News
Posted on 28 February 2025
Posted on 28 February 2025
New Artistic Team
Since September 2024, Ash Bulayev, Cristina Planas Leitão, and River Lin have joined the artistic team of Something Great. Working closely with our founding Artistic and Executive Director Rui Silveira, they will co-shape the future programs of the SG Arts Centre, which will gradually open its four venues to the public between 2026 and 2030.
Their work will begin to take shape after the conclusion of the first phase of the Centre’s renovations by summer 2026. We’re thrilled to have them on board and look forward to the perspectives they’ll bring to this new chapter of Something Great.
© Ash Bulayev (self-portrait)
Cristina Planas Leitão © Photo by Dinis Santos
River Lin. © Taipei Performing Arts Centre
Ash Bulayev has worked for 25 years as a curator, producer, and artist, focusing on contemporary performance and time-based visual arts. From 2018–2022, he was the founding director of Onassis AiR, an international research residency in Athens, Greece. From 2012–2015, he served as the Senior Curator of Contemporary Performance at EMPAC (New York). In 2016–2017, he co-designed the MA program in Expanded Curation at DAS Theatre. Since 2015, he has worked as a producer and dramaturg with Dries Verhoeven, Maria Hassabi, Miet Warlop, Germaine Kruip, Lotte van den Berg, among others. He has contributed to artistic policy research with various institutions, focusing on decentralization and sustainability of artistic policy in Europe. He holds an MA in Performance from DasArts, Amsterdam School of the Arts.
After nearly seven years as Curator and then Artistic Director at Teatro Municipal do Porto, DDD – Festival Dias da Dança, and CAMPUS Paulo Cunha e Silva, Cristina Planas Leitão now embarks on an expansive independent curatorial path, bringing her artist-centric ethos to the international stage. Starting in April 2025, she will serve as Artistic Director at Materiais Diversos in Portugal, alongside her position on the artistic team at Something Great. Cristina’s work extends beyond curation—she is currently the dramaturg for Marco da Silva Ferreira’s new work premiering in 2025; a juror for various platforms; a nominator for the SEDA Award by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation; and continues to develop her own artistic projects. As a choreographer, Cristina views her work as an act of resistance and affection, exploring social and political movements and their relationship to the performing body within the intimacy of the theater. Her latest piece, [O SISTEMA], premiered in 2023 and continues touring through 2025. She also lectures at Expanded Contemporary Dance / Amsterdam Hogeschool voor de Kunsten (NL) and at universities across Europe.
River Lin (b. 1984, Taiwan/France) is an artist and curator. He is Curator of the Taipei Arts Festival at the Taipei Performing Arts Center and leads several initiatives, including ADAM (Asia Discovers Asia Meeting for Contemporary Performance), Camping Asia, and Curatoké: Performance Curators Academy. His work has been presented at Centre Pompidou, Palais de Tokyo, Lafayette Anticipations, Centre National de la Danse (Paris), ANTI Contemporary Art Festival (Kuopio), Live Art Development Agency (London), M+ Museum (Hong Kong), Liveworks Festival (Sydney), and the 2016 Taipei Biennial, among others. He occasionally lectures on curating and live art at Paris Lodron University of Salzburg, Tokyo University of the Arts, and Uniarts Helsinki. As founding director of ADAM, Lin has facilitated interdisciplinary and cross-cultural collaborations, working with artists from the Asia-Pacific region and beyond to advance creative processes across visual and performing arts. Since September 2024, he also serves as Co-Artistic Director of Something Great, Guest Curator of the 2025 Biennale de la danse de Lyon, Co-Curator of the Indonesian Dance Festival, and Co-Editor of OnCurating Journal.