________________________________
Draw to Perform Festival
25-26 July 2026
Drawing on Disability
The Dream Centre – Chailey Heritage Foundation
We’re delighted to announce the dates for the 7th Draw to Perform Festival, a unique event exploring the dynamic relationship between drawing and live performance. The 2026 festival will focus on Drawing & Disability, bringing together artists, performers, and audiences to engage with inclusive, innovative, and thought-provoking practices. The programme will include live performances, talks, and participatory workshops, offering opportunities for audiences of all backgrounds and abilities to get involved.
Tickets are now on sale
Draw to Perform Festival: Day 1 – Live Drawing Performances
Secure your place and join us for a day of live drawing performances by professional disabled artists at the Draw to Perform Festival for Drawing & Disability 2026. Your ticket gives you access to all performances throughout the day, with the flexibility to come and go as you wish.
Draw to Perform Festival: Day 2 – Performative Drawing Workshops
Secure your place and join us for a day of performative drawing workshops led by professional disabled artists at the Draw to Perform Festival for Drawing & Disability 2026. Your ticket includes access to one of three unique workshops, each specially designed for disabled participants.
All images are from past Draw to Perform collaborations with Joseph Wilk, Enayball, Kimberley Harvey, Sussex Dance Network, William Thomas, Rachael North, Jennifer Light.
________________________________
Draw to Perform is an international platform dedicated to the exploration and promotion of performative drawing. Since 2013, it has curated symposiums, festivals, artist residencies, and educational workshops, supporting both emerging and established artists worldwide.
Through collaborations with over 300 local and international artists, as well as partnerships with leading art institutions, Draw to Perform fosters creative exchange, interdisciplinary dialogue, and innovation in contemporary drawing practices.
Ram Samocha is a multidisciplinary artist and curator based in Brighton, UK. He is the founder and artistic director of Draw to Perform. Samocha established the initiative in response to a growing need for connection and collaboration among artists working at the intersection of drawing and performance. His practice and curatorial work focus on fostering dialogue, experimentation, and cross-disciplinary exchange within contemporary art.
Follow us for updates, event news, and video highlights:
https://linktr.ee/drawtoperform
What is Drawing Performance?
Drawing performance is a stream of performance art in which artists create their artwork in front of a live audience while communicating with the viewers. Mark making in drawing performance is often a result of powerful physical gesture and body movement that connects elements of line, movement, space and time. Drawing Performance is often multi-disciplinary, combining dance, video, photography and sound. It utilises multi-media too, allowing artists a full rein of expression for their ideas.
About Draw to Perform
Headed by artist Ram Samocha, Draw to Perform is a platform to gather, collaborate, share and exchange ideas around performative drawing. Since 2013 Draw to Perform organizing international symposiums and festivals, worked with and supporting emerging and established artists, collaborating with art institutions, and running educational workshops and residencies. In the past ten years Draw to Perform collaborated with more then 300 local and international artists.
The Draw to Perform community is truly global and hosts the most prestigious names in drawing performance from the UK, France, Brazil, Germany, Israel, America, Canada, Spain, Norway, Australia and beyond.
About Ram Samocha
Ram Samocha is an Israeli-born artist, curator and educator, presently resides in Brighton, UK. Moving frequently between counties and cities made finding and making connections with like-minded artists difficult. Ram’s solution was to set up the Draw to Perform Company, a platform for artists to gather, collaborate, share and exchange ideas around performative drawing.
Samocha’s work focuses on the issues of personal and global transformation and combines drawing with video, installation, and live performance. Samocha often mixes modern and traditional drawing techniques while searching for new ways to combine between two and three dimensions. Recognized nationally and internationally, Samocha’s work is part of various museums and private collections.
International Festivals
Held annually, the Draw to Perform festival showcases the biggest names and emerging talent in this exciting artistic genre. It focuses on the connection between performance art and drawing. The International festival includes video screenings, live drawing performances, workshops, talks and lectures by artists and art historians.
Educational Programmes
Since 2013 the Draw to Perform organising visiting workshops and seminars for schools and colleges like Goldsmiths, Central Saint Martins, OCAD U, and CIT Crawford College. They all agree that our workshops:
– Deepen students’ creativity
– Encourage physical freedom of expression on large scale
– Integrated with and supported their school curriculums
– Combined art, movement and dance in a uniquely creative way
– Gave students valuable experience of collaborating with professional artists
For venues or institutions where drawing performance is new, our visits and workshops will allow audiences to experience this exciting art form at close quarters, engaging with prestigious artists and even try drawing performance themselves. Events can be tailored to augment educational syllabuses and curriculum or themes. These programmes are ideal for art colleges, further education institutes, sixth forms colleges, arts venues and festivals.
Artists – top strip (left to right): Hanna ten Doornkaat & Brooke Leigh, Bruno Casanova & Kristian Vuksanovic, Kevin Townsend, Fu LE.
Artists – bottom strip (left to right): Nava Massas Waxman, Ram Samocha, Rossella Emanuele, Rebecca Jayne Hammett, Vera Brandão Martins & Beatriz Tomaz.
________________________________________________________________________________
All rights reserved © 2026 Draw to Perform
Please support our continuation – PayPal.me/drawtoperform
Draw to Perform 