ABOUT
Sabina England is a DIY multimedia artist, filmmaker, and playwright, who has been featured in national and international publications such as the Guardian, Start BiH (Bosnia), Alternet, Bitch, Sepia Mutiny, just to name a few. She was born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England and raised in the UK and US. At age 2, she lost her hearing and was declared profoundly deaf. One of her earliest works, Being Deaf, was published in an anthology of poetry in 1995. When she was 21 years old, she received her first playwriting opportunity with Kali Theatre Company in London when they staged her one-act play, Chess for Asian Punks, Greek Losers and Dorks. She studied at University of Missouri and London Film Academy, where she received a B.A in Theatre and a Certificate in Filmmaking respectively.
In 2009, one of her plays, How the Rapist was Born, was produced at Tristan Bates Theatre in London. The play received a second production at East 15 Acting School in Essex. Sabina was also the face of S.O.S Records, an underground Los Angeles streetpunk label, and has often been linked to the Taqwacores scene. Her images can be seen in the 2008 documentary Taqwacore.
In 2010, Sabina wrote, directed and produced her first film, Wedding Night, a contemporary narrative short film that explored arranged marriages in Indian-Pakistani culture. The film was screened twice to a sold out audience in New York City, along with screenings in Kerala, India and Toronto, Canada. In 2010, she was shortlisted for the Chris Al-Aswad Award and was featured in Roger Ebert’s newsletter, who praised one of her comedy videos, Allah Save the Punk!. She writes, performs and edits her own silent comedy webseries “The Velma Sabina Show” on youtube. Her videos were screened at Rebellion 2011 in Blackpool, UK and in Haryana, India. One of her videos Allah Save the Punk! was shown at the 2011 Festival des Cultures d’Islam in Paris, France for the Taqwacores exhibition.
Sabina is currently at work on her first novel and hopes to finish writing a new full-length two act stage play. She also plans to work with an artist-musician based in San Francisco, Micropixie for an upcoming music video which will be performed in American Sign Language.
