SIZE OF COMPANY
Up to 22 on the road

SCALE OF VENUE
Small- to middle-scale

PERMANENT STAFF
Artistic Directors
Paul Clark and Suzy Willson

Producer
Kate McGrath (Fuel)

Performance Projects Manager
Tracy Gentles

General Manager
Jo Allan

ARTISTIC POLICY
At the heart of all the Clod Ensemble’s work is a distinctive aesthetic that integrates movement-based visual theatre with original music. Since 1995, the company has created a huge range of performance projects, workshops and events across the UK and internationally – making work for traditional theatre spaces, public spaces, festivals and galleries, as well as creating projects in places where art does not usually happen, including medical schools and centres for the elderly.

REVIEW EXTRACTS
‘Clod Ensemble is one of those highly inventive and anarchic companies thrusting its way through traditional boundaries of drama.’ The Guardian

‘The quality of the performance is astonishing and unforgettable.’ The Scotsman (Under Glass)

‘Exquisite… This is open-heart surgery of the artistic kind, performed without anaesthetic.’ The Guardian (Must)

CURRENT PRODUCTIONS
Under Glass A collection of extraordinary human beings are contained in glass jars, cabinets and test tubes. Each illuminated vessel exhibits the fragile world of the figure within and the delicate environment they inhabit. (25–55 mins depending on version, between 3 and 13 on stage, between 6 and 17 on the road depending on version and site.)

Must (a collaboration with US performer Peggy Shaw) A poetic monologue accompanied by live music, which journeys across the hills and valleys of one woman’s body – excavating the memories and images embedded in layers of bone and dirt. (50 mins, 4 on stage, 6 on the road.)

Red Ladies A chorus of 18 identically dressed Red Ladies infiltrate a city with a series of mysterious, visually arresting public interventions before rendezvousing in a theatre space to perform their ‘theatrical demonstration in four movements’. (50 mins, 18 on stage, 22 on the road.)

WRAP-AROUND
Workshops, education projects and residencies in music, covering theatre, movement, devising non-text-based theatre, and non-verbal communication skills. The company also runs a training programme using arts in medical education, www.performingmedicine.com, which is particularly suited to accompanying Must. All education work is inspired by the teaching of Jacques Lecoq.

RECENT INTERNATIONAL WORK
2009 USA (Must)
2008 Portugal (Red Ladies)
2006 Argentina (It’s A Small House and We Lived In It Always)

TOURING AVAILABILITY
Must, Red Ladies and Under Glass available throughout 2010