Drama Conservatoires (LCDS, Rambert, NSCD, Trinity Laban), Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker's P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels and Peridance Capezio Centre in New York, and in 2019 was invited to lead only the 3rd edition of the prestigious Monographic Workshop at Festival Deltebre Dansa, following on from Wim Vandekeybus (1st Edition) and Akram Khan MBE (2nd Edition).