Ahilan Ratnamohan (°Melbourne, 1984) is a per­for­man­ce maker explo­ring forms that are aty­pi­cal in a the­a­ter con­text and wor­king almost exclu­si­ve­ly with peo­p­le wit­hout clas­si­cal per­for­man­ce trai­ning. Among other things, his per­for­man­ces explo­re the cul­tu­ral and cho­re­o­grap­hic poten­ti­al of foot­ball and the poli­ti­cal power of language. 

After com­ple­ting his film stu­dies at the University of Technology in Sydney (2005), Ahilan attemp­ted to make a career as a pro­fes­si­o­nal foot­bal­ler in the Netherlands, Sweden and Germany, an expe­rien­ce that would stron­gly influ­en­ce the sty­le of his later work. From 2007 onwards he devel­o­ped as a per­for­man­ce maker through col­la­bo­ra­ti­ons with Urban Theatre Projects and Branch Nebula in Sydney. Within the soci­al-artis­tic pro­jects of the­se com­pa­nies, he was able to devel­op and sha­pe his unor­tho­dox practice. 

Ahilan has been based in Belgium sin­ce 2013, whe­re he ini­ti­a­ted a num­ber of pro­jects with foot­bal­lers and athle­tes under the aus­pi­ces of arts cen­ter Monty in Antwerp (Michael Essien I want to play as you…, SDS1, Drill, Mercenary). Some pro­jects grew into long-term tra­jec­to­ries with the athle­te-per­for­mers, resul­ting in new per­for­man­ces that were not neces­sa­ri­ly foot­ball- or sports-rela­ted (Star Boy Productions, Reverse Colonialism!, Look on the Bright Side, a.o.). Ahilan’s per­for­man­ces have tour­ed Europe, Australia, Brazil, and South Africa.